UNITED NATIONS (AP) 鈥 U.S. climate envoy John Kerry on Tuesday urged the world to be 鈥渧ery skeptical鈥 about claims from oil and gas producers that emerging technology soon will allow people to adequately capture the climate-wrecking fumes emitted by their cars, planes and businesses.

It鈥檚 鈥渙ne big question mark,鈥 Kerry told The Associated Press of the , a debate at the heart of global negotiations on cutting emissions to stave off the most disastrous scenarios of global warming.

The International Energy Agency and increasing numbers of scientists, governments and global leaders and advocates are saying the only way to rein in climate change fast enough is to immediately stop drilling new oil and gas wells and sharply phase down existing drilling.

Many oil companies and oil states are fighting the calls for production cuts, saying that still-emerging carbon-capture technology will come to the rescue. The burning of fossil fuels is the main cause of global warming, and techniques to capture enough of the fumes to make a difference, affordably and efficiently, have yet to be developed.

鈥淟et鈥檚 be very skeptical about this unless it鈥檚 proven to work,鈥 Kerry told the AP after delivering a statement at a U.N. Security Council meeting. 鈥淲e can鈥檛 afford to play games anymore with the amount of fossil carbon that鈥檚 going up in the atmosphere,鈥 along with methane and other climate-damaging gases from the oil and gas industry.

That doesn鈥檛 mean that government, corporations and oil and gas producers shouldn鈥檛 keep pushing for breakthroughs in the technology, he said. 鈥淚f it could work, fine, you know. 鈥 But we heard for 30 years about clean coal, and how did that work out?鈥

Kerry told the U.N. Security Council that 鈥渋t鈥檚 now indisputable 鈥 indisputable 鈥 that the climate crisis is one of the top security threats, not just to the developed world but to the entire planet, to life on the planet itself.鈥

He said it already costs countries billions of dollars every year 鈥渏ust to clean up the mess, and most importantly, it costs the world millions of lives,鈥 including 7 million a year who die from greenhouse gas pollution.

Kerry stressed that 48 countries in sub-Saharan Africa account for 0.55% of global emissions and 20 countries account for 76%. He said they all pledged nearly 10 years ago to cut emissions fast enough to keep the rise in temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius, a threshold scientists say is about to be crossed, 鈥渂ut we're not all doing it.鈥

He said he wasn鈥檛 at the U.N. to point fingers but to urge all countries to start working together to tackle the crisis. He called for an immediate end to the permitting of new unabated coal plants.

鈥淣o country should be bringing online new sources of pollution wherever it comes from, knowing what we know about this crisis," Kerry said.

Globally, no major oil and gas producer is known to be seriously considering phasing down its production, said Hanna Fekete, a researcher with the German-based NewClimate Institute. The U.S., the world's biggest producer, is among those scaling up production, despite the Biden administration's climate commitments.

American consumers would need to cut their dependence on fossil fuels dramatically if the U.S. is to meet its climate goals, Fekete said.

The United Arab Emirates, the host for U.N.-sponsored climate talks later this year, is also among the nations aiming to ramp up production, not reduce it.

Kerry called the stepped-up U.S. production a 鈥渕omentary bubble鈥 as a result of bumps in the global energy market from the war in Ukraine. Increased U.S. demand for electric vehicles and a move to cleaner forms of power would help take care of that, he said.

鈥淪o, we鈥檙e in a transition. The word transition is very key to what we鈥檙e trying to do,鈥 Kerry said.

China would have to step up as well, Kerry said. The country is currently the top emitter of fossil fuels, owing partly to continued operation and building of dirty-burning coal-fired power plants.

President Xi Jinping's government has resisted pressure to rapidly phase out coal plants, arguing that China is still a developing nation and should not be held to the same climate standards as the U.S. and other big Western economies.

鈥淲ell, first of all, China is not a poor nation,鈥 Kerry said. 鈥淪o let鈥檚 understand that the second-largest economy in the world is exactly that, the second-largest economy in the world, and they鈥檝e spent huge amounts of money around the world in various countries.鈥

Kerry also made clear that he will not go to China for face-to-face talks with his climate counterpart, Xie Zhenhua, before U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visits Beijing. He is expected in China soon.

Kerry, who was invited to Beijing by Xie, noted concerns about the health of the Chinese official, who has been a key part of U.S-China climate negotiations that have led to some past climate breakthroughs.

鈥淗e鈥檚 had a difficult period in the last months, and we wish him well,鈥 Kerry said. 鈥淗e is a very, very important interlocutor and he鈥檚 very reliable and trustworthy in terms of his commitment, seriousness. So we hope the Chinese-U.S. track will begin to get on.鈥

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Knickmeyer contributed from Washington and Jordans from Berlin.

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