John Kerry, the US special envoy on climate, is stepping down from the Biden administration in the coming weeks, sources said.

Mr Kerry, a long-serving senator and secretary of state, was brought in shortly after Joe Biden’s election win in 2020 to take on the new role created specifically to fight climate change on behalf of the administration on the global stage.

Mr Kerry’s departure plans were first reported on Saturday by Axios.

He was one of the leading drafters of the 2015 Paris climate accords and came into the role with significant experience abroad, as secretary of state during the Obama administration and from nearly three decades as a member of the US senate foreign relations committee.

Mr Biden’s decision to seek Mr Kerry for the post was seen as a signal the incoming American leader would make good on his campaign pledge to battle climate change in a more forceful and visible manner than in previous administrations.

“The climate crisis is a universal threat to humankind and we all have a responsibility to deal with it as rapidly as we can,” Mr Kerry said in a visit to Beijing last summer, when he met Chinese vice president Han Zheng on climate matters.

Mr Kerry represented Massachusetts for 28 years in the senate and was also the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004, eventually losing out to George W Bush in the election.