during a speech on climate change, secretary of state john kerry was critical of elected

officials who he said it ignored scientific facts. at the end of the year the united nations will hold a climate conference in paris. from the atlantic council this is 45 minutes. >> good morning everybody and thank you very much for a generous introduction. i'm delighted to be here with everybody, distinguished ambassadors who are here this morning thank you for taking time to represent your country is and share your concern about this critical issue and i am delighted to be accompanied helping to shape president obama and the state department policy. thank you for your leadership here at the atlantic council. fred has demonstrated that he seems to have the ability to

have his finger on the most critical issues of today not just today but tomorrow to count on the atlantic council to be ahead of the curve to be challenging all of us to think. so we appreciate very much what you do and thank you all of you who are on the board and are part of and committed to the efforts of the council. i would have to add you also have an impeccable eye for talent. i -- ambassador richard morningstar for the global energy experts and a good friend of mine the son of massachusetts and now that he is the director of the new global energy center you couldn't be in better hands and secondly, my former legislative assistant on energy and climate at the white house of recycled as part of

this great effort on climate, so i think we are kind of a family here. it's clear from venezuela to iraq to ukraine there is no shortage of energy challenges in the world today and we have had many conversations. we had a energy summit we lay out an agenda for how we could liberate to become liberate countries from the one country dependency in case of russia and in others it has huge strategic importance. but i have to tell you that the top of the list of energy challenges as climate change and that is why the road to paris posted by the center is very important. and i am really divided to be here to be a part of it. as mentioned, climate change is an issue that is personal to me and it has been since the

1980s when we were organizing the very first hearings in the senate so it predates that the first political thing that i began to organize a massachusetts in this country and i might add this before we even had the agency where the clean water act were safe drinking water act or marine mammal protection act or coastal zone management act. it all came out of the citizen movement. and that's what we have to be involved in now. the reason for that is simple. for decades now the science has been screaming at us warning us trying to compel us to act. and i just want to underscore that for a moment. it may seem obvious to you but it isn't some. science is and has long been

crystal clear when it comes to climate change. al gore and a group of us organized first hearings on this. 1988 they would sit in front of us and tell us what happening now. 1988. so we are not talking about news reports were blog posts or even speeches that some cabinet secretary might give him a think tank. we are talking about a fact based evidence supported peer reviewed science. yet if you listen to some people in washington or elsewhere you would think that there is question about whether we need to respond to it. so stop for a moment and think about the basics. when an apple falls from a tree it will drop toward the ground. we know that because of the basic law in physics.

no one disputes that. science also tells us that in the water temperature when it drops below 32 degrees turn right it turns to ice. no one disputes that. so when science tells us that our climate is changing and human beings are causing the change, by what right do people stand up and say i i dispute that or i deny that elementary truth and yet there are those that do so. literally a couple days ago i wrote about some state officials trying to ban the use of the term climate change in public documents because they are not willing to face the facts. folks, we literally do not have the time to waste debating whether we can say climate change. we have to talk about how we solve climate change because no matter how much people want to

bury their head in the sand it will not alter the fact that studies confirm climate change is happening and human entity is largely responsible. i've been involved now 40 plus years since the 1960s. to get a super majority of the studies to agree on anything but 97% over 20 plus years that is a dramatic statement of fact that no one of good conscience has the right to ignore. what is really troubling is that the same scientists are telling us that's going to happen, not just the fact of it being there

but they are telling us what's coming at us. the scientists also agree that if we continue to march like robot to down a path that we the path that we are on, the world as we know it will be transformed dramatically for the worst. and we can expect to see levels to continue rising to dangerous levels. we will see nations moved as a consequence of the pacific and elsewhere. in the countries that are low we will see large swaths of cities and even some countries underwater. we can expect more intense and frequent extreme weather events like hurricanes and typhoons and expect disruptions in the global agricultural sector to threaten job security for millions of farmers. we have the research shortages that have the potential to fan the flames of conflict in areas

that are already troubled by long-standing political economic religious ideological sectarian disputes. imagine when they are complicated by water, food. these are the consequences of climate change and the magnitude of the art of against. measured against the global threat we face today. and there are many terrorism and extremism, epidemics, nuclear proliferation all challenges that respects no borders. claim it's change belongs on that very same list. it is indeed one of the biggest threats facing the planet today. and even top military personnel have designated it as a security threat to not just the united states but the world. no one who has truly considered the science, no one who has truly listen objectively to the national security experts could

reach a different conclusion. so yes, this is personal to me. but the bottom line is that it ought to be personal to everybody. every man woman child business person, student, grandparent or whatever our calling whatever our personal background might become of this issue affects everyone on the planet. and if any challenge requires global cooperation and urgent action, this is it. make no mistake this is a critical year, and that is why this road is so important. the science tells us we still have a window of time to prevent the worst impact of climate change. but that window is closing quickly. we are already in a mode where we are looking at dedication

not just prevention. in december of the world will come together at the un climate conference in paris and we will see whether or not we can muster the collective will to reach an ambitious comprehensive agreement. now, even those of us that are most involved in the negotiations and we've talked about this with the president we all understand even the agreement we are trying to reach well not completely and totally be able to eliminate the threat. but it is an absolutely vital first step, and it would be a breakthrough demonstration the countries across the globe now recognize the problem and the need for each and every one of us to contribute to a solution and it will set the market moving. it will change attitudes and governments. and then progressively no one can quite measure with the

exponential productivity of that effort will produce. so we have nine months to come together around the kind of agreement that will put us on the right path. rest assured, not a threat to the statement of fact if we fail , future generations will not and should not forgive those that ignored this moment no matter their reasoning. future generations will judge our efforts not just as a policy failure of it as a collective failure of historic consequence. and they will want to know how the leaders could possibly have been so blind or so ideological or dysfunctional and frankly so stubborn that we failed to act on the knowledge that was confirmed by so many scientists in so many studies over such a long period of time and documented by so much evidence. the truth is, we will have no

excuse. and you don't need to be a scientist to see that the world is already changing and feeling the impact of global climate change significantly. many of the things i mentioned a moment ago are already beginning to unfold before our eyes. just look around you. 14 of the 15 warmest years on record in all of history have occurred since the year 2000 in all of recorded history. last year was the warmest of all. and i think if you stop and think of it it seems that almost every next year he comes one of the hottest on record. and with the added heat comes an alternative environment. it's not particularly complicated. i don't mean to sound that way but think about it for life on earth twice on earth would not exist without the greenhouse

effect. that is what has kept the average temperature up until recently of 70 degrees fahrenheit because there is a greenhouse effect. and it was called a greenhouse effect as it does exactly what the greenhouse does. when the sun pours in and bounces off a different angle and goes back up come you can't escape. and that warms things up, very simple proposition. now it's difficult to tell whether one specific storm or one specific drought. but the growing number of extreme events scientists tell is a signal to all of us. recently southeastern brazil has been experiencing a drought. the worst that region has seen in 80 years. the situation is so dire tallies have been drilling further raise the floor in search of

groundwater and historic droughts in some parts of the world are matched only by the historical floods in others. malawi is in the midst of the disaster that more than 150 people have died. tens of thousands of people have been stranded by the rushing waters cut off from food, clean water, health care and thousands more forced from their homes. this is happening now. it's not a future events. and you can find where they had 500 year drought and so forth is a consequent of the changes. it's happening before our eyes and that is the first reason there is no excuse for ignoring this problem.

i can readily attest to this this one has already made the solution. the solution is not a mystery. it's staring us in the face. it's called energy policy. energy policy. that's the solution to climate change. from crippling us forever if we make the switch to a global clean energy economy a priori and if we think more creatively about how we power our cars or heat our homes operate our business is, then we still have time to prevent the worst consequences of climate change. it really is as simple as that. but getting there is proving not to be. so what's more specifically do we need to do click sign up for me to come here to describe the

problem. what do we need to do? to begin with, we need leaders with a political courage to make the tough but necessary policy choices that will help us all find the right path. and i am pleased to say and proud to serve with the president who has accepted the challenge and has taken this head-on. today thanks to president obama's climate action plan the united states is well on its way to meeting the international commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. and that's because we are going straight to the larger sources of pollution. we are targeting the missions from its petition and power sources which account for about the percent of the dangerous greenhouse gases that we release. and we are also tackling smaller opportunities and every sector of the economy in order to be able to address every greenhouse gas. the president has put in place standards to double the fuel efficiency of cars and trucks on

american roads. we also propose regulations that will curb carbon pollution from new and existing cover plants. but it's not enough just to address the pollution generated by dirty sources source of energy. we also have to invest in cleaner alternatives. since president obama took office the united states at its production more than threefold and increase our solar energy generation more than tenfold. we've also become smarter about the way we use energy in our homes and businesses and this is by far the most ambitious climate action that the united states of america has ever undertaken. and it's in large part why today we are emitting less than we have in two decades. it's also the reason we were able to announce the goal of reducing emissions by 26 to 28% from 2005 levels and account which backed by year 2025.

and that will put us squarely on the road to a more sustainable and prosperous economy. now this other end target but also enable us to deal to cut our emissions by 83% buy midcentury which is what scientists say we need to do to prevent warming from exceeding the threshold level of 2 degrees celsius. but i can't emphasize this enough. no single country, not even the united states can solve this problem or foot this bill alone. and that isn't just rhetoric. physically impossible. think of it this way. even if every single american like to work or carpooled to school for use only solar panels to cover their home if we each painted a dozen trees and

somehow eliminate all of our domestic greenhouse gas emission that still wouldn't be enough to offset the carbon pollution coming from the rest of the world. the same would be true of china if it went to zero emissions but others continued with business as usual. it's not enough for one country or a few countries to reduce emissions that their neighbors are unwilling to do their share. so when i say we need a global solution, i mean it. anything less will not work. of course industrialized countries obviously play a major role in bringing about the clean energy future and in the days of the industrial revolution all the way through the last century obviously the industrial countries benefited by developing and growing but they also created the basic template for this problem. but even if all of the industrial countries stopped today, it doesn't solve the problem. and certainly it is a signal

that other countries shouldn't go off and repeat the mistakes of the past. we have to remember that today almost two thirds of global emissions come from developing nations. so it's unfair it is that they be a part of the solution also. now i want to make this very clear. in economic terms, this is not a choice between bad and worse. some people like to demagogue this issue. they want to tell you we can't afford to do this. nothing could be further from the truth. you can't afford not to do that and the economics will show you that it is better in the long run to do that and cheaper in the long run. so, this is not a choice between bad and worse. ultimately this is the choice between growing or shrinking and economy. per serving cleaner energy is

actually the only way that the nations around the world can build the kind of economies that are going to thrive for decades to come and here's why. cole coal and oil are only the cheap ways to cover the nation in the very near term. but if you look a little further down the road you begin to see an entirely different story. when you think that the numbers over time, the costs of those outdated energy energy sources actually paella. quickly. there are the crops that fall by 2% every decade. consider what that means for millions of farmers around the world. that is also how it will

exacerbate the malnutrition that we already face. add to that the other long-term health related problems caused by dirty air, as much as an example which predominantly affects children and already costs americans an estimated $50 billion annually. the greatest single cause of young american children hospitalized in the course of the summer in the united states is environmentally induced asthma and that costs billions. the reality is the pollution contributes to the deaths of at least 4.5 million people every year. no part of that is inexpensive. in any nation that argues that simply can't afford to invest in the alternative and renewable energy needs to take a central look at what they are paying for and consider the sizable costs associated with rebuilding in

the wake of devastating weather events. in 2012 alone, extreme weather across the united states cost nearly $120 billion in damages. when they hit the philippines a little over a year ago to the cost of responding exceeded $10 billion because the that is the bill for the storm damage. think of the added health care costs for the, the expenses that result from agricultural environmental degradation. it is time for people to do cost accounting. it's in the if then the price of the immediate energy needs. we have to include the long-term cost of carbon pollution. we have to factor in the cost of survival. and if we do we will find the person being clean energy now is far more affordable than paying for the consequences of climate change later.

but there's another piece of reality to take into account. it's to compound and become irrefutable quite frankly. it's not only the solution to climate change guess what it's also one of the greatest economic opportunities of all time. you want to put people to work the global energy market of the future is poised to be the largest market for world has ever known. we are talking about a 6 trillion-dollar market today with four to 5 billion users today. that will grow to 9 billion users over the next few. by comparison the great driver of wealth creation in this country in the 1990s when super billionaires and millionaires were created and every income level of america

went up that was a technology market. and it was a 1 trillion-dollar market with only a billion users just get a sense of the possibilities here. between now and 2035 investment in the energy sector is expected to reach nearly $17 trillion. that's more than the entire gdp of china, and you just have to imagine the opportunities for clean energy. imagine the businesses that can be launched and the jobs that would be created in every corner of the globe and by the way the united states of america in the year 2015 doesn't even have a national grid. we have a great big gaping hole and you can't sell from the energy of massachusetts or minnesota to another part of the country because we can't transmit it.

all you have to do is look at the results are already seeing. by 2020 there are more than 250 megawatts of solar power by 2017. it's pretty ambitious. it's unprecedented. but we knew the potential benefits to the state were enormous. fast forward to today. in massachusetts it's increased renewable energy by 400% the last 400 years alone. we used a bulk purchasing program for the residential solar to help keep the prices low for residents and businesses across the state and because of that there are residential solar institutions in 350 visitors it's in towns.

it's by 10.5% over the past year and 47% since 2010. it employs nearly 100000 at 6,000 firms. and it's the perfect example of how quickly the transformation could happen and how far its benefits reach. if we put our minds to it if we make the right decisions and forge the right partnership we can bring these kind of benefits to the communities in the united states and around the globe. to get there all nations have to be smarter about how we use energy, invest in energy and encourage businesses to export energy choices as well. we have to invest in new technology. and that will help us bring renewable energy sources like solar, wind, hydro not only to the community where the resources are abundant but the community in every country on

every continent. coal and oil makes no sense to subsidized. which is why the united states in the g. 20 for the wasteful fossil fuel subsidies and we've actually taken steps to prevent global financial institutions from some in dirty power plants and putting money into those things that we know are going to go the wrong direction. we have to strengthen the legal regulatory frameworks in the country's overseas to help spur investment in the places where it is insufficient. they have the regulatory policy and to attract money, we need to control risk. the more you can minimize the risk