nity 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, the greater confidence of

people investors will have to bring their capital to the table. we also have to continue to push for the worlds highest standards in the environmental chapters of the trade agreements that we are pursuing. just like we are doing in the trans-atlantic trade investment partnership and transpacific partnership. and just like labor standards and other agreements, these environmental agreements have to be fully enforceable. finally, we have to find more ways for the private and public sector to work together to make the most of the innovative technologies that entrepreneurs are developing here in the united states and around the world. and this is the idea that is behind the white house announcement that they made last month, the clean energy investment initiative. it's starting goal is to attract $2 billion in private sector investment to be put toward clean energy climate change

solutions. now the good news is much of the technology that we need is already out there and it's becoming faster and faster and easier to access and cheaper to access. the report that the department of energy released this morning actually projects that in the united states when power is going to be directly competitive with conventional energy technologies within the next ten years. none of what i have said is beyond our capacity. it's not a pipe dream. it's a reality. it's right there it's up to us to grab it. ..

the world's two largest emitters of carbon pollution, two countries long regarded as the leaders of opposing camps in the climate negotiations have now found common ground on this issue, and i joined president obama as he stood next to president xi and todd was there when we unveiled our respective ambitiouspot 2020 mitigation commitments. that is an enormous achievement and had an impact felt in him ma, at the meeting in lima, and

an inpact on the ability to move toward paris with greater momentum. around the same time the eu announce it its argentina as well which means we have strong commitments from the three largest emitters in the world. now we need more and more nations to follow suit and announce their ambitious mitigation targets as well, and because this has to be a truly all hands on deck effort i invite all of our partners, businesses and industry groups mayors governors, throughout the country, and around the world, to announce their own targets, their commitments leading up to paris so we can set an example and great a grassroots movement towards success. this will help us come forward with plans that will help every country be able to reach their goals. i am keenly aware we can do a getting job of engaging the private sector and our partners at the subnational level of

government in this effort and i can tell you that i plan to make certain in the next months that happens. i know many of you have already made impressive announcements, those engaged in business or on the boards of enterprise or educational institutions and you have helped to lay out how we can combat climate change and i thank you for doing that. now it's time to build on the pledges. let us know how you're doing. let us know throw the state department, through state.gov, and how we can help you make progress, and this is the kind of shared resolve that will help ensure that we are successful in paris and beyond. in closing i ask you to consider one basic question. suppose stretching your imaginations as it will have to be that somehow those 97% of

studies i just talked about -- suppose that somehow they were wrong, about climate change in the end. hard to understand, after 20 years of 97%, but imagine it. just imagine it. what are the consequences we would face for taking the actions that we're talking about? and based on the notion that those might be correct. i'll tell you what the consequences are. you'll create an extraordinary number of jobs. you'll kick our economies into gear around the world because we'll be taking advantage of one of the biggest business opportunities the world has ever known. we'll have healthier people. billions of dollars costs in the summer and hospitals for emfa

seem marks luck disease, particulate cancer will be reducest because we'll be eliminating toxic pollution from smokestacks and tall pipes. air will be cleaner, you can actually see your city. we'll have a more secure world because it will be far eyes for countries to attain the long-lasting energy independence they need so another anything can't cut them off and their economy turned into turmoil because they can't have the guarantees of energy satellite. we'll live up to our moral responsibility to leave the planet earth in better condition than we were happened it to live up to even scripture, which calls on to us protect planet earth. these, all of these things are the so-called consequences of global action to address climate change. what's the other side of the

question? what will happen if we do nothing and the climate skeptics are wrong. and the delayers are wrong. and the people who calculate costs without taking everything into account, are wrong? the answer to that is pretty straightforward. utter catastrophe. life as we know it on earth. so i'm -- through my life, believe that you can take certain kinds of risks in the course of public affairs affairs and life. my heroes are people who dared to take on great challenges without knowing for certain what the outcome would be. lynnline took risks. gandhi took riches, churchill took risks, dr. king took risks. mandela took risks. didn't mean every risk-takers is a role model. it's one thing to risk a career or life on behalf of a principle

or to save or lib rat population. it's quite another to wager the well -- ol' -- well-being of generations and life itself simply to continue satisfying the appetites of the present. or to insist on a course of inaction, long after all the available evidence has pointed to the folly of that path. gambling with the future of earth itself when we know full well what the outcome would be, is beyond reckless. it is just plain immoral and it is a risk that no one should take. we need to face reality. there is no planet b. so i'm not suggesting it's going to be easy in these next months or even these next few years. if it were we would have solved this decade ago when the fines first revealed the facts of what we were facing. but it is crunch time now. we have used up our hall passes our excuses, we have used up too

much valuable time. we know what we have to do, and i am confident we can find a way to summon the resolve we need to tackle this shared threat and we can reach an agreement in paris, we can carve out a path toward a clean energy future we can meet this challenge. that is our charge for ourselves and our children and grandchildren, and it is a charge we must keep. thank you all. [applause] >> i want to thank secretary kerry for significant, passionate, focused remarks, important remarks that will set up the road to paris, but really way beyond that we understand you have to rush out to a very important meeting in the white house. i do want to ask just one question to close this off and

if you can broaden this to at the energy world as large. we're seeing falling prices. we have the u.s. energy boom. how are you looking at the impact of both of those things in context of this? what is the geopolitics of the falling prices and the rise of america as really the leading, if not a leading energy producer in the world? >> well, the impact is very significant, obviously. certainly affected russia's income and the current situation in russia. it's affected the situation in iran. it's affected the budgets of those producing states. it has potential on some sides to strategically be helpful and potential on other sides to be damaging. for instance if petro caribe were to fall because of events in venezuela or because the price and so forth, we could wind up with a serious humanitarian challenge on our -- in our neighborhood.

so there are a lot of pluses and minuses. but you have to remember the primary reason for america's good fortune in the turn-around is lmg the production of gas and fracking and what happened in terms of our independence at least. we're also producing more oil by the way, at the same time. and we have become one of the world's largest if not in the largest energy producer. that's positive as long as we're on the road to deal with the problem i laid out here today. remember, while lng is 50% less cashon intensive than oil, it's nevertheless carbon, and it has its impact. so it's a movement in the right direction, but in the end we have to do all the things i just talked about which is move to sustainable ration knuble, alternative, other kind of energy that don't have that problem. the way the world is going right now, abuse the dependence -- not

negative impact is that it has greatly reduced price of coal and, therefore in certain countries people are just going on a price basis and raising the coal and that means we have a number of coal fired power plants coming online at a rate that is simply destructive, and they're not coming on with the latest technology in all cases. there is no such thing in the end as absolutely clean coal. and so we have a challenge with respect to what we're going to do. there are technologies that significantly clean coal, and when put in place that very helpful, and you can do carbon sequestration and storage which isn't happening enough there's a way to use it but in the marketplace i think going to be far more expensive in the end than these other technologies coming online to produce other things at far better cost. wind is about to be come

competitive. what has to happen is a setting of a goal through the paris agreement so people suddenly see that countries everywhere are moving in this direction and then the marketplace begins to move when enmotivators and entrepreneurs and investors start to say, this is the future and takes hold and that accelerates the process itself, and when that begins to happen, that's when this $6 trillion market and the ultimately nine billion users component of this kicks in and takes over. so it's a mixed bag for the moment, but i think we certainly see the road map to move in the right direction. >> in closing, let me just say three or four years ago, the atlantic council gave you its global citizen award, in con justification with the u.n. general assembly, not knowing you would we further earning it. we want to thank you for you work on climate change and your

visionary principled leadership at a time we know is historically challenging. >> thank you. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen please remain seated as the secretary exits the room. >> attorney general eric holder spoke earlier about the shooting of two law enforcement officials in ferguson missouri, on wednesday. here's part of the attorney general's remarks. >> the heinous and cowardly attacks that occurred against two brave law enforcement officers in ferguson missouri just last night. i want to be very clear here. i unequivocally condemn these repugnant attacks. all of news the law enforcement family and all americans are really across the country are praying for the safe recovery of those two officers, and i stand

ready to offer the full investigative resources of the united states department of justice, the fbi to solve this crime. and to hold these perpetrators fully, fully accountable. my brother is a retired law enforcement officer, and he always tells me that cops have the right to come home at night. and that's exactly right. these are people who protect us keep us safe and they have the right. they have the right to come home at night. seeing this attack last night really kind of turned my stomach, because in the last week since the justice department release it us pattern and practice report on ferguson i thought we had begun to see really important signs of progress. they were good-faith steps being taken within the city's leadership to move in a new more cooperative direction. i think it's beneficial to law enforcement and to community residents. but make no mistake we still have a long why to good to bring

about this systemic change that is needed, and that is long overdue in that area. but i think the early indicates have really truly been positive. what happened last night was a pure ambush. what happened last night was a pure ambush. this was not someone trying to bring healing to ferguson. this was a damn punk. a punk. who was trying to sow discord in an area that is trying to get its act together and trying to bring together a community that has been fractured for too long. this really disgusting and cowardly attack might have been intended to unravel any sense of progress that exists but i hope that that does not in fact happen. incidents like the one we have witnessed is a -- the conversations we have convened today and will be having to build trust between law enforcement and the communities that they serve.

are really so important. >> next month the u.s. will head the arctic council and international forum for the polar region. special representative for the arctic retired admiral robert papp spoke to about the need for u.s. leadership in the institution. this is an hour. [inaudible conversations] >> good morning everybody. welcome. i'm the interim vice president for foreign policy here at brookings. i'm delighted to welcome you all today. before we begin i'd like to damage and thank charlie and tim from our energy security initiative who organized today's event. i'd also like to acknowledge and think commander jason thomas

executive fellow from the coast guard at brook examination has been -- brookings has been a terrific colleague. i i hope we can borrow him back down the road. as all of you know in april the united states will assume the chairmanship of the arctic council for two years. we go back about five years, i would say are there two things that are true. one in all frank, not that many people had heard of the arctic council, and two, people who are write about the arctic council were writing about it in real saber-rattling terms. this was about to become the new area of great power tension and insecurity and clashes between those dangerous nations, the canadians and others. i'm canadian among other thing soyuz can say that. and of course the most dire predictions how thinks would

evolve in the arctic have not come true and the important part of the stories ha then i institutization and development of the arctic council. things are changing fast in the arctic, a region that one of our board members describe as the next emerging market. since 1979 we have seen a 40% reduction in the ice coverage. that's having important impacts on indigoes communities, on wildlife changing the pattern of fishery, and even more substantiallily, it's meant since 2007 the northwest passage is open year-round at least for country with the right capabilities and of particular importance is opening up new prospects in terms of oil and gas developments and really huge levels of reserves in the arctic particularly for russia driving a sense of potential for the region and also of course, challenges in terms of where

that energy lies and claimants to it. it's a region without any question that is a growing strategic and economic importance to the united states, but also to india to japan to china, and of course, to russia. we are there are delighted to have admiral john papp with us here today to talk about these issues. the admiral was appointed in july 2014 as special representative for the arctic. he is the 24th commandment of the coast guard, has handa 39-year career in the coast guard, a graduate of the coast guard academy, whomaster degrees, none security studies and one in management. as a coast guard officer has served on six ships, commanding four of them, including what i'm relie blue informed is the u.s. government's only active sailing tall ship, the eagle. i'm also informed on the ship he is frequently found in the

sails, inspecting the rigging, sailor's sailor, not just a leader but a leader held in high regard in the coast guard. it seems to me extremely appropriate to have a sailor's sailor serve as our cub transcribe's representative to the arctic in this upcoming period. so we're delighted to have you here. thank you very much four -- for your service and for being here today. the floor is yours. [applause] >> good morning, ladies and gentlemen. what a great crowd. this is wonderful. i feel great. i think i met here at brookings when was the commandant. i know canadians pronounce things a little bit different. actually i have been intro accused as the 24th 24th commandment before. i know the first 12 commandments. i'm not sure what happened to the ones in between but i kind of thought at the time the

24th commandment. that's a pretty good title. i like that. but thanks for the introduction, and, yes canadaes one of those dangerous places. in fact i remember going a couple years ago, they brought a bunch of us up to the foreign relations committee in the senate secretary kerry was the chairman at that time. and we did a hearing on the law of the sea. we might want to talk about the law of the sea this morning, but at that particular event somebody talked to me as -- said one of the senators said, we don't need a sea treaty. we can do anything we want and i gave as an example that between the yukon territory and alaska there was a segment that is colored gray because the united states and canada have not been able to agree on a border there and the senator said, you can't tell me that we cannot come to an agreement with canada. yes, that is true, we can't, and

it still exists today. we might want to touch on that. i think there's some interesting developments in terms of continental shelf claims we can talk about. it's great to be here at brookings. i feel good because all my basic needs have been taken care of. i was served a hot black -- break fast. i have coffee, they brought to a team to warm me up with challenging questions so i feel ready to go. is a look around the room i'm ament concerned because i see so many faces i've seen in so many other places and you start after a while losing track of who you have spoken to and what sea stories you have told and whatever else. there's one other thing i have to correct. i can't take jason back. i'm no longer the commandant of the coast guard so the current commandant may be concerned about him coming back. you can keep him as far as i'm concerned. drew pierce, where are you? senator drew pierce from alaska. welcome. thank you for being at the hearing last week.

in front of senator mccow ski's committee. drew has heard my story many times so i have to watch and make sure i don't do any repete this morning. glaus are so many people that have heard me talk in other venues i thought i'd take a different course this morning and start off with an alaska story. back last fall i went up to alaska for my second series of listening sessions. we were in the city of account othsabie and there was native who talked to me. my recollection his him in was ikalasuk, subsis stance hunter involved with marine mammals. articulate and interesting individual. he was talking about the challenges washington coming up and telling alaskans what to do et cetera, et cetera, and the example he used was he said one of the departments sent the seal

expert up here to talk to us. he is a seal hunter sub sis tenancy hunter, and it's been in his culture and his tribe for thousands of years and is a looked out across the bay there i could understand why. everywhere you look you can see the heads of seals and the alaska natives revere them. it's part of their culture. they use it for food for furs and other things. it's part of their life. so the seal expert came up, and when he was introduced he said are you the seal expert? how many seals have you eaten? i like to tell that story because, as i have gone and started talking about the arctic, i find that i can usually classify people into

seal hunters, and seal experts. there's an awful lot of people in between. some who are sincerely interested in the arctic, others that cooperate care less about -- couldn't care less about the arctic, and hopefully during our chairmanship of the council we can bring more people into the category of people who are good to in the arctic. i found it's very important to listen to the seal hunters and i use that as a metaphor. there are certain people that have spent a lot of time in the arctic, that are passionate about it in this ski i find people who are seal experts. i was in a meeting the other day or preparing to go by a meeting at the state department. she said i'm so excited about meeting you. i'm passionate about the arctic and went on and on and on. i finally said, when this last time you visited the arctic?

i've never been there, but i'm passionate about it. i've watched the nature channel et cetera, et cetera and there's so mach that needs to be done up there. that can be excused. it's great for youth and young people to be interested and have that passion because we need more of that in this country particularly as we address the arctic. where i'm concerned is when senior leaders are not necessarily there in that seal expert category. i was at a senate hearing last week and there were a couple of senators who had very legitimate, very good questions. there were others on the panel who you can sense they almost have to establish their credibility first. one of them and i know ambassador gearhart.

are you still here? one senator to establish credibility, said, well, my wife traveled to iceland once. you have a very nice country there. and i turned around and looked at the ambassador and he is there, oh. you know at that point they have some sort of very shallow interest or knowledge about the arctic and yet here they are making decisions. another one mentioned to the alaskans who were in attendance that he had visited alaska once. i checked later on and i was told he took a cruise to alaska once. so therefore, established his credibility in terms of understanding alaska. i would never put myself in the category of the seal hunter. i respect the seal hunters. i respect our alaska natives and have learned a lot from them. i would say i'm in that category of people that is very interested that is concerned bottom the arctic and i have a

limited amount of knowledge. i started out my coast guard career in alaska. i was let us say, academically challenged at the academy and in those days we selected our first assignment based upon your class standing. and there were not many choices left when it came down to me and i saw a ship in alaska and i said, that looks exciting. alaska kid from connecticut going to alaska? and the ship was home-ported in a place called adak, alaska and i didn't know where adak was but superintendented exceeding itch went back to my room and broke out an atlas, and -- do this -- open up an atlas and usually alaska will cover two pages in the atlas. except that down at the bottom there's an insert that has part of the alaskan peninsul