time the renounced the target as well the we have a strong commitments from the three largest in the world. . . 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

[applause] >> thank you. >> more live road to the white house tomorrow. kentucky sen. rand senator rand paul will talk about overhauling the criminal justice system. live coverage at one eastern. eastern. later former governor jeb bush will be in new hampshire. live coverage at 745 eastern also on c-span. >> teewun, providing live coverage of the u.s. senate for proceedings in key public policy events. every weekend book tv them are of the only television network devoted to nonfiction books and authors created by the cable tv industry and brought to you as a public service. watch us in hd like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. >> next month the us will

head the arctic council. special representatives retired admiral robert pat talk about the lead for have the need for us leadership. >> good morning, everybody. welcome. the foreign-policy here at brookings and decided to welcome you all today. i would like to acknowledge and thank charo and ten from our energy security initiative organize this event and would like to acknowledge and thank the executive fellow from the coast guard here at

brookings, brookings, a terrific colleague over the last several months. 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 peninsula and then the first couple of eye lined of the aleutian chain, and then another insert covers the rest of the aleutian chain, and

adak was in the second insert. suffice to say my fiancee at the time was not too pleased. however, afterwards after going tout adak i think it got us off to a great start in terms 0 our marriage, and she is with me 39 years later so it probably was a good experience. i learned a lot about being a sailor in alaska. first of all you have to deal with what i call the tyranny of time and distance, and we're still challenged with that today. going back to my coast guard position, the nearest air station that goes -- that can fly helicopters for search and rescue in the north slope is 850 miles away in kodiak alaska. that tyranny of time and distance, and when you're sailing ships up there when you have to refuel and the nearest port is 800, 900 miles away you

can get to for a fuel it causes you to be cautious and concerned and then the weather you have to deal with up there. i have seen the worst sustained weather of my entire career was during my first two years in alaska. i've seen weather in the caribbean that lasts 24 or 48 hours. they call them hurricanes down there. insure -- the same weather condition in the bering sea they call normal weather and it lasts for weeks on end. the challenges that i faced serving and learning as a sailor up in alaska stay with me my entire career and then drove me to be very interested about 36 years later, when i became the commandant of the coast guard. of course at that time it was almost forced upon us because there were a lot of coast guard equities involved in the opening of the arctic and we began a process of coming up with a coast guard arctic strategy and

at the end of that and after trying to campaign for resources to better prepare our country for what was happening in the arctic, i was about to retire on may 30th of last year, and on the evening of the 29th secretary john 'er called me and asked -- kev kerry asked me and if i would come to the state department in preparation for the arctic council. i didn't have to hesitate. asked to serve your country by a senior official of the government, in an area i was passionate about there was no decision involved. i automatically said yes and here i am seven or eight months later, and i'm happy with the decision and excited about take thing chairmanship in a month here. so, as i came into the job, the big task was organizing our u.s. program for the arctic. what i was very pleased to find was there was an awful lot of work that had transpired in

preparation. in fact if nothing else, what we had to do was pair it -- pear it down package and it mark it is the way i describe it, and we have been about that process. there was something called the arctic policy group, the a.p.g. that works across the interagency and consults with alaska. we have a senior arctic official julie, who has been working in that job for ten years, and she has a lot of good contacts, not only with the other countries but also with groups in alaska. and what i found during my career as an photographer and as a ship captain is one of the most important things you do in terms of developing policy, programs, or carrying out a mission, you listen to people. so we set about the business of listening to others and forming our program and packaging it together. we came up with a rough idea for a theme, which is one arctic shared opportunities, challenges and responsibilities. and if nothing else comes across

during our chairmanship, that's the theme i want everybody to remember because it was one arctic not just shared by the eight countries of the council, but it's part of our world things that go on in the arctic impact the rest of the world, and we want to develop interest in the other countries about the arctic as well. then we had this collection of projects litly scores -- literally scores of projects and we started lumping them into categories. one that appealed to me was arctic ocean safety security and stewardship. in fact safety security and stewardship is a theme we use within the coast guard but it's really the components of maritime governance. when you look at the arctic when you look down from the pole, a view of the earth that not too many people look at, what you see is the predominant feature is an ocean. a lot of is it covered by ice. in fact there are certain times of the year where it's all covered with ice but it's opening up.

there are new maritime routes developing, and it's interesting, it's exciting, and i think it's going change the world in the way we conduct commerce over time. but once again a maritime environment and the first responsibility of a maritime nation is to provide for the safety and security of mariners and ships that will approach its shores and have to transit, have rescue capability aids to navigation other, things in order to assure safety of navigation and navigation and maritime trade contributes to prosperity of a country. and maritime trade and commerce will contribute t the .. in other portions of the arctic and we need to be prepared for it as we go along. so we're heavy on the emphasis on arctic ocean safety, security and stewardship. hopefully everybody has read some of the details of the programs. we're going emphasize search and rescue, and exercising the