interrupt anything. henry would do it for trivial thing. one day nixon was really kind of -- ticked off at henry for a variety of things, and i -- we were in the executive office building. the far door swung open i looked over it was henry. caught a glimpse's him. nixon did not appear to look but, i know he knew it was henry and said to me i think you're right about that, chuck, i think it's time we use nuclear weapons. everything else has fail and kissinger i looked at him, stood in the doorway absolutely paralyzed. that's on a tape somewhere. somebody's going hear this on a tape and think, this nixon really was a madman. colson did bring up the mad side of nixon. everything was true. pure humor. nixon loved it. hear more online at the c-span video library. with a quarter century of politics and public affairs, available on your computer

anytime. > the center nor global development hosted a summit last week paper mong the speakers, former senator tim wirth and william riley, head of the environment protection agency under the first president bush. this is almost two hours. good morning, ladies and gentlemen. i'm nancy birdsall, a warm welcome to all of you. i'm the president of the center for global development. we're very pleased to have all

of you here. i know that for many of you you're here because of rio plus 20. our point today. what can be done? this is a huge opportunity for the global community to worry over and put together some serious recommendations to deal with the poverty, energy, climate nexus. this is absolutely crucial for our center for global development, because we are concerned with the risk that greenhouse gas emissions pose for the development community, for the development project, for the great success of reducing poverty over many years, and at the same time we're concerned with the obvious need for energy access for millions of poor people if they are going to have a better livelihood. dignified jobs and so on. we're particularly concerned at

the center with what the united states can do. what should be its role at rio plus 20? so that's one focus of today's discussion. it's a tough year for the u.s. and the administration. it's an election year. there are fiscal problems obviously, but i'm very pleased to say that you will be hearing soon from nigel purvis about a report that he did with and for us, which emphasizes the tremendous contribution the u.s. can make without dealing with its budget -- without attacking its budget problems. nigel is the coconspirator on putting together this event. he is the ceo of climate advisers. he is a senior visiting associate at the center for global development. he's the former deputy assistant secretary of state and climate negotiator in the clinton and bush administrations. we will also hear soon from our

danish co-conspirators along with cgd and climate advisers. we will have two sessions this morning. the first one is about the global context, and i will be moderating that session. the second is about the role of the u.s. which i just referred to, and nigel will be moderating that session. let me say, for those who came in the hope of hearing from kande, because of health concerns, he had to stay in europe, but we have an incredible program ahead of us. and, anyway, and for that reason, also, we want to apologize now to you and to our speakers. we're going to keep very, very strict time, because of the secretary-general's schedule, we need to really be on time and finish at 11:45. as i said, this is a partnership of cgd climate advisers and the embassy of denmark. to start off, i'm very pleased to introduce from the government of brazil, the host, of course

for rio plus 20, ronesto, the dcm at the embassy here in washington. ronesto? [ applause ] >> good morning. i would like to begin by thanking nancy birdsall, the president of the center for global development, as well as the embassy of denmark and climate advisers for the opportunity to say a few words in this event on such a crucial topic and international agenda today. and we all, of course, look forward to the addresses by secretary-general, and ambassador pascual about the other distinguished panelists. this event today it touches upon two very important items in the world, of course, but also brazil's agenda. namely energy and sustainable development.

next june, rio plus 20 will give the opportunity to take stock of the last 20 years of work on sustainable development and to shape the debates on that topic for's -- hopefully for the decades to cull. come. we hope rio can help develop new concepts and new guidance for our work, and among those subjects of course is energy. brazil has been over -- less years as you know, we're on the forefront of promoting sustainable development. sustainable energy and sustainable development initiatives by feels as the most famous or most known initiative of course, but biofuels is not the end of the story. many have implemented other initiatives. all of them leading to the concept that we need to address the energy to

-- issue from the point of view of social inclusion and economic growth, and brazil's recent history has proved that we can address that without a conflict between growth on the one hand and sustainability on the other. we would rather prove that you can have both at the same time, that that growth can lead to sustainability and vice versa, but for all those reasons, we're glad that such an important event is taking place today and we are sure that the panels this morning will improve very important contribution and efforts to rio plus 20. thank you. >> thank you. so now we plunge into our first session. could i invite tim wirth and

vijay iyer to come up and sit down. and while they come up, let me introduce them very briefly. i think tim is very well-known to all of you here. he's a former senator from colorado. a former under secretary of state for global affairs and climate negotiator, and he is currently the founding president. it's been about ten years i think of the 10 or 11 years. just about when we started. that's why i know, of the united nations foundation and a better world for all. vijay is the director of energy issues at the world bank. we're very pleased to have both of them. let me just say another word at the substance of the panel. this session is about the global set-up and what's the global challenge.

and as i said in my opening quick remarks, for us at the center, concerned primarily with the challenge of development, work, the colleagues of mine have done, over the last decade really has driven home for me the crisis that's out there, because of climate change. under business as usual. it does put at risk much of the progress that's been made. and in ensuring that people can escape poverty over the last decade, and part of the problem, of course, is that for the rich in the world, there's resources to adjust to the extreme weather shocks and other problems that climate change can bring. for the world's poor, that just isn't the same case. the welfare implications of climate change are tremendous for them. at the same time, there's no question from other work we have done at the center and that so many others have done, many of you in the audience, that

without access to energy, it is not possible for people to work themselves out of poverty. it's fall about energy. if it's irrigation, it's the ability to irrigate your fields. whether it's the ability to work in a factory with a good job because power is accessible. whether it's the ability to have your children studying at night and on rainy days under a good roof at school, energy is fundamental to the process of people of development itself. so, the problem of course is that if it's dirty energy, then they're fighting against each other in terms of reducing poverty. so that's the challenge that we face and the one that we're about to hear more about, i hope, in terms of what it is and what to do about it. it's all about the efforts to end energy poverty that are -- how can that be made compatible with reduced emissions and a

climate-friendly world? so, i think we're first going to hear from tim. tim if you'd come up to the podium and tell us what you can about this dilemma. >> well, thank you very much, nancy, and it's, the center for global development does a wonderful job of providing a framework and providing a forum for so many of the most important issues in town, and, you know, facing the country. many of which get lost in this political environment and it's difficult to talk about anything outside the 48 maybe the 50 states. so, nancy, thank you very much for doing this. nigel, thank you for helping to put all of this together. let me begin by saying that it's always surprising to me that talking about energy and the international system, energy and

the u.n. comes as a surprise to a lot of people or as nancy suggested, this really hasn't been done before. now, how could one possibly think about development around the world without having first of all a pretty sharp focus on energy, energy enables just about everything we want to have done in the process. that's particularly confusing when you look at the u.n. system. the u.n. essentially does two things. one, the blue helmet group and peace keeping activities, and second, a commitment to development. over the years, that commitment to development has included education activities, and totally until recently left off the agenda. i can say what is that? well, it was really the reason, if two reasons. united states has blocked for 60

years, the united states has essentially blocked any activities by the u.n. saying that's our sand box. don't get involved in it. we'll control all those issues and they were aided by the saudis in an alliance of others. so it's been very, very difficult politically for the u.n. to try to get any traction at all on the question of energy. kofi annan tried to open a window on energy and do so as rio plus 10 and came out with an agreement to set up an energy office, but not much had happened with that until ban ki-moon came in. surprisingly, ban ki-moon coming out of south korean foreign ministry where people thought he was going to be diplomatic, traditional activity, ban

ki-moon came in with two very deep and surprising commitments. a very deep commitment to living an working on climate change and energy and to working on women's issues and how do you engage women much more actively in the international system. and those two priorities have driven his administration. he's now just been re-elected. as all of you know. for a second term and has driven his first five years and now in particular are the very sharp edge for his second five years. and this brings us to rio plus 20. if we put rio plus 20 in a context, it is going to be the first of a number of very important sort of weigh stations between now and 2015. and those weigh stations get us to the second phase of the millennium development goals. a system of thinking about poverty and development around the world that is not something that most people in the united states know much about, but which have become guiding

principles and frameworks for countries all over the world. seven basic development goals focused on poverty, women, hunger, aids and so on. seven basic goals plus a number of sub goals. those were started by kofi annan in 2000. the first phase is over in 2015 and the second will kick in in 2015. so what should be in that second phase? many people have said that energy is the missing mgg. energy was not included as a specific focus with a specific target in the original development of the goals. and i think many, many people looking at rio and the work that the secretary general has done are hoping that the second phase phase of the mgds will include a very important framework for energy. so what should that framework be?

secretary-general ban over the last five years using a number of outside tax forces, using extensive analysis provided by mckenzie, by the way, extraordinarily helpful, a high-level task force and the commitments of hundreds and hundreds of companies has dwempl add program for sustainable energy for all or sefa. sustainable energy for all has three basic goals to it that have been worked through -- sustainable development. this is part of the building process across the international system. sustainable energy for all includes three basic goals. one access to sustainable energy for everybody in the world who wants it by the year 2030. there are currently 1.7 million people who do not have any access to electricity and 2.5 billion who have access to

really basic fuels. and non-modern energy sources. the second purpose of the sefa program is to double the rate of efficiency around the world and the third is to double the rate of the penetration of renewable energy around the world. three basic goals, and those will be, we think, adopted, picked up and become part of the program of action and one of the major outcomes of rio, and that, in turn, will be translated into the discussions through the development of the mdg. so it's a very, very important time in terms of the history of the u.n. a very important time in terms of ban ki-moon's own administration, and a very important time for the globe's -- the world's development of its own development agenda, the second phase of the mgds. final point. this is not by itself a climate issue. rio is not specifically about

climate change, but obviously, we can't deal with climate change unless we deal with a number of the building blocks along the way and dealing with energy and energy efficiency and renewables is a major building block towards an eventual building block climate agreement. maybe that's a useful kind of outline for getting us going as to where this fits together and why this is important, where it came from and then beginning sense of a road map of where we go from here. >> good morning. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> good morning. nancy, senator wirth, ladies and gentlemen, it's a great delight to be here. center for global development and climate advisers. they're doing a great job putting all this together as a force for good. i'm very pleased that we are

discussing sustainable initiative for energy and the senate has put it nicely together for us, and to me this gathering here actually represents the philosophy that we are trying to bring together with the sustainable energy for all. this is the kind of partnership with government, with institution, the world bank and all the top leaders in this room. this is exactly what it needed to look at this issue, look at this challenge and see what solution wes can come up with. the world bank has been associated with sustainable energy from the days that secretary-general kofi annan started the initiative. one of the founding members of this with the u.n. and our president is very common to this. women brace this very strongly and we are finding ways in which we be can contributing to the achievement of the goals. i just want to make four points in my opening remarks, what does

it mean in terms of achieving access, achieving electrification for 1.3 billion people? and to start with that, if you look around the world, where are these 1.3 billion people located? you will see most of them are in southern africa. about 580 million of them. south asia, 350 million and east asia and other parts of the world, about 350 million. so these challenge of delivering access to electricity and clean cooking fuels is simple goal, but it has several challenges built within it. so if we take the case of the united states. in united states, in the 1930s, most rural households did not have electricity. it was during the fdr administration in 1936 that the rule of electrification act was brought in. by 1953, 90% of u.s. farms has electricity.

so in a period of 20 years, this electrification drive with a lot of federal funding subsidy behind it, but also a lot of political commitment. it is exactly this kind of effort that is needed at the country's specific level to pick up both in terms of funding and terms of political commitment to drive this electrification process. if you look across the world, even though you have access in many countries in the developed country in the developing countries, the consumption factors are very different. in the u.s. for instance, on average, a person consumes 12,900 kilowatt hours of electricity a year. in the uk with 100% access, 5,700 kill watt of hours electricity a year. brazil, it's 2,200. in china, 2,600. in mexico, it's 1,940. so you can see that that is a

wide variation in factors and herein lies the point of what is made about the way in which we consume electricity and the levels of efficient say that can be obtained. just to look at some numbers. if in in the u.s., every person were to consume ten less per month, that could save 4,000 megawatts of capacity. that is not actually a lot. which is the combined demand of kenya, uganda and rwanda today. there is huge potential for savings in energy conversation that can fuel a lot of the power that we need in cleaner ways. let me address very briefly the potential of power. in addition to their daily tasks of lightening potential is very important. in developing countries, people in the rural areas use

now electricity mostly for lighting, for cell phone charging now more and more, and for other simpler bake purposes. but there is a lot of productive potential, as the senator pointed out that can drive economic growth, economic development, and this is why providing electricity not just for lighting but for other purposes is very important. it can unleash a lot of human potential in these country and raising, and this issue about raising carbon emissions with electricity also has to be put in the right context. let me take the case of vietnam. in vietnam, when you see in in the early 1980s it had about 14% of electrification. 14% of the people living in rural vietnam, today, it has gone up to 90%.

in these 19 years, between 1993 and today, the key factors have been vietnam itself, its strong leadership, community participation, good inclusive development, good governments at the local and national levels and a lot of capacity building technical institutions like the world bank. brazil has access we just heard between 1980 and now from 50% to the entire country being covered by electricity. but what has been the impact in vietnam of going from 14% to almost 100%? the carbon emissions have not increased that much. it is increased about 30% in all of vietnam. if you look at carbon emission profile after achieving electrificati electrification. so this is where i think we need to find ways in which we can balance the provision of electricity with the goal that we have been discussing about

limiting and mitigating climate change that comes from electrification. a word about financing. leveraging the finances that is available, i just mentioned that the electrification programs in many countries including the u.s. have required a lot of public funding. picking up the public funding and leveraging that public funding is what is needed. the iea estimates that current levels of investment, about $9 billion per year in energy need to go up to about $48 billion per year, fivefold, over the next few years if the u.n. sustainable energy goals are to be met. and leveraging different financing sources, for instance, climate investment funds, large-scale investment funds, they are making a huge difference across the world in

how we are able to bring both the public and private sector together. we also have to scale up some of the proven programs that have delivered in the past few years. many grand funded programs like the energy sector management assistance program, lighting africa and the global alliance, programs like that have dlived, cook stoves, programs like that have delivered substantial results, and these need to be scaled up including programs like the global gas lighting production. there is also a big role for knowledge for assistance in countries to achieve these goals and the knowledge function is another idea that the world bank, partners with the international and energy agencies to see how this can be built up. in closing, i wanted to say that this is a very challenging agenda. i've only touched on very few aspects. hopefully we will discuss more of it, but i really welcome the

leadership of secretary-general ban ki-moon, institutions like the center for global development and the partnership that this will bring and the collective knowledge, financing and the technical capacity that it would bring together wit private sector to help achieve these goals. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you very much. tim and vijay, i think you got us off to a great start. maybe i'll ask you each one question. try to be short, and then we'll -- >> a short answer? >> both. we'll have time to collect some comments from participants. some of you are standing in the back. let me invite you to come up and take some seats in the front if you're willing and able. so tim, you really have been carrying the water for the

secretary-general on this particular set of issues, as i understand it. maybe you could share with us, it was very interesting for me to hear that the u.s. for many years was not endorsing the united nations taking leadership on the issue? you're not hearing me? >> no, i hear you. >> he's not hearing me. are you hearing me? >> yes. >> yes. >> mine's turned off, but apparently you can hear it, too. so -- >> it's okay. tim, we can hear tim so far. so could you say a little bit more about now in the run-up to rio plus 20 what countries have endorsed, pushed, joined in? >> well, it's a more interesting question than you may think. it gets more complicated than you may imagine. if you go to the u.n. and talk to all the perm reps, all the

ambassadors, almost uniformly, with the exception of maybe a nod of two or three sort of renegades and the americas and couple of people surrounding in the arabian peninsula, everybody's for this. they all say this is a great idea. but when various negotiations begin, you begin to have a lot of joint backsliding. a lot of people saying, well i really don't want to get that done, or let's put this off for a period of time. or, we are giving you a lot of foreign financial assistance and you really ought to slow down this activity. great big countries, the united states being an exempt, are we really sure we want to get involved in this? if there's a requirement, or a goal of doubling energy efficiency and doubling the renewable energy between now and 2030? is that going to apply to us? is there general guidelines and