[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 15707-15711]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   SECRETARY KERRY'S REMARKS AT COP22

  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, last year the world came together in Paris 
to support a truly historic agreement on climate change. And 2015 was 
also historic for another reason: It was the hottest year in an 
observational record that stretches back to the 1880s. In fact, 15 of 
the 16 hottest years on the planet have occurred since 2000. Recently, 
July and August 2016 tied the global record for the hottest month, and 
2016 is on track to be the warmest year yet. The evidence on climate 
change is overwhelming. Scientists have understood the fundamental 
physics for over a century. And the world agrees that we must take 
action to curb dangerous carbon pollution and reduce the effects of 
climate change. A majority of the United States agrees that we must 
take action.
  The swiftness with which the Paris Climate Accord came into force 
demonstrates the global commitment to addressing the serious concerns 
of climate change. It is also a testament to the leadership of 
President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry. This year, 
the world again came together at the United Nations Climate Change 
Conference in Marrakesh, Morocco, to begin forging the path towards a 
lower-emissions world and clean energy future. And while there is much 
work to be done, we are heading in the right direction. We have seen 
the price of solar energy reach record lows and the rate of new solar 
installation reach record highs. We have seen States, regions, and 
countries reduce their carbon pollution while growing their economies. 
These positive steps will not only curb carbon pollution, but also 
create good, well-paying clean energy jobs.
  Climate change is a challenge for the entire world. Through the Paris 
Climate Accord, the international community has decided to face this 
challenge head on, and the United States must continue to be the global 
leader. Under the leadership of Sectary of State John Kerry, the United 
States has carried this mantle. In the speech that Secretary Kerry 
delivered last month in Marrakesh, Morocco, at the 22nd meeting of the 
Conference of Parties to the United Nationals Framework Convention on 
Climate Change and first session of the Conference of Parties to the 
Paris Agreement, Secretary Kerry shared his vision for our future: a 
brighter, cleaner, healthier and more prosperous one.
  He said:

       Thank you so much, everybody. I apologize for being a few 
     moments late. There was a fire and then there was some 
     traffic backed up, and so here I am and here are you, and 
     thank you for being here.
       Let me begin by thanking our terrific U.S. Special Envoy 
     for Climate Change Jonathan Pershing. I couldn't be luckier 
     than to have him in this job. He was over at the Energy 
     Department for a while. We stole him from Ernie Moniz, who is 
     a great colleague and was gracious in my theft. And he has 
     done a spectacular job working with all of our international 
     partners as we begin the hard work of implementing the Paris 
     Agreement. And I also want to thank Ambassador Jennifer 
     Haverkamp, who, along with Jonathan and a lot of the team 
     that I see sitting here, has done an absolutely terrific job 
     in leading the State Department's efforts to advance our 
     climate goals this year. And I have to tell you--well, let me 
     just divert for a minute. I also want to thank Brian Deese--I 
     don't know if he's here--but I'm grateful for President 
     Obama's senior advisor on climate issues and the entire 
     intrepid U.S. delegation to the COP, whom I had a chance to 
     meet with earlier this morning, but we've kind of traveled 
     this road together.
       I also thank our international partners, and particularly 
     the executive secretary of the UNFCCC, Patricia Espinosa; the 
     outgoing president of the COP, Minister Segolene Royal of 
     France; and the incoming COP president, my friend and our 
     host this week, Minister Salaheddine Mezouar, the foreign 
     minister of Morocco. And I also want to thank our partners 
     from Fiji, who will serve as president for the next COP, 
     which I intend hopefully to attend as Citizen Kerry.
       It's a great pleasure for me to be able to be here in 
     Marrakech. I'm reminded of one of the 20th century's most 
     outsized figures whose connection with this city is so 
     famous--Sir Winston Churchill. He loved to paint the 
     landscapes here and to absorb the beauty and the culture.
       And in fact, at the very height of World War II, as he and 
     President Franklin Roosevelt and Allied leaders gathered in 
     Casablanca to plan the strategy for the European Theater, 
     Churchill was absolutely stunned to learn that Roosevelt had 
     never been to this part of Morocco.
       So in a move that perhaps only Winston Churchill would get 
     away with in the middle of a global war--world war--Churchill 
     convinced Roosevelt to extend his visit and drive through 
     what was still, at the time, a country engulfed in active 
     combat.
       So after several hours on the loose, and because we're 
     talking about Winston Churchill, plenty of Scotch--
     (laughter)--the two leaders arrived in Marrakech in time to 
     see the sun set on the Atlas Mountains.
       And Churchill said it was the loveliest view on Earth.
       So I think it's fitting, therefore, that almost three-
     quarters of a century later, friends and allies meet again in 
     Marrakech in order to undertake a very important discussion--
     a discussion about the natural world that surrounds us and 
     the importance of preserving it for generations to come.
       As Jonathan mentioned, climate change is deeply personal to 
     me, but it's personal to everyone in this room. I know that. 
     And we obviously want it to be just as personal for everyone 
     in every room: men, women, children, businesspeople, 
     consumers, parents, teachers, students, grandparents. 
     Wherever we live, whatever our calling, whatever our 
     background must be, this is an imperative.
       Now, I know the danger of preaching to the choir--and, 
     obviously, all of us here are the proverbial choir. But I'm 
     actually grateful for that, because here at the 22nd COP, no 
     one can deny the remarkable progress that we have made--
     progress that actually was pretty hard to imagine even a few 
     years ago. The global community is more united than ever not 
     just in accepting the challenge, but in confronting it with 
     real action, in making a difference. And no one should doubt 
     the overwhelming majority of the citizens of the United 
     States who know climate change is happening and who are 
     determined to keep

[[Page 15708]]

     our commitments that were made in Paris. (Applause.)
       None of us will forget the moment last December at Le 
     Bourget, when the former foreign minister of France, with 
     Segolene and a bunch of you there, led by our friend Laurent 
     Fabius, who gaveled in the strongest, most ambitious global 
     climate agreement ever negotiated. It was an accord that took 
     literally decades to achieve--the proud work product of 
     principled diplomacy, and ultimately, a deeply held, shared 
     understanding that we're all in this together.
       And when we left Paris, no one rested on their laurels. 
     Instead, the world--unified--moved expeditiously to begin 
     the--to pull the agreement permanently into force, crossing 
     the thresholds of 55 countries representing 55 percent of 
     global emissions, and doing so far faster than even the most 
     optimistic among us might have predicted. In a powerful 
     statement of the whole world's broad commitment to this 
     agreement, in less than a year, 109 countries representing 
     nearly 75 percent of the world's emissions have now formally 
     committed to bold, decisive action--and we are determined to 
     affirm that action and to stick with it out of Marrakech.
       Now, we have in place--(applause)--so we have in place a 
     foundation, based on national climate goals--109 nations, 
     each of them have come up with their own plan, each of us 
     setting goals that are based on our own abilities and our own 
     circumstances. This agreement is, in fact, the essence of 
     common but differentiated responsibilities. It provides 
     support to countries that need help meeting the targets. It 
     leaves no country to weather the storm of climate change 
     alone. It marshals an array of tools in order to help 
     developing nations to invest in infrastructure, technology, 
     and the science to get the job done. It supports the most 
     vulnerable countries, so they can better adapt to the climate 
     impacts that many of those countries are already confronting.
       And finally, it enables us to ratchet up ambition over time 
     as technology develops and as the price of clean energy comes 
     down. This is critical: the agreement calls on the parties to 
     revisit their national pledges every five years, in order to 
     ensure that we keep pace with the technology and that we 
     accelerate the global transition to a clean energy economy.
       This process--a cornerstone of our agreement--gives us a 
     framework that is built to last, and a degree of global 
     accountability that has never before existed. But I want to 
     share with you that the progress that we've made this year 
     goes well beyond Paris.
       In early October, the International Civil Aviation 
     Organization established a sector-wide agreement for carbon-
     neutral growth. Why is this so important? Because 
     international aviation wasn't covered by what we did in 
     Paris, and if that aviation was a country, it would rank 
     among the top dozen greenhouse gas emitters in the world.
       A few weeks later, I was pleased to be in Kigali, Rwanda, 
     when representatives from again nearly 200 countries came 
     together to phase down the global use and production of 
     hydrofluorocarbons--which has been expected to increase very 
     rapidly with a danger that is multiple of times more damaging 
     than carbon dioxide. The Kigali agreement could 
     singlehandedly help us to avoid an entire half a degree 
     centigrade of warming by the end of the century--while at the 
     same time opening up new opportunities for growth in a range 
     of industries.
       All of these steps combine to move the needle in the 
     direction that we need to. And in large part because global 
     leaders have woken up to the enormity of this challenge, the 
     world is now beginning to move forward together towards a 
     clean energy future.
       Over the past decade, the global renewable energy market 
     has expanded more than six-fold. Last year, investment in 
     renewable energy was at an all-time high--nearly $350 
     billion. But that only tells you part of the story. An 
     average of--that 350 billion is the first time that we've 
     been able to see that money outpacing what is being put into 
     fossil fuels. An average of half a million new solar panels 
     were installed every single day last year. And for the first 
     time since the Pre-Industrial Era, despite the fact that you 
     have global prices of oil and gas and coal that are lower 
     than ever, still more of the world's money was invested in 
     renewable energy technologies than in new fossil fuel plants.
       And like many of you, I've seen this transformation take 
     hold in my own country. That's why I'm confident about the 
     future, regardless of what policy might be chosen, because of 
     the marketplace. I've met with leaders and innovators in the 
     energy industry all across our nation, and I am excited about 
     the path that they are on. America's wind generation has 
     tripled since 2008 and that will continue, and solar 
     generation has increased 30 times over. And the reason both 
     of those will continue is that the marketplace will dictate 
     that, not the government. I can tell you with confidence that 
     the United States is right now, today, on our way to meeting 
     all of the international targets that we've set, and because 
     of the market decisions that are being made, I do not believe 
     that that can or will be reversed. (Applause.)
       Now, much of this is due to President Obama's leadership, 
     and our Congress also moving in a bipartisan fashion on 
     things like tax credits for renewable energy. This leadership 
     has helped to inspire targeted investment from the private 
     sector. Today our emissions are being driven down because 
     market-based forces are taking hold all over the world. And 
     that's what we said we would do in Paris. None of us 
     pretended that in Paris, the agreement itself was going to 
     achieve two degrees. What we knew is we were sending that 
     critical message to the marketplace, and businesses have 
     responded, as I just described. Most businesspeople have come 
     to understand: investing in clean energy simply makes good 
     economic sense. You can make money. You can do good and do 
     well at the same time.
       Now, significantly, the renewable energy boom isn't limited 
     to industrialized countries, and that's important to note. In 
     fact, emerging economies like China, India, and Brazil 
     invested even more in renewable technologies last year than 
     the developed world.
       China alone invested more than 100 billion dollars. 
     Ultimately, clean energy is expected to be a multitrillion 
     dollar market--the largest market the world has ever known. 
     And no nation will do well if it sits on the sidelines, 
     handicapping its new businesses from reaping the benefits of 
     the clean-tech explosion.
       My friends, we are in the midst of a global renewable 
     energy surge, and as a result, in many places, clean energy 
     has already reached cost parity with fossil fuels. Millions 
     around the world are currently employed by the renewable 
     energy industry. And if we make the right choices, millions 
     more people will be put to work.
       So good things are happening. The energy curve is bending 
     towards sustainability. The market is clearly headed towards 
     clean energy, and that trend will only become more 
     pronounced.
       Now, for those of us who have been working on this 
     challenge for decades, this really is a turning point. It is 
     a cause for optimism, notwithstanding what you see in 
     different countries with respect to politics and change. In 
     no uncertain terms, the question now is not whether we will 
     transition to energy economy--to a clean energy economy. That 
     we've already begun to do. The question now is whether or not 
     we are going to have the will to get this job done. That's 
     the question now--whether we will make the transition in time 
     to be able to do what we have to do to prevent catastrophic 
     damage.
       Ladies and gentlemen, I'm not a Cassandra. You can tell 
     from what I've said. But I'm a realist. Time is not on our 
     side. The world is already changing at an increasingly 
     alarming rate with increasingly alarming consequences. The 
     last time that Morocco hosted the COP was in 2001, and the 
     intervening 15 years have been among the 16 hottest years in 
     recorded history. 2016 is going to be the warmest year of 
     all. Every month so far has broken a record. And this year 
     will contribute its record-breaking heat to the hottest 
     decade in recorded history, which was, by the way, preceded 
     by the second-hottest decade, which was preceded by the third 
     hottest decade. At some point, even the strongest skeptic has 
     to acknowledge that something disturbing is happening.
       We have seen record-breaking droughts everywhere--from 
     India to Brazil to the west coast of the United States. 
     Storms that used to happen once every 500 years are becoming 
     relatively normal. In recent years, an average of 22.5 
     million people have been displaced by extreme weather events 
     annually. We never saw that in the 20th Century.
       Communities in island states like Fiji have already been 
     forced to take steps to relocate permanently, because the 
     places they have called home for generations are now 
     uninhabitable. And there are many, many more who know it's 
     only a matter of time before rising oceans begin to inundate 
     their cities.
       I know this is a lot for anyone to process--hard to 
     process. That's why I have found that whenever possible, the 
     best way to try to understand and to see whether people are 
     pushing the envelope of thinking on this or not is to see for 
     oneself what is happening. That's why this summer I went to 
     Greenland to visit the incredible Jakobshavn glacier. 
     Scientists pointed out to me the lines many meters above the 
     water today that mark the glacier's retreat which it has done 
     more in the past 15 years than it did in the entire previous 
     century. And while I was there, I boarded a Danish naval 
     vessel and I traveled through the ice fjord. I saw the 
     massive ice chunks that had just broken off from the glacier 
     to melt inexorably into the sea. And because they come off 
     Greenland, which is on rock, every bit of that ice 
     contributes to the rise of the ocean.
       Since the 1990s, the painful pace of that melting has 
     nearly tripled. Every day, 86 million metric tons of ice 
     makes its way down that fjord into the ocean. And the total 
     flow that comes off that glacier in a single year is enough 
     water to meet the needs of New York City for two decades.
       But experts in Greenland and elsewhere have always warned 
     me, and they warned me on this trip this summer, if you 
     really want to understand what's happening and what the 
     threat is, go to Antarctica. Nowhere on the planet are the 
     stakes as high as they are on the opposite end of the globe. 
     For half a

[[Page 15709]]

     century, climate scientists have believed the West Antarctic 
     Ice Sheet is a sword of Damocles hanging over our entire way 
     of life. Should it break apart and melt into the sea, it 
     alone could raise global sea levels by four to five meters. 
     And the scientists down there described to me how the 
     pressure of the ice and the weight of the ice pushes the 
     entire continent down so that it's grounded on the base of 
     Earth's crust and rock. But that allows warmer sea water to 
     creep in under the glacier and speed up the process of the 
     melting and destabilize the glacier.
       Antarctica contains ice sheets that are, in some places, on 
     the East Antarctic Ice Sheet three miles deep. And if all 
     that ice were somehow able to melt away completely because we 
     are irresponsible about climate change, in the coming 
     centuries, sea level would rise somewhere over 100 to 200 
     feet.
       That's why I flew last week to McMurdo Station in 
     Antarctica to meet with our scientists and to understand 
     better what is taking place. I flew by helicopter over the 
     West Antarctic Ice Sheet. I walked out onto the Ross Sea ice 
     shelf. And I talked with the scientists who are on the front 
     lines, not people involved in day to day politics, but people 
     who are making scientific judgment and doing extensive 
     research. And they were crystal clear: The more they learn, 
     the more alarmed they become about the speed with which these 
     changes are happening. A scientist from New Zealand named 
     Gavin Dunbar described what they're seeing there as the 
     quote, ``canary in the coal mine'' and warned that some 
     thresholds, if we cross them, cannot be reversed.
       In other words, we can't wait too long to translate the 
     science that we have today into the policies that are 
     necessary to address this challenge. These scientists urged 
     me to remind my own government and governments around the 
     world and everyone here that what we do right now--today--
     matters, because if we don't go far enough and if we don't go 
     fast enough, the damage we inflict could take centuries to 
     undo--if it can be undone at all.
       I underscore today: We don't get a second chance. The 
     consequences of failure would in most cases be irreversible. 
     And if we lose this moment for action, there's no speech 
     decades from now that will put these massive ice sheets back 
     together. There's no magic wand in any capital in the world 
     that you can wave to refill all of the lakes and rivers that 
     will dry up, or make farm--arid farm land fertile again. And 
     we certainly won't have the power to hold back rising tides 
     as they encroach on our shores. So we have to get this right, 
     and we have to get it right now.
       The scientists in Antarctica told me that they are still 
     trying to figure out how quickly this is all happening. But 
     they know for certain that it's happening, and it's happening 
     faster than we previously thought possible. The alarm bells 
     ought to be going off everywhere. As an American glacial 
     geologist told me down there, a fellow by the name of John 
     Stone, he said, ``The catastrophic period could already be 
     underway.'' That's why wise public policy demands that we 
     take precautionary measures now.
       Still, despite the real-life changes that are being done 
     and the threat of more to come, it's important to remind 
     ourselves that we are not on a pre-ordained path to disaster. 
     This is not pre-ordained. It's not written in the stars. This 
     is about choices--choices that we still have. This is a test 
     of willpower, not capacity. It's within our power to put the 
     planet back on a better track. But doing that requires 
     holding ourselves accountable to the hard truth. It requires 
     holding ourselves accountable to facts, not opinion; to 
     science, not theories that haven't been proven and can't be 
     proven; and certainly not to political bromides and slogans.
       For all the progress that we are making, at the current 
     pace we will not meet our goal. I said that earlier. We knew 
     in Paris that what we were doing was trying to start down a 
     road. But we also knew it doesn't get us to the end of the 
     journey. Yes, renewables make up more than half of all the 
     new electricity installation last year. That's progress. But 
     the reality is because of the existing energy infrastructure 
     already in place, that new energy only generated a little 
     more than 10 percent of the world's total energy. That is 
     nowhere near what we need in order to achieve our goals.
       If we're going to have the ability to stave off the worst 
     impacts of climate change, we have to dramatically accelerate 
     the transition that is already starting. We need to get to a 
     point where clean sources are generating most of the world's 
     energy, and we need to get there fast. Certainly experts tell 
     us by the middle of this century we have to get there.
       Now, I've said many times, and I'll say it again today: It 
     is not going to be governments alone, or even principally, 
     that solve the climate challenge. The private sector is the 
     most important player. And already we are seeing real 
     solutions coming from entrepreneurs and academia. It's going 
     to be innovators, workers, and business leaders, many of whom 
     have been hammering away at this challenge for years who are 
     going to continue to create the technological advances that 
     forever revolutionize the way that we power our world.
       But make no mistake, government leadership is absolutely 
     essential. And because today is the last opportunity I will 
     have to address the COP as Secretary of State, I just want to 
     take a moment to underscore the work that government leaders 
     can do and should do, especially the 200--almost 200 nations 
     represented here.
       Now, we know that we have not come to Marrakech to bask in 
     the glow of Paris. We've come here to move forward. In doing 
     so, we cannot forget that the contributions we've each made 
     thus far were never meant to be the ceiling. They're a 
     foundation on which we expect to build. And unless our 
     nations voluntarily ratchet up our ambition, and unless we 
     continue to put sustained pressure on one another to act 
     wisely, we will have difficulty meeting the current 
     mitigation needs, let alone holding temperature increases at 
     2 degrees warming, which science tells us is a tipping point.
       And if we fall short, it will be the single greatest 
     instance in modern history of a generation in a time of 
     crisis abdicating responsibility for the future. And it won't 
     just be a policy failure; because of the nature of this 
     challenge, it will be a moral failure, a betrayal of 
     devastating consequence.
       Now, I know not--that's not what any of us here signed up 
     for. As Pope Francis said, ``We receive this world as an 
     inheritance from past generations, but also as a loan for 
     future generations, to whom we will have to return it.''
       Now, I fully recognize the challenges that a number of 
     countries face because they have a big population, they have 
     a growing economy, they have a lot of people in poverty, 
     they're determined to maintain stability and pull those 
     people into the economy. And of course, they're concerned 
     about stability--we all are. Access to affordable energy is a 
     key part of providing that stability. And the dirtiest 
     sources of energy are, unfortunately, some of the cheapest. 
     But I emphasize this: Only in the short term. In the long 
     term, it's an entirely different story, folks. In the long 
     term, carbon-intensive energy is actually today, right now, 
     one of the costliest and most foolhardy investments any 
     nation can possibly make. And that is because the final 
     invoice for carbon-based energy includes a lot more than just 
     the price of the oil or the coal, or the natural gas; it--or 
     the price of building the power plant. The real cost 
     accounting needs to fully consider all of the downstream 
     consequences, which, in the case of dirty fuels, are enough 
     to at least double or triple the initial expenses.
       That's the kind of accounting that we need to do today. 
     Just think about the price of environmental and agricultural 
     degradation. Think about the loss of an ability of farmers in 
     one area because of the lack of water or too much heat to be 
     able to grow their crops today. Think of the hospital bills 
     for asthma and emphysema patients, and the millions of deaths 
     that are linked to air pollution caused by the use of fossil 
     fuels.
       In 2014, a study found that up to six million people in 
     China have black lung because they lived and worked so close 
     to coal-fired power plants. There are nearly 20 million new 
     asthma cases a year in India linked to coal-related air 
     pollution, and in the United States, asthma costs taxpayers 
     more than $55 billion annually. The greatest cause of 
     children being hospitalized in the summer in the United 
     States is environmentally induced asthma. These are real 
     costs, and they need to be added to the tally.
       We also have to include the price tag of rebuilding after 
     devastating storms and flooding. Just in the first three 
     quarters of this year alone, extreme weather events have cost 
     the United States--have cost American taxpayers $27 billion 
     in damage. In August alone, Louisiana experienced flooding 
     that resulted in roughly $10 billion worth of damage.
       So none of us can afford to be oblivious to these expenses, 
     and these initial costs are in reality just a glimpse of what 
     the future could hold in store for us if we fail to respond. 
     Just imagine: Sea barriers that have to be built. Go down to 
     Miami--in south Miami, they're building--they're raising 
     streets to deal with flooding that's already occurring, 
     building new storm drains and assessing people additional tax 
     in order to do it. Massive increases in cost of maintaining 
     infrastructure to control flooding, withstand storms. Power 
     outages. All of this and more has to be added to any honest 
     assessment of high-carbon energy sources. And in an age of 
     increasing transparency and public demand for accountability, 
     citizens in the long run will not accept phony accounting or 
     an obfuscation of the consequences of the decisions.
       So everyone needs to make smarter choices--with the long 
     game, not the short game, in mind.
       Coal, unfortunately, is the single biggest contributor to 
     global carbon pollution. It provides about 30 percent of the 
     world's energy, but it produces nearly 50 percent of the 
     world's greenhouse gases. The unprecedented investments that 
     we are now seeing in clean energy will mean very, very little 
     if, at the same time, new coal fire plants without carbon 
     capture are coming online and at a rate dumping into the 
     atmosphere more and more of the very pollution that we're all 
     working so hard to reduce.

[[Page 15710]]

       Some of these projections, I have to tell you, are deeply 
     troubling. For example, between now and 2040, the demand for 
     electricity in Southeast Asia is likely to triple--and the 
     bulk of that demand is currently expected to be met by 
     growth--where? In the coal-fired power sector, rather than 
     clean energy. That threatens everything we're trying to 
     achieve here.
       We literally cannot use one hand to pat ourselves on the 
     back for what we've done to take steps to address climate 
     change, and then turn around and use the other hand to write 
     a big fat check enabling the widespread development of the 
     dirtiest source of fuel in an outdated way. It just doesn't 
     make sense. That's suicide. And that's how we all lose this 
     fight.
       Make no mistake: People all over the world are working for 
     victory in this. And this issue is increasingly capturing the 
     attention of citizens everywhere, and certainly the private 
     sector. The private sector welcomed the signals that we sent 
     in Paris, but they are demanding even stronger signals now--
     the private sector--so that they can invest clean energy 
     solutions with even greater confidence.
       One of the strongest signals that government can send, one 
     of the most powerful ways to reduce emissions at the lowest 
     possible course--cost--is to move toward carbon pricing that 
     puts basic, free-market economics to work in addressing this 
     challenge.
       Now obviously, this is not a new idea. Many have come to 
     this conclusion already. The share of global emissions that 
     are covered by a carbon price has tripled over the last 
     decade. Last year, more than 1,000 businesses and investors--
     including sectors that might be surprising to some of you--
     all came together to voice their support for carbon pricing. 
     The long list of supporters includes energy companies like 
     BP, Royal Dutch Shell, utilities like PG&E, transportation 
     companies like British Airways, construction firms like 
     Cemex, financial institutions like Deutsche Bank, like Swiss 
     Re, and consumer goods corporations like Unilever and Nokia. 
     These companies all believe that carbon pricing will 
     establish the necessary certainty in the marketplace that 
     helps the private sector to move the capital that helps to 
     solve the problem.
       Carbon pricing allows citizens, innovators, and companies--
     it allows the market to make independent decisions free from 
     the government to be able to best drive their emission 
     reductions. And this is also, by the way, the chief reason 
     that carbon pricing has received support from leaders and 
     economists on both sides of the aisle in the United States of 
     America. A price on carbon, coupled with government support 
     for innovation in key sectors, is easily one of the most 
     compelling tools for the world to accelerate the clean energy 
     transformation that we are working to achieve. Now, while it 
     may be some time before we see this ideal outcome, the effort 
     to improve carbon markets ought to be a priority going 
     forward.
       The bottom line is that there are many tools at the world's 
     disposal. The COP itself is an important tool, in a sense. It 
     has become much more of a--much more than just a gathering of 
     government officials. It's really a yearly summit, 25,000 
     people strong this year from all over the world, for all 
     sectors to showcase their commitment to climate action and to 
     discuss ways to expand shared efforts. It's a regular 
     reminder of exactly how much this movement has grown--and how 
     many people, in how many countries, are committed to action.
       Walking around the conference here before I was coming in 
     here and seeing this site in Marrakech, and seeing the 
     delegations and the business leaders, the entrepreneurs and 
     the activists who have traveled from near and far to be here, 
     it's abundantly clear we have the ability to prevent the 
     worst impacts of climate change.
       But again, we're forced to ask: Do we have the collective 
     will? Because our success is not going to happen by accident. 
     It won't happen without sustained commitment, without 
     cooperation and creative thinking. And it won't happen 
     without confident investors and innovative entrepreneurs. And 
     it certainly won't happen without leadership.
       For those in power in all parts of the world, including my 
     own, who may be confronted with decisions about which road to 
     take at this critical juncture, I ask you, on behalf of 
     billions of people around the world: Don't take my word for 
     it. Don't take just the existence of this COP as the stamp of 
     approval for it. I ask you to see for yourselves. Do your own 
     due diligence before making irrevocable choices.
       Examine closely what it is that has persuaded the Pope, 
     presidents, and prime ministers all over the world, leaders 
     around the world, to take on the responsibility of responding 
     to this threat. Talk to the business leaders of Fortune 500 
     companies and smaller innovative companies, all of whom are 
     eager to invest in the energy markets of the future. Get the 
     best economists' judgment on the risk of inaction, of what 
     the cost would be to global economies, versus the 
     opportunities that are to be found in the clean energy market 
     of the future. Speak with the military leaders who view 
     climate change as a global security concern, as a threat 
     multiplier. Ask farmers about--and fisherman about the impact 
     of dramatic changes in weather patterns on their current 
     ability to make a living and to support their families or on 
     what they see for the future. Listen to faith leaders talk 
     about the moral responsibility that human beings have to act 
     as stewards of the planet that we have to share, the only 
     planet we have. Bring in the activists and civil society, 
     groups who have worked for years with communities all over 
     the world to raise awareness and to respond to this threat. 
     Ask young people about their legitimate concerns for the 
     planet that their children will inherit in reducing emissions 
     worldwide.
       And above all, consult with the scientists who have 
     dedicated their entire lives to expanding our understanding 
     of this challenge, and whose work will be in vain unless we 
     sound the alarm loud enough for everyone to hear. No one has 
     a right to make decisions that affect billions of people 
     based on solely ideology or without proper input.
       Anyone who has these conversations, who takes the time to 
     learn from these experts, who gets the full picture of what 
     we're facing--I believe they can only come to one legitimate 
     decision, and that is to act boldly on climate change and 
     encourage others to do the same.
       Now, I want to acknowledge that since this COP started, 
     obviously, an election took place in my country. And I know 
     it has left some here and elsewhere feeling uncertain about 
     the future. I obviously understand that uncertainty. And 
     while I can't stand here and speculate about what policies 
     our president-elect will pursue, I will tell you this: In the 
     time that I have spent in public life, one of the things I 
     have learned is that some issues look a little bit different 
     when you're actually in office compared to when you're on the 
     campaign trail.
       And the truth is that climate change shouldn't be a 
     partisan issue in the first place. It isn't a partisan issue 
     for our military leaders at the Pentagon who call climate 
     change a threat multiplier. (Applause.) It isn't a partisan 
     issue for those military leaders because of the way that 
     climate change exacerbates conflicts all over the world and 
     who view it as a threat to military readiness at their bases 
     and could suffer the consequences of rising seas and stronger 
     storms. It isn't a partisan issue for our intelligence 
     community, who just this year released a report detailing the 
     implications of climate change for U.S. national security: 
     threats to the stability of fragile nations, heightened 
     social and political tensions, rising food prices, increased 
     risks to human health, and more.
       It isn't a partisan issue for mayors from New Orleans to 
     Miami, who are already working hard to manage sunny-day 
     floods and stronger storm surges caused by climate change. It 
     isn't partisan for liberal and conservative business leaders 
     alike who are investing unprecedented amounts of money into 
     renewables, voluntarily committing to reduce their own 
     emissions, and even holding their supply chains accountable 
     to their overall carbon footprint.
       And there's nothing partisan about climate change for the 
     world scientists who are near unanimous in their conclusion 
     that climate change is real, it is happening, human beings 
     for the most part are causing it, and we will have increasing 
     catastrophic impacts on our way of life if we don't take the 
     dramatic steps necessary to reduce the carbon footprint of 
     our civilization.
       Now, whether we are able to meet this moment is a big 
     test--probably as big a test of courage and vision as you'll 
     ever find. Every nation has a responsibility to do its part 
     if we are going to pass that test--and only those nations who 
     step up and respond to this threat can legitimately lay claim 
     to a mantle of global leadership. That's a fact.
       More than his love of Marrakech, Winston Churchill was 
     known for his hard-nosed insight and the way that he 
     expressed it. He once argued, tellingly: ``It's not always 
     enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what is 
     required.''
       We know today what is required. And with all of the real-
     world evidence, with all of the peer-reviewed science, with 
     all of the plain just old common sense, there isn't anyone 
     who can credibly argue otherwise. So we have to continue this 
     fight, my friends. We have to continue to defy expectations. 
     We have to continue to accelerate the global transition to a 
     clean energy economy. And we have to continue to hold one 
     another accountable for the choices that our nations makes.
       Earlier this year, on Earth Day, I had the great privilege 
     of signing the Paris Agreement on behalf of President Obama 
     and the United States. It was a special day. And because my 
     daughter lives in New York, I invited her to join me at the 
     UN. She surprised me by bringing my 2-year-old granddaughter, 
     Isabelle, along as well.
       And that morning, I had been thinking about the history 
     that had brought us to that day. I thought about the first 
     Earth Day in 1970 that I mentioned earlier, when I joined 
     with millions of Americans in teach-ins to educate the public 
     about the environmental challenges we faced. I thought about 
     the first UN climate conference in Rio, which is actually 
     where I met my wife Teresa, and I thought of the urgency that 
     we all felt way back then in 1992. And of course,

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     I thought about that December night at Le Bourget, when it 
     seemed--for the first time--that the world had finally found 
     the path forward.
       But as I sat and I played with my granddaughter, waiting 
     for my turn to go out and sign the Agreement, I thought, not 
     of the past, but I thought of the future. Her future. The 
     world her children would one day inherit.
       And when it was time for me to go up on that stage, I 
     scooped her up and I brought her out with me. I wanted to 
     share that moment with her. And I'll never forget it.
       But to my surprise, people responded to her presence that 
     day, and since then so many people have said to me, they've 
     conveyed to me how that moment conveyed something special and 
     moved them. They told me they thought of their own children, 
     their own grandchildren. They thought of the future. They 
     were reminded of the stakes.
       Ladies and gentlemen, here in Marrakech, in the next hours, 
     let us make clear to the world that we will always remember 
     the stakes. Let us stand firm in support of the goals that we 
     set in Paris and recommit ourselves to double our efforts to 
     meet them. Let us say that when it comes to climate change, 
     we will commit not just to doing our best, but as Winston 
     Churchill admonished, we will do what is required.
       I look forward to working with you in this important work 
     for whatever number of years ahead I have a chance to. Thank 
     you.


     

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