Kerry, speaking before college students in Jakarta, Indonesia, also criticized climate-change deniers, saying "a few loud interest groups" shouldn't be given the chance to misdirect the conversation.
Kerry reiterated U.S.
President Barack Obama's assertion in the State of the Union address
that climate change is an undeniable fact.
"We should not allow a
tiny minority of shoddy scientists and science and extreme ideologues to
compete with scientific fact," Kerry said at the U.S. Embassy's
@america function in Jakarta.
Too many ecosystems such
as Indonesia's are in peril because of climate change, he said. He said
Indonesia's important fishing trade would be adversely affected, citing a
study that said catches in the island nation will decline by 40
percent.
Remarks on Climate Change
Remarks John Kerry
Secretary of State @america
Jakarta, Indonesia
February 16, 2014
SECRETARY KERRY: Thank you, Robert. Thank you very, very much.
I don’t know. I think some of you were cheering twice for the same
university. I don’t know. (Laughter.) It seemed to come from the same
place anyway.
What a pleasure to be here at America, where we are looking at all of
the air conditioning pipes running right through here. I love it. The
spirit and feel of this place is very special and it’s wonderful to see
our friends up here from Kalimantan and also everybody from Sumatra.
Thank you very much for being with us. Can you hear me? Yeah! Wave!
(Laughter.) Do a few selfies, everybody will – (laughter.) Anyway, it’s
really a pleasure to be here. I see a lot of iPads up in the air sort of
flashing away.
This is special. Ambassador Blake, thank you for doing this. Thank
you all for coming here today. I want to welcome all of those of you who
are tuning in elsewhere, some of you who are watching on a home
webcast, and we’re delighted to have you here. It’s really a pleasure
for me to be able to be back in Jakarta, back in Indonesia, where you
have one of the richest ecosystems on Earth. And you live in a country
that is at the top of the global rankings for both marine and
terrestrial biodiversity, and you have a human ecosystem that includes
some 300 ethnic groups, speaking at least 700 languages – extraordinary
place.
But because of climate change, it is no secret that today, Indonesia is also one of the most vulnerable countries on Earth.
This year, as Secretary of State, I will engage in a series of
discussions on the urgency of addressing climate change – particularly
on the national security implications and the economic opportunities.
And I want you to think about those. But I wanted to start right here,
in Jakarta, because this city – this country – this region – is really
on the front lines of climate change. It’s not an exaggeration to say to
you that the entire way of life that you live and love is at risk. So
let’s have a frank conversation about this threat and about what we, as
citizens of the world, need to be able to do to address it.
Some time ago I travelled to another vibrant city – a city also rich
with its own rich history – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. And I was there,
sitting in a big room, surrounded by representatives from about 170
countries. We listened as expert after expert after expert described the
growing threat of climate change and what it would mean for the world
if we failed to act. The Secretary General of the conference was – he
was an early leader on climate change, a man by the name of Maurice
Strong, and he told us – I quote him: “Every bit of evidence I’ve seen
persuades me that we are on a course leading to tragedy.”
Well, my friends, that conference was in 1992. And it is stunning how little the conversation has really changed since then.
When I think about the array of global climate – of global threats –
think about this: terrorism, epidemics, poverty, the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction – all challenges that know no borders – the
reality is that climate change ranks right up there with every single
one of them. And it is a challenge that I address in nearly every single
country that I visit as Secretary of State, because President Obama and
I believe it is urgent that we do so.
And the reason is simple: The science of climate change is leaping
out at us like a scene from a 3D movie. It’s warning us; it’s compelling
us to act. And let there be no doubt in anybody’s mind that the science
is absolutely certain. It’s something that we understand with absolute
assurance of the veracity of that science. No one disputes some of the
facts about it. Let me give you an example. When an apple separates from
a tree, it falls to the ground. We know that because of the basic laws
of physics. No one disputes that today. It’s a fact. It’s a scientific
fact. Science also tells us that when water hits a low enough
temperature, it’s going to turn into ice; when it reaches a high enough
temperature, it’s going to boil. No one disputes that. Science and
common sense tell us if you reach out and put your hand on a hot cook
stove, you’re going to get burned. I can’t imagine anybody who would
dispute that either.
So when thousands of the world’s leading scientists and five reports
over a long period of time with thousands of scientists contributing to
those reports – when they tell us over and over again that our climate
is changing, that it is happening faster than they ever predicted, ever
in recorded history, and when they tell us that we humans are the
significant cause, let me tell you something: We need to listen.
When 97 percent of scientists agree on anything, we need to listen, and we need to respond.
Well, 97 percent of climate scientists have confirmed that climate
change is happening and that human activity is responsible. These
scientists agree on the causes of these changes and they agree on the
potential effects. They agree that the emission of greenhouse gases like
carbon dioxide contributes heavily to climate change. They agree that
the energy sources that we’ve relied on for decades to fuel our cars and
to heat our homes or to air condition our homes, to – all the things
that provide us electricity like oil and coal – that these are largely
responsible for sending those greenhouse gases up into the atmosphere.
And the scientists agree that emissions coming from deforestation and
from agriculture can also send enormous quantities of carbon pollution
into our atmosphere.
And they agree that, if we continue to go down the same path that we
are going down today, the world as we know it will change – and it will
change dramatically for the worse.
So we know this is happening, and we know it with virtually the same
certainty that we understand that if we reach out and touch that hot
stove, we’re going to get burned. In fact, this is not really a
complicated equation. I know sometimes I can remember from when I was in
high school and college, some aspects of science or physics can be
tough – chemistry. But this is not tough. This is simple. Kids at the
earliest age can understand this.
Try and picture a very thin layer of gases – a quarter-inch, half an
inch, somewhere in that vicinity – that’s how thick it is. It’s in our
atmosphere. It’s way up there at the edge of the atmosphere. And for
millions of years – literally millions of years – we know that layer has
acted like a thermal blanket for the planet – trapping the sun’s heat
and warming the surface of the Earth to the ideal, life-sustaining
temperature. Average temperature of the Earth has been about 57 degrees
Fahrenheit, which keeps life going. Life itself on Earth exists because
of the so-called greenhouse effect. But in modern times, as human beings
have emitted gases into the air that come from all the things we do,
that blanket has grown thicker and it traps more and more heat beneath
it, raising the temperature of the planet. It’s called the greenhouse
effect because it works exactly like a greenhouse in which you grow a
lot of the fruit that you eat here.
This is what’s causing climate change. It’s a huge irony that the
very same layer of gases that has made life possible on Earth from the
beginning now makes possible the greatest threat that the planet has
ever seen.
And the results of our human activity are clear. If you ranked all
the years in recorded history by average temperature, you’d see that 8
of the 10 hottest years have all happened within the last 10 years.
Think about it this way: all 10 of the hottest years on record have
actually happened since Google went online in 1998.
Now, that’s how fast this change is happening. And because the earth
is getting hotter at such an alarming speed, glaciers in places like the
Arctic are melting into the sea faster than we expected. And the sea is
rising – slowly, but rising – and will rise to dangerous levels.
Scientists now predict that by the end of the century, the sea could
rise by a full meter. Now, I know that to some people a meter may not
sound like a lot, but I’ll tell you this: it’s enough to put half of
Jakarta underwater. Just one meter would displace hundreds of millions
of people worldwide and threaten billions of dollars in economic
activity. It would put countries into jeopardy. It would put countless –
I mean, come to the local level – it would put countless homes and
schools and parks, entire cities at risk.
Now, climate change also tragically means the end of some species.
The changing sea temperature and the increasing amount of acidity – the
acidity comes from coal-fired power plants and from the pollution, and
when the rain falls the rain spills the acidity into the ocean. And it
means that certain species of fish like cod or sardines can no longer
live where they once lived. This is devastating for the world’s
fisheries. And scientists predict that fisheries will be among the
hardest hit. Just think about the fishermen who sell their fish catches
at Pasar Ikan. Think about it. There are some studies that say that
Indonesia’s fisheries could actually lose up to 40 percent of what they
currently bring in – so a fisherman who usually has about a hundred fish
to sell one day would suddenly only have 60 or so for sale. The impact
is obvious.
Climate change also means water shortages. And if you have these
enormous water shortages, then you have a change in the weather –
because of the weather patterns, you’re going to wind up with droughts,
the lack of water. And the droughts can become longer and more intense.
In fact, this isn’t something around the corner – this is happening now.
We are seeing record droughts right now, and they’re already putting a
strain on water resources around the world. We’ve already seen in
various parts of the world – in Africa, for instance – people fighting
each other over water, and we’ve seen more conflicts shaping up now over
the limits of water. Back in the United States, President Obama just
the other day visited California, where millions of people are now
experiencing the 13th month of the worst drought the state has seen in
500 years. And no relief is in sight. What used to be a 100-year or a
500-year event is now repeating itself within 10 years.
Furthermore, climate change means fundamental transformations in
agriculture worldwide. Scientists predict that, in some places, heat
waves and water shortages will make it much more difficult for farmers
to be able to grow the regular things we grow, like wheat or corn or
rice. And obviously, it’s not only farmers who will suffer here – it’s
the millions of people who depend on those crops that the farmers grow.
For example, the British government research showed that climate change
may have contributed to the famine that killed as many as 100,000 people
in Somalia just back in 2010 and 2011.
And scientists further predict that climate change also means longer,
more unpredictable monsoon seasons and more extreme weather events.
Now, I’ll tell you, I can’t tell you – no weatherman on TV or anybody is
going to be able to look at you and tell you – that one particular
storm was absolutely the result of climate change. But scientists do
predict that many more of these disastrous storms will occur if we
continue down the current path. Ladies and gentlemen, I saw with my own
eyes what the Philippines experienced in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan and I
will tell you it would be absolutely devastating if that kind of storm
were to become the normal thing that happens every single year in many
places.
On top of the unspeakable humanitarian toll, the economic cost that
follows a storm like that is absolutely massive. I don’t mean just the
billions that it costs to rebuild. We’ve seen here in Asia how extreme
weather events can disrupt world trade. For example, after serious
flooding in 2011, global prices for external computer hard drives rose
by more than 10 percent. Why? Because electronic manufacturing zones
around Bangkok were out of commission, wiped out by the weather. So it’s
not just about agriculture – it’s also about technology. It’s about our
global economy. It’s about potentially catastrophic effects on the
global supply chain.
Now, despite all of these realities – despite these facts – much of
the world still doesn’t see or want to see the need to pursue a
significant response to this threat. As recently as 2011, a survey of
city officials here in Asia found that more than 80 percent of the
population said they did not anticipate climate change hurting their
cities’ economies.
And despite more than 25 years of scientific warning after scientific
warning after scientific warning – despite all that, the call to arms
that we heard back in Rio back in 1992 – despite that, we still haven’t
globally summoned the urgency necessary to get the job done. And as a
result of this complacency, last year the amount of carbon dioxide in
our atmosphere reached the highest point in human history – despite all
the warnings.
Now, I know that these are some dramatic scientific facts –
statistics. But think of it this way: If the worst-case scenario about
climate change, all the worst predictions, if they never materialize,
what will be the harm that is done from having made the decision to
respond to it? We would actually leave our air cleaner. We would leave
our water cleaner. We would actually make our food supply more secure.
Our populations would be healthier because of fewer particulates of
pollution in the air – less cost to health care. Those are the things
that would happen if we happen to be wrong and we responded. But imagine
if the 97 percent of those scientists are correct and the people who
say no are wrong. Then the people who say no will have presented us with
one of the most catastrophic, grave threats in the history of human
life. That’s the choice here.
Notwithstanding the stark choices that we face, here’s the good
thing: there is still time. The window of time is still open for us to
be able to manage this threat. But the window is closing. And so I
wanted to come to Jakarta to talk to you because we need people all over
the world to raise their voices and to be heard. There is still time
for us to significantly cut greenhouse emissions and prevent the very
worst consequences of climate change from ever happening at all. But we
need to move on this, and we need to move together now. We just don’t
have time to let a few loud interests groups hijack the climate
conversation. And when I say that, you know what I’m talking about? I’m
talking about big companies that like it the way it is that don’t want
to change, and spend a lot of money to keep you and me and everybody
from doing what we know we need to do.
First and foremost, we should not allow a tiny minority of shoddy
scientists and science and extreme ideologues to compete with scientific
fact. Nor should we allow any room for those who think that the costs
associated with doing the right thing outweigh the benefits. There are
people who say, “Oh, it’s too expensive, we can’t do this.” No. No,
folks. We certainly should not allow more time to be wasted by those who
want to sit around debating whose responsibility it is to deal with
this threat, while we come closer and closer to the point of no return.
I have to tell you, this is really not a normal kind of difference of
opinion between people. Sometimes you can have a reasonable argument
and a reasonable disagreement over an opinion you may have. This is not
opinion. This is about facts. This is about science. The science is
unequivocal. And those who refuse to believe it are simply burying their
heads in the sand.
Now, President and I – Obama and I believe very deeply that we do not
have time for a meeting anywhere of the Flat Earth Society. One of the
arguments that we do hear is that it’s going to be too expensive to be
able to address climate change. I have to tell you, that assertion could
not be less grounded in fact. In fact, it’s exactly the opposite.
Serious analysts understand that the costs of doing nothing far outweigh
the costs of investing in solutions now. You do not need a degree in
economics or a graduate degree in business in order to understand that
the cost of flooding, the cost of drought, the cost of famine, the cost
of health care, the cost of addressing this challenge is simply far less
– the costs of addressing this challenge are far less than the costs of
doing nothing. Just look at the most recent analysis done by the World
Bank, which estimates that by 2050, losses – excuse me one second –
losses from flood damage in Asian ports – fishing ports, shipping ports –
the losses in those ports alone could exceed $1 trillion annually
unless we make big changes to the infrastructure of those ports.
Finally, if we truly want to prevent the worst consequences of
climate change from happening, we do not have time to have a debate
about whose responsibility this is. The answer is pretty simple: It’s
everyone’s responsibility. Now certainly some countries – and I will say
this very clearly, some countries, including the United States,
contribute more to the problem and therefore we have an obligation to
contribute more to the solution. I agree with that. But, ultimately,
every nation on Earth has a responsibility to do its part if we have any
hope of leaving our future generations the safe and healthy planet that
they deserve.
You have a saying, I think, here in Indonesia, “Luka di kaki, sakit
seluruh badan”. (Laughter.) I – for those that don’t speak as well as I
do – (laughter) – it means “when there’s a pain in the foot, the whole
body feels it.” Well, today in this interconnected world that we all
live in, the fact is that hardship anywhere is actually felt by people
everywhere. We all see it; we share it. And when a massive storm
destroys a village and yet another and then another in Southeast Asia;
when crops that used to grow abundantly no longer turn a profit for
farmers in South America; when entire communities are forced to relocate
because of rising tides – that’s happening – it’s not just one country
or even one region that feels the pain. In today’s globalized economy,
everyone feels it.
And when you think about it, that connection to climate change is really no different than how we confront other global threats.
Think about terrorism. We don’t decide to have just one country beef
up the airport security and the others relax their standards and let
bags on board without inspection. No, that clearly wouldn’t make us any
safer.
Or think about the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. It
doesn’t keep us safe if the United States secures its nuclear arsenal,
while other countries fail to prevent theirs from falling into the hands
of terrorists. We all have to approach this challenge together, which
is why all together we are focused on Iran and its nuclear program or
focused on North Korea and its threat.
The bottom line is this: it is the same thing with climate change.
And in a sense, climate change can now be considered another weapon of
mass destruction, perhaps the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass
destruction.
Now I mentioned earlier, a few minutes ago, that last December I went
to Tacloban in the Philippines, not long after Typhoon Haiyan. I have
to tell you: I’ve seen a lot of places in war and out of war and places
that have been destroyed, but in all the time of my life, I don’t think
I’ve ever seen devastation like. We saw cars and homes and lives turned
upside-down, trees scattered like toothpicks all across a mountainside.
And most devastating of all, so quickly, that storm stole the lives of
more than 5,000 people – women, and children who never saw it coming.
The fact is that climate change, if left unchecked, will wipe out
many more communities from the face of the earth. And that is
unacceptable under any circumstances – but is even more unacceptable
because we know what we can do and need to do in order to deal with this
challenge.
It is time for the world to approach this problem with the
cooperation, the urgency, and the commitment that a challenge of this
scale warrants. It’s absolutely true that industrialized countries –
yes, industrialized countries that produce most of the emissions – have a
huge responsibility to be able to reduce emissions, but I’m telling you
that doesn’t mean that other nations have a free pass. They don’t have a
right to go out and repeat the mistakes of the past. It’s not enough
for one country or even a few countries to reduce their emissions when
other countries continue to fill the atmosphere with carbon pollution as
they see fit. At the end of the day, emissions coming from anywhere in
the world threaten the future for people everywhere in the world,
because those emissions go up and then they move with the wind and they
drop with the rain and the weather, and they keep going around and
around and they threaten all of us.
Now, as I’ve already acknowledged, I am the first one to recognize
the responsibility that the United States has, because we have
contributed to this problem. We’re one of the number – we’re the number
two emitter of greenhouse gas emissions. The number one is now China.
The fact is that I recognize the responsibility that we have to erase
the bad habits that we have, which we adopted, frankly, before we
understood the consequences. Nobody set out to make this happen. This is
the consequence of the industrial revolution and the transformation of
the world, and many of the advances that we made that have changed the
world for the better came from these steps. But now we do know the
attendant consequences that are linked to these actions.
President Obama has taken the moral challenge head on. Over the past
five years, the United States has done more to reduce the threat of
climate change – domestically and with the help of our international
partners – than in the 20 years before President Obama came to office.
Thanks to President Obama’s Climate Action Plan, the United States is
well on our way to meeting the international commitments to seriously
cut our greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, and that’s because we’re going
straight to the largest sources of pollution. We’re targeting emissions
from transportation – cars trucks, rail, et cetera – and from power
sources, which account together for more than 60 percent of the
dangerous greenhouse gases that we release.
The President has put in place standards to double the
fuel-efficiency of cars on American roads. And we’ve also proposed
curbing carbon pollution from new power plants, and similar regulations
are in the works to limit the carbon pollution coming from power plants
that are already up and already running.
At the same time, Americans have actually doubled the amount of
energy we are creating from wind, solar, and geothermal sources, and
we’ve become smarter about the way we use energy in our homes and in our
businesses. A huge amount of carbon pollution comes out of buildings,
and it’s important in terms of the lighting, in terms of the emissions
from those buildings, the air conditioning – all these kinds of things
thought through properly can contribute to the solution. As a result,
today in the United States, we are emitting less than we have in two
decades.
We’re also providing assistance to international partners, like
Indonesia. This year the Millennium Challenge Corporation launched the
$332 million Green Prosperity program to help address deforestation and
support innovation and clean energy throughout the country. We also
implemented what we called “debt for nature” swaps, where we forgive
some of the debt – and we have forgiven some of Indonesia’s debt – in
return for investments in the conservation of forests in Sumatra and
Kalimantan.
But the United States – simple reality: just as I talked about the
scientific facts in the beginning, this is a fact – the United States
cannot solve this problem or foot the bill alone. Even if every single
American got on a bicycle tomorrow and carpooled – instead of – or
carpooled to school instead of buses or riding in individual cars or
driving, or rode their bike to work, or used only solar powers – panels
in order to power their homes; if we each, every American, planted a
dozen trees; if we eliminated all of our domestic greenhouse gas
emissions – guess what? That still wouldn’t be enough to counter the
carbon pollution coming from the rest of the world. Because today, if
even one or two economies neglects to respond to this threat, it can
counter, erase all of the good work that the rest of the world has done.
When I say we need a global solution, I mean we need a global solution.
That is why the United States is prepared to take the lead in
bringing other nations to the table. And this is something that
President Obama is deeply committed to. And as Secretary of State, I am
personally committed to making sure that this work is front and center
in all of our diplomatic efforts. This week I will be instructing all of
the chiefs of our missions at American embassies all over the world to
make climate change a top priority and to use all the tools of diplomacy
that they have at their disposal in order to help address this threat.
Now I have just come here today, I arrived last night from China,
where I met with government leaders and we discussed our cooperation,
our collaboration on this climate change front at length. The Chinese
see firsthand every single day how dangerous pollution can be. I
recently read that an 8-year-old girl was diagnosed with lung cancer
because of all the air pollution that she was inhaling. Eight years old.
And the devastating human toll pollution, it takes comes with a very
hefty price tag: Air pollution already costs China as much as 8 percent
of its GDP because two things happen as a result of the pollution:
healthcare spending goes up and agricultural output goes down.
Now I am pleased to tell you that the leaders of China agree that it
is time to pursue a cleaner path forward. And China is taking steps, and
we have already taken significant steps together through the U.S.-China
Climate Change Working Group that we launched in Beijing last year.
Just yesterday, we announced a new agreement on an enhanced policy of
dialogue that includes the sharing of information and policies so that
we can help develop plans to deal with the UN climate change negotiation
that takes place in Paris next year, in planning for the post-2020
limit to greenhouse gas emissions. These plans are a key input into UN
negotiations to develop a new global climate agreement, and we have
hopes that this unique partnership between China and the United States
can help set an example for global leadership and global seriousness.
Now make no mistake: this is real progress. The U.S. and China are
the world’s two largest economies. We are two of the largest consumers
of energy, and we are two of the largest emitters of global greenhouse
gases – together we account for roughly 40 percent of the world’s
emissions.
But this is not just about china and the United States. It’s about
every country on Earth doing whatever it can to pursue cleaner and
healthier energy sources. And it’s about the all of us literally
treating the pain in the foot, so the whole body hurts a little less.
Now this is going to require us to continue the UN negotiations and
ultimately finalize an ambitious global agreement in Paris next year.
And nations need to also be pursuing smaller bilateral agreements,
public-private partnerships, independent domestic initiatives – you name
it. There’s nothing to stop any of you from helping to push here, to
pick things that you can do in Indonesia. It’s time for us to recognize
that the choices the world makes in the coming months and years will
directly and substantially affect our quality of life for generations to
come.
Now I tell you, I’m looking out at a young audience here. All of you
are the leaders of the future. And what we’re talking about is what kind
of world are we going to leave you. I know that some of what I’m
talking about here today, it seems awful big, and some of it may even
like it’s out of reach to you. But I have to tell you it’s not. One
person in one place can make a difference – by talking about how they
manage a building, how they heat a school, what kind of things you do
for recycling, transportation you use. What you don’t – I think what you
don’t hear enough about today, unfortunately, and I’ve saved it for the
end, because I want you to leave here feeling, wow, we can get
something done. There’s a big set of opportunities in front of us. And
that’s because the most important news of all: that climate change isn’t
only a challenge. It’s not only a burden. It also presents one of the
greatest economic opportunities of all time.
The global energy market is the future. The solution to climate
change is energy policy. And this market is poised to be the largest
market the world has ever known. Between now and 2035, investment in the
energy sector is expected to reach nearly $17 trillion. That’s more
than the entire GDP of China and India combined.
The great technology – many of you have your smart phones or your
iPads, et cetera, here today – all of this technology that we use so
much today was a $1 trillion market in the 1990s with 1 billion users.
The energy market is a $6 trillion market with, today, 6 billion users,
and it’s going to grow to maybe 9 billion users over the course of the
next 20, 30, 40 years. The solution to climate change is as clear as the
problem. The solution is making the right choices on energy policy.
It’s as simple as that. And with a few smart choices, we can ensure that
clean energy is the most attractive investment in the global energy
sector.
To do this, governments and international financial institutions need
to stop providing incentives for the use of energy sources like coal
and oil. Instead, we have to make the most of the innovative energy
technology that entrepreneurs are developing all over the world –
including here in Indonesia, where innovative companies like Sky Energy
are building solar and battery storage and projects that can help power
entire villages.
And we have to invest in new technology that will help us bring
renewable energy sources like solar, wind, and hydro power not only to
the communities where those resources are abundant –but to every
community and to every country on every continent.
I am very well aware that these are not easy choices for any country
to make – I know that. I’ve been in politics for a while. I know the
pull and different powerful political forces. Coal and oil are currently
cheap ways to power a society, at least in the near term. But I urge
governments to measure the full cost to that coal and that oil, measure
the impacts of what will happen as we go down the road. You cannot
simply factor in the immediate costs of energy needs. You have to factor
in the long-term cost of carbon pollution. And they have to factor in
the cost of survival. And if they do, then governments will find that
the cost of pursuing clean energy now is far cheaper than paying for the
consequences of climate change later.
Make no mistake: the technology is out there. None of this is beyond our capacity.
I am absolutely confident that if we choose to, we will meet this
challenge. Remember: we’re the ones – we, all of us, the world – helped
to discover things like penicillin and we eradicated smallpox. We found a
way to light up the night all around the world with a flip of the
switch and spread that technology to more than three quarters of the
world’s population. We came up with a way for people to fly and move
from one place to another in the air between cities and across oceans,
and into outer space. And we put the full wealth of human knowledge into
a device we can hold in our hand that does all of the thinking that
used to take up a whole room almost this size.
Human ingenuity has long proven its ability to solve seemingly
insurmountable challenges. It is not a lack of ability that is a
problem. It is a lack of political resolve that is standing in our way.
And I will tell you as somebody who ran for elected office, when you
hear from the people, when the people make it clear what they want and
what they think they need, then people in politics respond.
Today I call on all of you in Indonesia and concerned citizens around
the world to demand the resolve that is necessary from your leaders.
Speak out. Make climate change an issue that no public official can
ignore for another day. Make a transition towards clean energy the only
plan that you are willing to accept.
And if we come together now, we can not only meet the challenge, we
can create jobs and economic growth in every corner of the globe. We can
clean up the air, we can improve the health of people, we can have
greater security; we can make our neighborhoods healthier places to
live; we can help ensure that farmers and fishers can still make a
sustainable living and feed our communities; and we can avoid disputes
and even entire wars over oil, water, and other limited resources. We
can make good on the moral responsibility we all have to leave future
generations with a planet that is clean and healthy and sustainable for
the future.
The United States is ready to work with you in this endeavor. With
Indonesia and the rest of the world pulling in the same direction, we
can meet this challenge, the greatest challenge of our generation, and
we can create the future that everybody dreams of.
Thank you all very much for letting me be with you. Thank you. (Applause.)
Source : http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2014/02/221704.htm
Source : http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2014/02/221704.htm
Key reports that cover impact of #climatechange and climatic variability on poverty http://t.co/W2s9qgIU7e #climate @Scribd
— World Bank Pubs (@WBPubs) February 16, 2014
http://t.co/EYAYyi0kCi @JohnKerry Climate change as big a threat as terrorism @ASEANCom2015 @Asean1Community @Hary_Tanoe @wiranto1947
— James Rudyanto (@translatorbali) February 19, 2014
It's time for world to approach #climatechange with the commitment a challenge of this scale warrants. http://t.co/xPs0O9pNKW @ASEAN
— James Rudyanto (@translatorbali) February 18, 2014
Robert O. Blake Jr.
Ambassador
U.S. Embassy Jakarta, Indonesia
U.S. Embassy Jakarta, Indonesia
Ambassador Robert O. Blake, Jr. arrived November 21, 2013 in Jakarta
and presented his credentials to President Yudhoyono on January 30,
2014. Previously, Ambassador Blake served as Assistant Secretary of
State for South and Central Asian Affairs from 2009-2013. He also served
as Ambassador to the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka and the
Republic of Maldives from 2006 to 2009. Prior to that, Ambassador Blake
served in India, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, and Nigeria as well as
holding several positions at the State Department in Washington DC. He
received a B.A. from Harvard College and an M.A. from John Hopkins
School of Advanced International Studies.
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