KEYNOTE REMARKS: BIOEONOMY AND CLIMATE CHANGE FORUM

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Economic, Energy, Agricultural and Trade Issues: Keynote Remarks at the Bioeconomy and Climate Change Forum
05/06/2015 01:10 PM EDT
Keynote Remarks at the Bioeconomy and Climate Change Forum
Remarks
Charles H. Rivkin
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs
Washington, DC
May 6, 2015
As prepared

Thank you, Eric, for that introduction.

Good morning everyone, and a special welcome to our ambassadors and others from the foreign diplomatic corps here today.

Before I continue, I’d like to thank the many people responsible for today’s event, including our partner, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, or BIO. I look forward to hearing from Jim Greenwood, President and CEO, in just a few minutes.

I also want to thank all the people in the State Department who worked on this event for their outstanding support and participation in making this event happen. That includes, in particular, the Foreign Service Institute, as well as the Office of Global Food Security, the Office of the Science and Technology Advisor, the Bureau of Oceans, Environment, and Scientific Affairs, and of course our own Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs.

With that, I am delighted to kick off today’s event which will explore some of the innovative and exciting things this extended community is doing to address climate change. This is really one of the most challenging issues of our time but it is truly bringing out the best and brightest among us to respond.

As I thought about climate change and how far we have come, I thought about Homer’s Iliad, the ancient story of Helen of Troy – whose face launched a thousand ships to bring her back to Greece.

But before those ships could launch, they needed a favorable wind. So they consulted a prophet named Calchas, a man who examined animal entrails and observed the flight of birds to make his prognostications. He told the Greeks they would get their wind if their leader sacrificed his only daughter to the gods.

Back then, that’s what passed for climate science. Today, every Greek warrior would simply pull out a smartphone and check his weather app!

Of course, the Iliad’s a myth, set more than 3,000 years ago. But I use it to show just how far science has come and how technology is literally in our hands, letting us do things previous generations would have considered beyond the power of mere mortals. Most importantly, we are using the great discoveries of biotechnology to address climate change in more effective, sustainable and widely applicable ways.

Last fall, I went to Des Moines, Iowa, to attend the World Food Prize, and to speak about biotechnology as a tool for hunger alleviation and job creation. While there, I had the opportunity to join a farmer in central Iowa, sit in the buddy seat of his John Deere S670 combine harvester, and watch him work.

As we moved through the cornfields, his combine gathered, husked and shelled 12 rows of corn at a time, turning them into bushels of instant grain. He checked his progress with onboard computers and GPS technology. These helped him deposit seed and fertilizer precisely, and even showed if he had missed a single ear of corn!

While he was doing this, he spoke about the importance of international markets for American agriculture, and how he had once hosted President Xi Jinping of China at his farm.

In just one ride on a combine, I saw a farmer using technology to enhance his livelihood and engage fully within the global economy. I also saw how biotechnology was helping farmers to use sustainable techniques that reduce our carbon footprint and address climate change.

Of course, climate change cuts across all sectors of the bioeconomy, which not only include agriculture but health, industry and energy. It is one of the biggest threats of our time with a decisive role in everything from pandemic diseases to crop damage, and from famine to widespread destruction of homes and habitats.

One question for our time is this: Can we direct the kind of innovation that has already built the bioeconomy towards addressing these enormous challenges?

The answer is “yes,” if we continue to build on the incredible innovative progress we have made so far – and are making right now – in the biosciences.

It’s “yes,” as long as we share the same consensus mission: to provide for humanity’s ever growing needs while reducing our carbon footprint.

Finally, it’s “yes,” if we ensure that our breakthroughs not only create benefits for society but are sustainable in the global market.

Right now, in the United States, the bioeconomy is worth more than $300 billion dollars and already supports 1.6 million jobs. It can, and it should, grow more because, quite simply, we have no choice: We have to invent our way to solutions or face the consequences.

The good news is, innovation is central to our DNA. That’s clearly evident in the bioeconomy. We are finding ways to transform our waste into valuable resources. We are making our production processes more efficient and sustainable. Instead of addressing disease with chemically derived medicines that respond to symptoms, we are using biologically derived vaccines that work on the causes. And we are creating sustainable biofuels to drive our cars, warm our homes, and light up our workplaces.

But innovation needs support from many corners, from the funding of research to the protection of intellectual property rights; from a free and open internet to the imaginative partnerships that government and the private sector can create so that more people are free to make those powerful discoveries that benefit us all.

From the government corner, we need to address macro policies that respond to climate change. We need to agree on global commitments that count, metrics that matter, and standards that improve conditions.

The Obama administration has already shown its ongoing commitment in this space. It recently announced a target of reducing our greenhouse gas emissions by 26 to 28 percent in 2025 compared with 2005.

Last November, President Obama and President Xi Jinping of China made an historic Joint Announcement of our intended targets, with China agreeing for the first time to a peak year for its CO2 emissions of around 2030 and to an ambitious target of 20 percent clean energy in its energy mix by 2030.

This December in Paris, we are looking to establish, for the first time, an ambitious, durable climate regime that applies to all countries, is fair, and focuses on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and building resilience.

Our commitment to address climate change is as widespread as it is focused.

We launched the Global Alliance for Climate Smart Agriculture, which works to produce more food, adapt to a changing climate, and reduce greenhouse gases.

We support the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Climate Technology Center and Network, and the Green Climate Fund, both of which support the efforts of developing countries in different ways to adapt to climate change.

That includes work to protect forests, support resilient agricultural sectors, and reduce greenhouse gases, while generating economic opportunities for their citizens.

We also invest billions in research and development of low carbon technologies and energy efficiency.

On other fronts, my Bureau has a leading role in making sure investors, entrepreneurs, researchers and the entire bio-economic extended community can be more connected, integrated, efficient and profitable.

For example, we advocate in world forums for a free internet to keep open channels of information, commerce and trade. We are integral to the negotiations in two ongoing multilateral trade deals that will not only break down barriers to trade and investment but set new environmental standards for member nations.

We also foster innovation by establishing legal frameworks that protect intellectual property rights, minimize corruption, and reward entrepreneurship.

The government has unique assets in at least two other ways. First of all, we have convening authority: We can assemble political leaders, scientists, economists, university leaders, business leaders and multilateral bodies to pursue mutually agreed upon goals.

Secondly, we have 270 embassies and posts around the world – our shoes on the ground, you might say – to extend our messages and outreach with citizens, political leaders and civil society organizations everywhere.

While the U.S. Government works to play its part, there are roles for a wide array of other actors in the bioeconomy, including other governments, multilateral bodies, businesses, universities, entrepreneurs, and scientists.

As I glance around this room, I can see a good representation of that global community. I look forward to hearing more about the stories you have to tell.

We have so much to build on; so many success stories in biotechnology, as we work to combat the effects of climate change. As I mentioned, one of the consequences of climate change is the increased risk of insect-borne disease exposure, such as dengue and malaria, in places such as Florida and Texas. The National Science Foundation has supported research that reengineers microorganisms to produce an anti-malarial drug. It’s called artemisinin and new companies are already putting it on the market.

That’s a perfect illustration of the bioeconomy at its best: Funded innovative research addresses a serious problem, using cross-disciplinary biosciences. The private sector brings it to market and makes it available globally. The problem is addressed.

As I learned on my trip to Iowa, the agricultural sector continues to benefit from innovation. We are making more sustainable use of land and water. We are developing drought tolerant varieties of corn, nutritionally enhanced rice, and disease resistant oranges. These are crucial breakthroughs as we also try to feed a global population that will reach an estimated 9 billion by the year 2050.

These and other stories prove to me that, despite the size and scale of our challenges, we are rising to meet them head on. I believe it’s because, throughout human history, we have made productive use of innovation since we first learned to rub two sticks together.

Back then it was sticks. Now we’re creating genetically modified mosquitos that don’t carry malaria. We are turning algae into jet fuel. We are making apples that don’t brown and potatoes that produce fewer carcinogens when fried.

Of course, with innovation comes change – and inevitably resistance. Charles Kettering, an American inventor and former head of research at General Motors, who owned 186 patents, once said: “The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress.”

The bioeconomy is all about progress, from the cellular level to the macro-economic level, as we work to grow an ecosystem of invention and reinvention that creates the products and processes for a more sustainable future. We may not seem as powerful and impressive as those ancient Greek warriors, waiting for their favorable wind. But if you compare the stakes we face, we can make the case that we’re more modern heroes. By creating a viable, sustainable bioeconomy, we are not only enhancing and sustaining society; we are contributing to a more ecologically balanced planet. For my money, that beats getting Helen back from Troy any time!

Thank you.

SECRETARY KERRY MEETS WITH CHINESE BUSINESS LEADERS

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT 
Secretary Kerry Roundtable with Chinese CEOs on Investment and Innovation
Fact Sheet
Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
November 8, 2014

Secretary of State John Kerry met with Chinese business leaders in Beijing today to discuss the importance of open investment climates and innovation as critical ingredients for continued economic success. The Secretary led an interactive discussion on the value of an open, transparent and predictable investment environment in promoting entrepreneurship and job creation.

Representing $20 billion in existing investments in the United States and annual revenues of over $120 billion, the participants included the Chairmen and CEOs of about ten companies across several sectors, including real estate, technology entertainment, manufacturing, and food products.

Secretary Kerry was joined at this event by U.S. Ambassador to China Max Baucus, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Commerce Bruce Andrews, Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Robert Holleyman, and Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs Charles Rivkin.

The roundtable focused on areas of cooperation between the United States and China that would expand economic opportunities in both countries and strengthen the foundation for global growth. The following essential building blocks of a cutting edge, innovative economy were highlighted:

Trade and Investment: An open, transparent, and predictable investment environment gives businesses confidence to invest and helps spur innovation, economic growth, and job creation. The U.S. government welcomes foreign direct investment, including from China. Chinese investment in the United States benefits both countries and demonstrates the concept of “shared prosperity.” Our growing two-way trade and investment relationship is fueling economic growth and job creation in both countries and is a key pillar in our overall bilateral relationship.

Intellectual Property Rights: Better intellectual property rights protection and enforcement are in our common interest and are critical to economic growth in both China and the United States. Robust patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret systems provide vital incentives for innovators to take the risk to develop and commercialize new ideas. Adhering to clear and consistently-applied rules and regulations creates predictable markets where businesses are confident to invest.

Free Flow of Information: The U.S. government strongly supports respect for freedom of expression, including on the Internet. The more freely information flows, the stronger our societies become. The open exchange of information, including on the Internet, enables companies and employees to share and refine ideas, allowing the broader economy to benefit from their diversity.

At the roundtable, Secretary Kerry invited participants to apply to attend the SelectUSA 2015 Summit that U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker will host on March 23-24, 2015 in Washington, DC. The event will connect businesses and investors from around the world with U.S. economic development organizations at the state, regional, and local levels. Participants will benefit from unique networking opportunities; one-on-one meetings; moderated panels; and discussions on the latest information on business investment. Established by President Obama in 2011, SelectUSA promotes and facilitates business investment into the United States as part of efforts to strengthen America’s global competitiveness.

SECRETARY KERRY'S REMARKS AT CLEAN TECH CHALLENGE TAMAYO MUSEUM, MEXICO

THE STATE DEPARTMENT 

Remarks at CleanTech Challenge

Remarks

John Kerry

Secretary of State

Tamayo Museum

Mexico City, Mexico

May 21, 2014

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SECRETARY KERRY: (Applause.) Muy buenas noches a todos. (Inaudible.) (Laughter.) (Inaudible.) What an enormous pleasure for me to be here. I’m really delighted to be able to join you, and I hope everybody can hear me. Can you all hear? Okay?

AUDIENCE: (Off-mike.)

SECRETARY KERRY: (Inaudible) can hear? (Inaudible.)

Dr. Aguirre-Torres, thank you very, very much. Thank you for your leadership. Thank you for bringing everybody together here. And I’m particularly happy to be able to be here as we launch the final round of the 2014 CleanTech Challenge. I’m very grateful to Dr. Torres for the visionary leadership that he has shown, and I’m grateful to all of you who are part of this incredibly important exercise, and I’ll talk a little more about that in a minute. But you all have turned the CleanTech Challenge into the top green business plan competition in all of Latin America, and I think you ought to be very, very proud of that. It’s a pleasure to be joining so many contestants, judges, mentors, innovators, and it’s clear that you are not only lifting Mexico’s economy, but with the successes that are achieved, you are designing things that have the ability to lift other people’s economies.

I had a chance just a little while ago to feast briefly – unfortunately, too briefly – on the historic central square with Diego Rivera’s remarkable murals. And I suppose from the prehistoric[1] palaces of the Aztecs to the Zocalo’s towering cathedral to this museum that we are gathered in today, Mexico has always had a very, very special sense of history, a very special commitment to culture and an extraordinary (inaudible). As much as we admire that past, I am not here to talk about the past, nor are you. Every single person here is fixated on the future, and that’s what we’re here to talk about.

And that’s appropriate. Because today, our global economy is more interconnected than it has ever been or than perhaps any of us might have imagined it might have become as fast as it has. I want to emphasize, the work of diplomacy is not just about our shared security and thinking about borders and terrorism and narcotics and all of those kinds of things. That’s not all that is at stake. It is about creating shared prosperity. And no society is going to survive unless it has a strong foundation of shared prosperity. There are many places in the world, including in my country, where the divide between people at the top and people struggling to get to the middle even is much too big. The way we’re going to deal with this is not through political speeches; it’s going to be through innovation, through hard work, through research, through education, and creating the kind of opportunity that creates the products of the future.
I want to emphasize to everybody here, from the day that I became Secretary of State, President Obama and I have been on a mission to emphasize to people that economics is not some separate component of policy. Foreign policy is economic policy and economic policy is foreign policy. And when you look at the world today, with millions of young people, whole countries where 60, 65 percent in a few cases, but many cases 55 and 60 percent of the young people are under the age of 30, 50 percent are under the age of 21, and 40 percent are under the age of 18. And if we don’t provide jobs and opportunity and education that is the entryway to those jobs and opportunity, we’re all going to have a much tougher time making the world safer. It’s just the bottom line.

So what we’re here to do is now us, together, through the green business design and the planning, is celebrate the idea that you can do things that are good for the broad society even as you do well for yourselves. You can make money and make life better.

I know people who only invest on that basis. They always make a judgment about their investment as to what it’s going to create in terms of community and society. So that’s why competitions like this are really so important. A few minutes ago, I had an opportunity with Aguirre to be able to go in and look at the table that had a few successes on it. And it’s incredible what people are able to do with their imagination in the context of today’s challenges.
So President Obama and I – and this is the part that I want to convey in coming here to Mexico City today – we are deeply committed to elevating our partnership with Mexico on innovation, entrepreneurship, and clean energy.

USAID is a very proud sponsor of the CleanTech Challenge, and our challenge is clear: in the past, we used to trade together. Today, due to trade relationships, we build together. In the future, we want to innovate and invent together. And we believe in the possibilities of a Mexico-U.S. strength with respect to that. If any nation has an ability to be able to drive towards that horizon, we believe it is Mexico. And if there’s one person – I mean, I’ll give you an example. Why do I believe that? Well, go look at the table that I just looked at up there. One of the inventions up there is made by a young man, or comes from the mind of a young man, by the name of Gerardo Patino.

Many of you know Gerardo. He won this competition last year, and his story should be an inspiration to everybody. He grew up in the small mountain town of Tepoztlan. But from an early age, he always had a big idea. And he was – Gerardo wanted to protect the environment. So he left the mountains just south of here and he worked really hard to get a first-class education. And when he graduated, he didn’t just cash in, he didn’t just take the easy path. He was prepared to take risks. He wanted to give back, even if that meant traveling a difficult road.
So he founded Terra Humana – Humans for the Earth. And his goal was to reinvent the way that we use water. Gerardo worked with engineers to develop a new technology that treats water so that plants can absorb it better for agricultural irrigation. And his device was really groundbreaking. But guess what? A lot of entrepreneurs will tell you, it’s not an easy thing to take it from a head to the shelf. It’s not easy always to get it out there into the marketplace. And Gerardo will tell you that, that getting farmers to adopt it was like asking them to believe in magic, he says. He literally had to go door to door, show each farmer, farm to farm, to sell his device. But guess what? Now he’s in the sixth year. His invention has moved from generation to generation, year to year. And it can cut agricultural water use by up to 30 percent.

Gerardo, his story, puts a human face on something that is pretty profound and pretty fundamental: The United States and Mexico are growing clean and growing green together. And never forget that what you’re doing is not hypothetical. It’s not a theory. It’s real. And it matters to the lives of real people.

It absolutely matters that the CleanTech Challenge in Mexico has produced nearly 200 clean technology businesses. It matters that the CleanTech Challenge has created more than 2,500 green jobs. It matters that the hundreds of companies that are engaged in this competition – entrepreneurs just like Gerardo – are on track to slash nearly 22 million metric tons of CO2, greenhouse gases, over the next five years.

Now, there’s an old saying in Mexico, and it’s not one that I know because I’ve been here a long time, but I know it. And I think it’s more appropriate for this occasion: “Aquel que no mira hacia adelante, se queda atras” – “If you don’t look ahead, you’re going to be looking behind.” And I look out at all of you and I think that’s accurate.

The question now is not just whether you’re looking ahead. It’s whether or not you can look ahead and translate what you see into something real that people will be able to use. And the secret to that is the meeting we had earlier this morning with your education leaders and our education leaders. The secret is three words: education, innovation, and conservation.
Now, this morning, we talked a lot about that and we are looking to you, the next generation, for the next big idea. But ideas alone are clearly not going to be enough to be able to get things to the market. You need to link the idea to the market and to a viable business plan, and ultimately find the capital, the finance to be able to go out and take it to the marketplace.

So I think that what we’re building between the U.S. and Mexican educational institutions, through the Bilateral Forum on Higher Education, Innovation and Research, is the foundation to be able to take this idea of green business planning and actually turn it into a bigger reality for all of us.

Now, let me just say to all of you, through the Mexico-U.S. Entrepreneurship and Innovation Council – MUSEIC – we are bringing together people from the private sector and the public sector in order to test new ideas. And we’re creating an environment where innovation hopefully can flourish. We’re going to create boot camps for young Mexican entrepreneurs and conferences that connect Latin diaspora communities in the United States with entrepreneurs in Mexico.

This is an important effort. And as part of this commitment, we are going to make a $400,000 grant to the University of Texas in Austin so that it can host four technology startup boot camps. And guess what? One of them is going to take place right here in Mexico. We’re also providing $100,000 to bring the National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps model to Mexico. And this is going to help provide entrepreneurship training to Mexican scientists and support their efforts to build cutting-edge technology startups.

I’m also particularly proud of our Peace Corps program here in Mexico, which is focused on science, technology, and the environment. I think we have some of our volunteers here, do we? Raise your hands. Peace Corps volunteers, thank you very much for what you are doing. We deeply appreciate it. (Applause.)

So let me try to make this as real as I can. We are educating and innovating. But we really have an urgency about this. Just before I came down here, I caught about 10 minutes in my hotel room and happened to see CNN, and I saw the temperatures around the world right now – the flooding in Serbia, and the incredible storms that are taking place in France and elsewhere. Thirty-four degrees centigrade in Vietnam today, in May. Twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-two, thirty-three in places all around Europe. Unprecedented. Breaks every record that’s ever been seen. What we are seeing around the world is what scientists have predicted. They’re not telling us that we may see global climate change. We are seeing it, and we’re seeing the impacts now. And we are closer and closer to a time where the tipping point that they’ve warned us about is going to be reached. It’s becoming more and more dangerous. All you have to do is look at the last two reports, and particularly the IPCC report of the United Nations, with 97 percent of the scientists of the world warning us about the devastating impact of global climate change if we don’t take action -- and take serious action – soon.

Now, I’d just say to all of you: What is the solution to climate change? It’s very simple. It’s energy policy. Energy policy is the solution to climate change. We have to stop providing energy to buildings, to automobiles, airplanes, houses, electricity plants, with fuel that we know is creating more and more of the problem in a compounded fashion. Fossil fuel coal-fired power plant, so forth.

And I ask you just to think about the possibilities. The marketplace that made America particularly wealthy in the 1990s – a lot of people don’t focus on this. The United States got wealthier in the 1990s than we got during the Gilded Age, during the Rockefellers, Morgans, Pierponts, Fricks, all of that period of no taxes. People got wealthier in the 1990s. And they did it with a $1 trillion market that served 1 billion users – one and one.
The energy market that we are staring at today is right now, today, a $6 trillion market with 4 to 5 billion users, and it’s going to grow to 9 billion users by about 2035, with about $17 trillion of expenditure and maybe more – who knows? So the bottom line is this: The countries, the people, the individuals who design the means of providing that clean, alternative, renewable, sustainable energy are the people who are going to help save the Earth, life itself, as well as help their countries to do enormously better.

And I would just close by saying to all of you, there’s still a debate in some places about why we ought to do it or whether it’s real – amazingly. But let me ask you something. If we do what you know you can do as entrepreneurs, as scientists, as innovators, if we do it, and if we were wrong about the science – which I don’t believe we are, but if we were – and we move to new and sustainable energy, what is the worst thing that could happen to us? The worst thing is we would create millions of new jobs; we would transition to cleaner energy, which hopefully would be homegrown, which makes every country much more secure; we would have cleaner air, which would mean we have less hospitalization for children for asthma and people with particulates causing cancer; and we would have greater energy security for everybody and independence as a result. That’s the worst that could happen.

What’s the worst that happens if the other guys are wrong, the people who don’t want to move in this direction? Catastrophe. Lack of water. Lack of capacity to grow food in many parts of the world. Refugees for climate. People fighting wars over water. Devastation in terms of sea-level rise. We’re already seeing it in the Pacific.

So I’d just close by saying to all of you, this is an important meeting. This is an important initiative. This is how we have a chance to define the future, and this is how Mexico and the United States can do it together – by innovating, conserving, and educating. This is one big challenge.

It was the great Mexican novelist Octavio Paz who said: “Deserve your dream.” Well, I think everybody here deserves it. The question is now: Are we going to go get it? Are we going to live it? That’s what this is about. And I hope, together, we’re going to redefine the future.
Thank you all very, very much.

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[1] pre-Hispanic

SECRETARY OF STATE KERRY'S REMARKS TO GREENING EMBASSIES FORUM

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT 
Remarks to the D.C. Greening Embassies Forum
Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Washington, DC
October 29, 2013

Thank you. Thank you very, very much. Thank you. I apologize. Thank you. I apologize for running a little bit late, and I was catching up on old times outside there with Denis Hayes and Jeanne Shaheen and a few people. Forgive me for that, but I’m glad to be here. Alaina, thank you – there you are – for the incredible work that you’ve been doing as the Director of the Department’s Office of Policy, Rightsizing, and Innovation. And I want to thank all of you for taking time to come here and be part of our Earth Day Network/Embassy/State Department effort here. And I’m particularly happy that you all had a chance to hear from Denis Hayes to start with.
Denis and I go back – he just reminded me – 43 years, to 1971, 1970 and the first Earth Day. First thing I did, sort of, politically when I came back from Vietnam back in 1969, then going into 1970, was help organize Earth Day in Massachusetts. And I think one of the first speeches I ever gave anywhere – I was terrified in some school somewhere – was about the environment and Earth Day way back then. And since then, I was New England chairman of Earth Day 20-year anniversary in 1990, and we had a million people come out along the Esplanade in Boston and we literally painted Star Drive green – literally – with an obviously environmentally friendly, erasable paint. (Laughter.) But it was fun and we had this incredible Earth Day show on the Esplanade and it was very, very exciting for everybody who took part in it.

And then of course, those of us who took part in Earth Day are fond of reminding people that the result of that event – where 20 million people came out of their homes to speak to the country, and particularly their elected representatives – the result of that was that we created a political movement that actually held people accountable. The first thing that political movement did was not just end on the one-day event and coming out, but became part of campaigns across the country and targeted the so-called “dirty dozen,” the 12 worst environmental votes in the United States Congress.

And I am happy to tell you that seven of the 12 were defeated in that 1972 election, the result of which was that immediately, Congress took about – responding to the fact – whoops, looks like the environment has electoral power; we’d better do something. And therefore, the Clean Air Act was passed, the Clean Water Act was passed, the Safe Drinking Water Act was passed, Marine Mammal Protection was passed, Coastal Zone Management was passed, and we actually created the Environmental Protection Agency that we didn’t even have in America until Earth Day sparked that sense of conscience.

So people being involved makes just an enormous difference. And I regret to say that a lot of people then went home thinking, “Oh, my God, we’ve done it. It’s worked.” And of course, we haven’t done it. It hasn’t yet worked. We face this enormous challenge still in front of us with climate change and energy and energy policy and energy uses. And that’s what brings us here today.

I’m also glad to know that Jon Powers was here and I gather you already heard from him. Jon Powers and I met about maybe close to 10 years ago now right after he came back from a lengthy tour of duty in Iraq, and he has been significantly engaged in public life and public endeavor, and I’m delighted that he is now our Federal Environmental Executive and working on these issues.

And of course, my great, great friend and colleague Jeanne Shaheen from New Hampshire, my neighbor as well as my friend, who is one of the leading voices in the Congress on the subject of energy and has done a terrific job of helping to push that agenda, was one of my real collaborators in our efforts to try to pass a climate piece of legislation.

So this forum, if I can just say to everybody, on greening embassies is a part of the continuum that I’ve – of the effort that I’ve just described to you, and it’s the perfect way to really mark World Energy Day. And it’s also the second birthday of the State Department’s own Bureau of Energy Resources. So we think this is a good moment to be here to talk about this particular subject. And it is clear that if you’re serious about talking about energy policy and serious about doing something about climate change, one of the first places that you start is in dealing with buildings.

Why? Because amazingly, the energy used to power buildings accounts for about one third of all global energy demand and regrettably almost 40 percent of all of our associated CO2 emissions. So buildings contribute to global climate change and buildings are a huge source of pollution as a consequence of that. The fact is that they emit more carbon and more pollution than all of the cars, trucks, planes, and – cars, trucks, trains, and airplanes. That’s it. (Laughter.) What more do you want? (Laughter.) So by greening our embassies, we are really taking one other important step in the effort to try to contribute to a larger effort with buildings around the world.

So let me just quickly remind you why this is so important. I am amazed after all these years that we’re still struggling here in a very educated country to get a lot of people to embrace and understand why this is not a matter of theory, a matter of mere policy, but a matter of urgency for life itself on the planet as we know it. And the IPCC report that was recently released that assessed where we are in climate change now and what science continues to tell us about climate change is underscored by saying to you that it is documenting that everything that scientists predicted 20 and 30 years ago is now coming true at a faster rate and to a greater degree than was predicted.

Now if people can’t draw a sort of reality curve out of that, we’re in serious trouble. Because everywhere you see these consequences. You see it in less winter in places that used to have winter. You see it in millions of acres of forest that is destroyed in Canada and Colorado, Montana, various places because a pine bark beetle now lives that didn’t use to live as long because it doesn’t get cold and wipe it out when it used to. You can see it in all kinds of ways, in the migration of certain kinds of plants and species that are now migrating further north where it’s colder. You see it in our fisheries, where certain fish have migrated to different places and stocks have changed. You see it in the Arctic with the melting of the ice.

You see it in the Himalayas with the continuing diminution of glacier, the critical glaciers that not – that feed a mere 2.5 to 3 billion people on both sides of the Himalayas and are essential to some of the greatest rivers in the world. But as those begin to dry up and change, you have to ask yourself: What’s life going to look like with the numbers of refugees or the food dislocation and the question of food security and all the things that are linked to it?

So heat waves are becoming more prevalent. We’ve only had the 10 hottest recorded years in the last decade in all of our recorded weather history and the warmest of the 10 in the last two years. And yet, people sort of want to be oblivious to this fact, despite the fact that scientists are telling us in 6,000 peer-reviewed reports that we are responsible for what is happening, we are contributing to it very significantly through human choices.

Now, 6,000 peer-reviewed reports say yes. Zero – zero – peer-reviewed reports say no or contribute to the theory of denial. And yet, we have people, even in the United States Senate, who stand up and deny. So we have work to do and we have to undertake to try to do whatever we can – without legislation, if that’s what it takes, through executive authority, through our own decisions – to try to make the choices that will make a difference in this.

And so I don’t think it’s ever been more important to talk about our energy future than it is right now, for a lot of different reasons.

And incidentally, one of those reasons is that at a time of enormous costs, when legislators are looking for savings, what greater savings could there be than to transition to cleaner energy and alternative energy uses that wind up saving you money in the long term?. I know of companies in the United States – a friend of mine happens to run one of them – who will go to a business and say to the business, “I’m going to save you money and it’s not going to cost you anything until you start to pay me from the savings that I give you.” So they finance the entire retrofit of a particular building. It doesn’t cost the company or a government agency anything to do it. And indeed, they’re making millions of dollars by virtue of the savings and the percentage they get of the savings while the rest of the savings go to the company or the government agency. It’s such common sense, it really defies imagination that people aren’t able to say, “Why aren’t we doing that everywhere?” Think how many people you could put to work in the doing of this, not to mention how fast you would move towards energy independence or towards the reduction curve that we’re supposed to be on with respect to climate change.

So energy policy is not just about energy policy. It’s about climate. It’s about the environment. It’s about economic policy. Energy policy is the biggest single market we have ever looked at. The market that made America rich, and a lot of Americans rich, and saw every single quintile of American income earner go up in the 1990s, that market was a $1 trillion market and it had 1 billion users. It was called the tech market – computers and so forth. The market we’re looking at today for energy is a $6 to $9 trillion market with 4 to 5 billion users today, and it will go up to some 9 trillion – 9 billion as the population grows in the next 20, 30, 40 years. That’s the biggest market we’ve ever seen.

Now, a lot of competitors of the United States understand this. You see the Chinese racing towards certain technologies and implementation. You see Europe, India, others, but we’re still dawdling because we have this political-ideological divide that is unwilling to embrace the realities of what needs to be done. Investment in this energy sector is expected to reach nearly $17 trillion between now and 2035, and that is more than the entire GDP of India and China combined.

So I think energy is at the heart of any of the choices that we face going forward, and adopting cleaner and more efficient practices is critical to empowering us to be able to make the right choices to deal with this challenge. But it’s also a huge opportunity for us to get it right with respect to how we behave with our buildings. And so we need to make a whole set of choices. We need to do things like make the most of programs like the U.S. Low Emissions Development Strategies, known as the LEDS program. We need to pursue development around the world in a way that is sustainable, environmentally sound. The World Bank is here and represented. The World Bank is increasingly making specific choices about energy as a critical decider in their decision as to where and how they will invest in various parts of the world.

We also need to make much more progress through the Clean Energy Ministerial. We need to take advantage of initiatives like the Connecting the Americas 2022 initiative or the Power Africa initiative, and develop critical energy infrastructure linkages in regions that have been unconnected for far too long. But we also have to make sure that as a lot of countries struggle to become part of the global affluence that they see in many parts of the world and the growth that they see in many parts of the world that the only choice in front of them is not the choice of making the same mistake that we made that we’re now trying to undo. It is 20 countries that have made the fundamental difference with respect to what is happening in climate change today, 20 countries. The United States and China represent slightly shy of 50 percent of all emissions that are harming us. And when you add India and Indonesia and another group of countries, you very quickly get to a percentage with a small number of countries that could have a profound impact if we were making a different set of choices.

So the idea behind the State Department’s Greening Diplomacy initiative is pretty straightforward. And I’m proud to report that the Department today operates more than 35 LEED-certified buildings globally and we have another 30 buildings in the works. So we are putting our choices where my mouth and other people’s mouths are these days. And I’m happy to say that our embassies overseas obviously are some of our most important facilities, and I don’t want anybody to think other than the first priority for us is, needless to say, the safety and the efficiency and security for our personnel. But our embassies ought to also reflect the very best of American design architecture, and they ought to reflect our commitment to sustainability and to technology. They are the model of American innovation in this field and they reflect our deep commitment to responsible environmental stewardship. So through the use of new and efficient technologies, they not only send a message about our commitment, but they also save the American taxpayer a lot of money if it’s done properly.

Today, more than 100 American embassies are finding new ways to power their facilities, reduce carbon pollution, reduce energy costs through the League of Green Embassies. And in Sri Lanka, for example, we’re using solar panels to power the residences for Embassy personnel. In Oman, we have replaced mechanical cooling towers with new ones that use less energy and less water. In Helsinki, we are working towards renovations that would enable us to light the Embassy exclusively with LED bulbs, and that, coupled with strategies to dim electric lights when there’s enough light outdoors – enough daylight available, which that part of the world is significant for about six months – that will save the Embassy an estimated 50 percent in current costs.

Now we’re not alone in doing these things. Last year, more than – there’s some representatives here from other embassies – I thank you for coming – more than 75 foreign missions here in Washington signed an agreement to find ways to incorporate clean energy technologies and energy efficient services into their day-to-day operation. And these important upgrades represent more than the energy that each individual building uses. This I call the ripple effect. It’s part of what I talked about when I opened up my comments to you about Earth Day 1970.

And I’ll just leave you with this homegrown example of what can be done. I’m very proud of the work that my wife Teresa has done in Pittsburgh. That’s her hometown, Pennsylvania. And the industrial boom of the 20th century literally was choking that city in the 1960s, ‘70s, and turning it black. Buildings were just covered in soot from the industrial power that Pittsburgh represented. And coal-fired power plants and steel mills and so forth were all costing people quality of life in that city. And so at some point, the local philanthropists, the business leaders, the public health groups, and government organizations said we got to change this, we got to take matters into our own hands.

And so they launched what is now known as the Pittsburgh renaissance, homegrown. And the first green office design project in the city, I’m pleased to say, was the redesign of the Heinz family offices, done completely with all sustainable goods and supplies. And the result of that initiative and that leadership now sees Pittsburgh home to more than 70 green buildings, an award-winning convention center that is completely self-sustainable, likewise, off the snow and rain water, so – waste water, et cetera. And so it sets an example for what is possible.

As the world now contemplates the UN Climate Conference in Warsaw next month, and then leading up to the 2015 conference in Paris, we, all of us – and I can assure you this Department will be and I will be – laser-focused on how we are going to step up our response to the reality of the threat that climate change poses to all of us. We don’t need to wait till Paris. We can take immediate complementary actions in all of our nations, and those actions will send a ripple through the cities of the world from Pittsburgh to Paris to Penang. And all of it, in the end, will not only contribute to a healthier, greener, more sustainable planet; it will contribute to a more vibrant and employable and prosperous planet. And it will most significantly contribute to our efforts to live up to our obligations to future generations and to all of us individually as stewards of this planet.

So thank you very much for being part of this. Appreciate it. (Applause.)

NATURE AND INNOVATIVE MATERIALS

FROM:  NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION 
Inspired by nature: textured materials to aid industry and military
Innovation Corps team developed metals and plastic that repel water, capture sunlight and prevent ice build-up

The lotus leaf has a unique microscopic texture and wax-like coating that enables it to easily repel water. Taking his inspiration from nature, a University of Virginia professor has figured out a way to make metals and plastics that can do virtually the same thing.

Mool Gupta, Langley Distinguished Professor in the university's department of electrical and computer engineering, and director of the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Industry/University Cooperative Research Center for Lasers and Plasmas, has developed a method using high-powered lasers and nanotechnology to create a similar texture that repels water, captures sunlight and prevents the buildup of ice.

These textured materials can be used over large areas and potentially could have important applications in products where ice poses a danger, for example, in aviation, the automobile industry, the military, in protecting communication towers, blades that generate wind energy, bridges, roofs, ships, satellite dishes, and even snowboards.

In commercial and military aviation, for example, these materials could improve airline safety by making current de-icing procedures, which include scraping and applying chemicals, such as glycol, to the wings, unnecessary.

For residents in the frigid northeast, many of whom rely on satellite systems, "it could mean they won't lose their signal, and they won't have to go outside with a hammer and chisel and break off the ice," Gupta says.

The materials' ability to trap sunlight also could enhance the performance of solar cells.

Gupta and his research team first made a piece of textured metal that serves as a mold to mass-produce many pieces of plastic with the same micro-texture. The replication process is similar to the one used in manufacturing compact discs. The difference, of course, is that the CD master mold contains specific information, like a voice, whereas, "in our case we are not writing any information, we are creating a micro-texture," Gupta says.

"You create one piece of metal that has the texture," Gupta adds. "For multiple pieces of plastic with the texture, you use the one master made of metal to stamp out multiple pieces. Thus, whatever features are in your master are replicated in the special plastic. Once we create that texture, if you put a drop of water on the texture, the water rolls down and doesn't stick to it, just like a lotus leaf. We have created a human-made structure that repels water, just like the lotus leaf."

The process of making the metal with the special texture works like this: the scientists take high-powered lasers, with energy beams 20 million times higher than that of a laser pointer, for example, and focus the beams on a metal surface. The metal absorbs the laser light and heats to a melting temperature of about 1200 degrees Centigrade, or higher, a process that rearranges the surface material to form a microtexture.

"All of this happens in less than 0.1 millionth of a second," Gupta says. "The microtexture is self-organized. By scanning the focused laser beam, we achieve a large area of microtexture. The produced microtexture is used as a stamper to replicate microtexture in polymers. The stamper can be used many, many times, allowing a low cost manufacturing process. The generated microtextured polymer surface shows very high water repellency."

In the fall of 2011, Gupta was among the first group of scientists to receive a $50,000 NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps) award, which supports a set of activities and programs that prepare scientists and engineers to extend their focus beyond the laboratory into the commercial world.

Such results may be translated through I-Corps into technologies with near-term benefits for the economy and society. It is a public-private partnership program that teaches grantees to identify valuable product opportunities that can emerge from academic research, and offers entrepreneurship training to faculty and student participants.

The other project members are Paul Caffrey, a doctoral candidate under Gupta's supervision, and Martin Skelly of Charleston, S.C., a veteran of banking in the former Soviet Union who serves as business mentor and is involved in new business investments.

The team participated in a three-day entrepreneurship workshop at Stanford University run by entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley. "We are still pursuing the commercial potential," Gupta says. "The idea is to look at what market can use this technology, how big the market is, and how long it will take to get into it."

-- Marlene Cimons, National Science Foundation

U.S.-MEXICO FORUM ON HIGHER EDUCATION

FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
United States-Mexico Bilateral Forum on Higher Education, Innovation, and Research
Fact Sheet
Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
May 2, 2013

Today President Obama and President Pena Nieto announced the formation of a Bilateral Forum on Higher Education, Innovation, and Research to expand economic opportunities for citizens of both countries and to develop a 21st century workforce for our mutual economic prosperity. The Presidents reaffirmed their belief that greater educational opportunities will further our shared goals in all areas of the rich and extensive partnership between the United States and Mexico.

Through the High-Level Forum on Higher Education, Innovation, and Research, the U.S. and Mexican Governments will encourage broader access to quality post-secondary education for traditionally underserved demographic groups, especially in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. They will also expand educational exchanges, increase joint research on education and learning, and share best practices in higher education and innovation.

This forum will build upon the many positive educational and research linkages that already exist through federal, state, and local governments, public and private academic institutions, civil society, and the private sector. It will bring together government agency counterparts to deepen cooperation on higher education, innovation, and research. It will also draw on the expertise of the higher education community in both countries.

The United States and Mexico have a long history of educational collaboration. More than 18,000 Mexican and U.S. university students study in each other’s countries annually. The Mexico-U.S. Commission for Educational and Cultural Exchange (COMEXUS) oversees the Fulbright-Garcia Robles Scholarship Program, the flagship program in U.S.-Mexico academic exchanges, through which more than 4,000 Mexicans and Americans have participated in bilateral exchange programs since 1990. Fulbright and other exchange students from Mexico contribute to President Obama’s hemisphere-wide goal of seeing 100,000 Latin American and Caribbean young people studying in the United States and 100,000 young Americans studying across the Western Hemisphere. Through U.S.-Mexican public-private partnerships such as Jóvenes en Acción (Youth in Action), Mexican public high school students build leadership, English, and communication skills, learning ways to serve their communities. In addition, federal and state officials from Mexico and the United States work together to improve the quality of education for migrant students in both countries.