PRESIDENT TAKES ACTION TO SUPPORT RURAL AMERICAN JOBS WHILE FIGHTING CLIMATE CHANGE

FROM:  THE WHITE HOUSE
FACT SHEET: Administration Announces Actions to Bring Jobs and Clean Energy to Rural America

Financing Hundreds Of Projects To Reduce Carbon Pollution In Rural Communities

President Obama is committed to combating climate change to protect future generations while supporting a strong rural economy. Climate change can no longer be seen as a distant threat. It is already affecting rural communities across the country and putting homes, businesses, and vital infrastructure at risk.

Farmers and ranchers face devastating impacts – from severe floods to extreme heat and drought to increased challenges due to wildfires, disease and pests. These impacts threaten the lives and livelihoods of Americans in rural communities.

That is why the President is taking action now. The sooner we act, the more we can do to protect rural America, especially the areas that are the most vulnerable. By investing in renewable energy and supporting climate-smart agricultural practices, rural communities and businesses can help slow the effects of climate change while creating jobs and growing the economy. To continue down this track, today the Administration is making these announcements:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is announcing a new investment in nearly 550 renewable energy and energy efficiency projects across the country totaling nearly $7 million in funding through its Rural Energy for America Program (REAP). Today, Secretary Tom Vilsack will visit the Snake River Brewing Company, in Jackson, Wyoming, one of the REAP awardees that received nearly $14,000 in funding to install a solar panels on their business, which is estimated to save the brewery nearly $1,200 on their electricity bill each year.  Since President Obama took office, USDA has helped thousands of rural small businesses, farmers and ranchers improve their bottom lines by investing in renewable energy systems and energy efficiency solutions, including:

Awarding $545 million through REAP for more than 8,800 projects nationwide to install renewable energy systems or make energy efficiency upgrades, which will save more than 7 billion kWh, enough energy to power 660,000 American homes annually. In fact, the number of farms using a renewable energy producing system since 2007 has more than doubled.

Financing more than $1.7 billion to help rural electricity providers reduce carbon pollution, bringing significant cost savings, and improve the quality of life for those living and working in rural America.

Companies across the U.S. understand that reducing carbon pollution and growing the economy go hand-in-hand. To highlight leadership in the agricultural sector, today the White House is hosting a roundtable discussion with businesses and organizations that are already taking action to cut emissions and strengthen the rural economy. Participants include:

Cargill
The Coca-Cola Company
Environmental Defense Fund
Field to Market
General Mills
Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy
Monsanto
National Corn Growers Association
Syngenta
The Fertilizer Institute
Kellogg Company
The Nature Conservancy
Unilever
United Soybean Board
Walmart
World Wildlife Fund

Building on their earlier progress, several businesses and organizations are also announcing new commitments to improve agricultural practices to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve water quality, and improve water efficiency:
Unilever is pledging to source 100% of its soy (approximately 1 million acres) in the U.S. sustainably by 2017, and all other raw agriculture commodities by 2020.  Utilizing Field to Market, Unilever will work with farmers to gather data about their fields and farming practices and then co-solve with them to implement changes to farming practices that promote reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. For example, working with the Conservation Technology Information Center in Iowa, Unilever was recently awarded $1 million in cost share by the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship to encourage growers to utilize cover crops to improve water quality.

Field to Market: The Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture and The Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy commit to harmonizing metrics to assess the sustainability of feed production, maximize interoperability among tools used to inform sustainable practices, advance scientific research and communication, and jointly convene the supply chain to address sustainability challenges in November 2015.

Coca-Cola Company is committing to rapidly expand the application of the Field to Market program and its data-driven tool to quantify water use, fertilizer use, energy use, and greenhouse emissions. By the end of 2015, Coca-Cola will aim to engage farmers representing 250,000 acres, and up to 1 million acres by 2020s—equating to roughly 50% of the company’s global corn supply – to implement this commitment.

National Corn Growers Association is committing to actively participate in Field to Market and administer the Soil Health Partnership (SHP), , a project to make agriculture more sustainable through improved soil management, which is committed to expanding the current SHP Demonstration Farm Network from 40 to 100 by 2018. The main goal of the SHP is to demonstrate the contributions improved soil health makes to increased agricultural productivity, profitability, and environmental sustainability outcomes through the adoption of best management practices (BMPs) such as conservation tillage, cover crops and advanced nutrient management.

Walmart has committed to joint agricultural partnerships with 17 suppliers, cooperatives, and service providers on 23 million acres of land in the U.S. and Canada, with the potential to reduce 11 MMT of GHGs by 2020.   Walmart is committed to working with packers, feed yards, and ranchers to ensure that 15% of their U.S. beef supply is sourced with environmental criteria by 2023. In September 2014, Walmart announced that they will work with their suppliers and other partners in the food supply chain to cut greenhouse gas emissions, better conserve water, and increase yields as part of their Climate Smart Agriculture platform. Over the next ten years, Walmart will work to gain increasing visibility into key metrics regarding yields, water usage and GHGs in food supply chains. Walmart is now working with suppliers, representing ~70% of food sales, to report their yield, water and GHG footprints all the way back to the farm.

PepsiCo, a global food and beverage company, has committed to expanding its Sustainable Farming Initiative to 500,000 acres of farmland used by North American agricultural suppliers by year-end 2016.  PepsiCo’s Sustainable Farming Initiative provides a comprehensive framework to help meet the goals set out in PepsiCo’s Sustainable Agriculture Policy, providing critical support to farmers as they seek to address climate change and other key issues of sustainable farming. PepsiCo has committed to work in the U.S. and other global markets to engage growers of corn, oats, potato, and oranges to increase the utilization of sustainable farming practices, particularly in the areas of environmental, social and economic sustainability.

The Nature Conservancy commits to help reduce nutrient loading in the Mississippi Basin by 25 percent by 2025 by seeking and developing new funding resources to assist farmers and local communities, partnering with the private industry to build a new conservation force of champions and advisors to farmers, and targeting resources to the highest priority areas.

Environmental Defense Fund is committing to work with all actors in the commodity crop supply chain – from corporations to farmers - to get improved fertilizer and soil health practices adopted across the majority of U.S. commodity acreage and strategically-placed wetland filters on 2-3% of the acres in the Upper Mississippi River Basin by 2030.  Combined, these changes will result in the 45% reduction in nutrient loading needed to achieve water quality restoration goals for the Gulf of Mexico, restore drinking water systems and deliver an estimated 50 million metric tons in avoided greenhouse gas emissions.

Specifically, EDF will work with food companies, retailers, and grain buyers to support development of strong sustainability goals and connect these goals to effective programming on the ground with farmers. Existing collaborations including work with Walmart, Murphy Brown, Campbell Soup, and General Mills, among others.

BUILDING ON PROGRESS

Today’s actions build on a series of steps the Administration is taking to reduce the dangerous levels of carbon pollution that are driving climate change, scale up financing for renewable energy and energy efficiency, and create jobs in rural America including:

In April 2015, USDA released a Building Blocks for Climate Smart Agriculture and Forestry framework to support farmers, ranchers and forest landowners in their response to climate change. Through this comprehensive set of voluntary programs and initiatives, USDA expects to reduce net emissions and enhance carbon sequestration by over 120 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent (MMTCO2e) per year – about 2% of economy-wide net greenhouse emissions – by 2025. That’s the equivalent of taking 25 million cars off the road, or offsetting the emissions produced by powering nearly 11 million homes last year.

USDA recently made an additional 800,000 acres of highly environmentally sensitive land eligible for enrollment in its Conservation Reserve Program. USDA will accept new offers to participate in CRP under a general signup to be held Dec. 1, 2015, through Feb. 26, 2016. For 30 years, the Conservation Reserve Program has supported farmers and ranchers as they continue to be good stewards of land and water. This initiative has helped farmers and ranchers prevent more than 8 billion tons of soil from eroding, reduce nitrogen and phosphorous runoff relative to cropland by 95 and 85 percent respectively, and sequester 43 million tons of greenhouse gases annually, equal to taking 8 million cars off the road.

USDA recently announced that it will invest up to $100 million in a Biofuels Infrastructure Partnership to support the infrastructure needed to make more renewable fuel options available to American consumers, which will help to lower greenhouse gas emissions, reduce dependence on foreign oil, give businesses and consumers more energy options and create well-paying American jobs. Specifically, USDA will administer competitive grants to match funding for state-led efforts to test and evaluate innovative and comprehensive approaches to market higher blends of renewable fuel, such as E15 and E85. States that are able to provide greater than a one-to-one ratio in funding will receive higher consideration.

In 2014, USDA established a series of regional Climate Hubs, located in California, Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Puerto Rico, to serve as a source of regional data and information for hazard and adaptation planning in the agriculture and forest sectors. The Hubs address increasing risks such as fires, invasive pests, devastating floods, and crippling droughts, and work with land managers to translate and connect relevant science and research to address on-the-ground information needs.

Through the Conservation Reserve Program, the Environmental Quality Incentive Program, and the Conservation Stewardship Program, USDA is working with farmers, ranchers and forest landowners to implement conservation practices that have reduced net greenhouse gas emissions by over 360 million metric tons since 2009, or approximately 60 million metric tons per year. That is the equivalent of taking 12.6 million cars off the road for a year; or 6.7 million gallons of gasoline consumed; or more than 5.4 million home's energy use for a year.

The great American outdoors is also an important aspect of rural communities, providing both an invaluable national treasure and a critical resource for the tourism industry.  In 2014, a record 293 million National Park visitors spent $15.7 billion in communities around National Parks, providing a nearly $30 billion benefit to the U.S. economy and supporting 277,000 jobs.

Last October, USDA funded its first two loans under the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Loan Program. North Arkansas Electric Cooperative, Inc. will use a loan of $4.6 million to fund geothermal and air source installations, energy efficiency lightning, and weatherization measures, including Energy Star® windows and doors, insulation, efficient water heaters, and roofing. Financing will reduce energy costs for Arkansas consumers and improve the services within Arkansas Electric's service territory.  North Carolina's Roanoke Electric Membership Corporation will use a loan of $6 million to finance improvements to HVAC Systems, appliance replacements, and building envelope improvements for an average of 200 residential energy efficiency upgrades per year over four years. These loans will help reduce energy costs and improve the services within Roanoke's service territory. Roanoke's service territory includes both poverty and out-migration counties.

USDA, in partnership with the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency, completed the Biogas Opportunities Roadmap, Voluntary Actions to Reduce Methane Emissions and Increase Energy Independence, which identifies voluntary actions that can be taken to reduce methane emissions through the use of biogas systems and outlines strategies to overcome barriers to a robust biogas industry in the United States and increase the use of biogas to help meet our renewable energy goals. Already, USDA has funded 93 anaerobic digesters to help farm operations produce electricity from captured methane. Thanks to a partnership with the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy to reduce greenhouse emissions across the supply chain, most of these projects are at dairy operations.

Through the Biomass Research and Development Initiative and the U.S. Global Change Research Program, USDA has since 2009 provided $610.9 million in funding to support climate change research by USDA scientists and partners at land-grant universities. USDA has also invested $332 million to accelerate research on clean renewable energy ranging from genomic research on bioenergy feedstock crops, to development of biofuel conversion processes and cost-benefit estimates of renewable energy production.

U.S.-MEXICO ISSUE STATEMENT ON CLIMATE POLICY COOPERATION

FROM:  THE WHITE HOUSE
March 27, 2015
Joint Statement on U.S.-Mexico Climate Policy Cooperation

On the occasion of Mexico submitting its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), President Barack Obama and President Enrique Peña Nieto reaffirm their commitment to addressing global climate change, one of the greatest threats facing humanity. The leaders underscore the importance of jointly addressing climate in their integrated economy. Smart action on climate change and developing clean energy can drive economic growth, and bring broad security, health, and development benefits to the region. The two countries will seize every opportunity to harmonize their efforts and policies towards their common climate goals. The two countries will launch a new high-level bilateral clean energy and climate policy task force to further deepen policy and regulatory coordination in specific areas including clean electricity, grid modernization, appliance standards, and energy efficiency, as well as promoting more fuel efficient automobile fleets in both countries, global and regional climate modeling, weather forecasting and early alerts system. The interagency task force will be chaired by Secretary Ernest Moniz and Secretary Juan José Guerra Abud, and hold its first meeting this spring. The task force will also look to advance its work program through the Clean Energy Ministerial that Mexico is hosting on May 27-28 and related initiatives. Both countries also commit to enhanced cooperation on air quality and climate policy, including harmonization and implementation of heavy-duty diesel and light duty emission standards, common programs to reduce reliance on HFCs, and technical cooperation on black carbon.

SECRETARY KERRY'S REMARKS AT THE U.S.-EU ENERGY COUNCIL

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT 
Remarks at At U.S.-EU Energy Council
Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
European External Action Service
Brussels, Belgium
December 3, 2014

Well, thank you very much for that, Federica. I’m delighted to be here with the high representative and pleased to be in the company of Vice President Sefcovic and Commissioner Canete and Vice-Minister De Vincenti. I’m glad to be back here in this room where we’ve had a couple of meetings already. Last year we were here and we had a good session.

I am not accompanied today by Secretary Moniz. This is not the secretary of energy. He is the acting assistant secretary of energy, and I don’t know how he got here and Moniz did not. (Laughter.) But Secretary Moniz’s flight was canceled, and so he’s gone promptly to the President and he’s asked to be secretary of transportation instead. (Laughter.) Unfortunately, he couldn’t make it, and I’m sorry for that, because as good as the assistant secretary will be, he really knows his stuff, and frankly, he’s got enormous expertise so he will be missed.

But I’m pleased to be here with all of you, and let me begin by applauding the tremendous leadership of the EU in helping to reach a gas deal with respect to Ukraine. That is a very important deal, and it is very successful with respect to the long-term situation. It’s important. And part of our meeting today is really to talk about providing a sustainable energy plan for Europe – for actually more than Europeans – so that all of us can deal not just with issues like climate change, but the economy and the stability of the economy and the stability of the supply. And obviously, it’s not a good idea to depend anywhere in the world on one source. There are disruption and vast implications.

We support major U.S.-EU energy sector reform. That’s part of what we’re going to talk about here today. We think there can be increased domestic production. There’s much to be done on energy efficiency. There’s also an enormous amount to be done in the transformation to a clean energy economy. In fact, the clean energy economy represents the single largest market in the world. And the market that made America particularly wealthy – and I say that advisedly and measured against the 1920s when we didn’t have income tax and people made a lot of money – we actually saw more people make more money in the 1990s from a $1 trillion market that had one billion users. It was the high tech market. The energy market that we are looking at today globally is a $6 trillion market today with 4 to 5 billion users today, and it will rise to some 9 billion users over the course of the next 30 years. It is the largest – you can call it the mother of all markets if you want. And its future is not in coal unless somebody can figure out how to burn it absolutely cleanly. Its future is going to be in clean energy.

So that’s what we’re here to talk about. We want to, obviously, deal with the question – a more prosaic question of how we deal with Ukraine, how we deal with the energy demands of the moment to get through a certain crisis. We want to talk about long-term energy security, which depends on investment in the future. We clearly want to meet our responsibility with respect to climate change. The United States has tried to exhibit leadership together with China as a beginning, as a first step to lay some markers down to encourage people to make the most out of Lima in the next days, and then to make the most out of Paris next year. Because it is clear from all of the scientific evidence that we are behind where we need to be, and catching up is not easy.

So this is our challenge. Technology and our collaboration within the technology sector could be an enormous kick-start to both of our economies and obviously bring us all long-term stability and significant rewards.

I’d just close by saying that I’ve been in public policy now most of my life, 30 – almost 30 years in the U.S. Senate, and now serving as Secretary, and before the Senate, lieutenant governor of a state. I’ve seen many, many debates over public policy issues, and many of them present you with a tension. There’s an up and there’s a down, and you try to fight your way through that tension. When it comes to energy choices, I have never seen an issue that presents as many upsides and as little downside.

People keep saying, well, it’s going to be too expensive to do this, or this may dislocate the economy. It’s just not true. The fact is that the benefits to health, the benefits to – the benefits to health, the savings of hospitals and hospitalization for particulate-imbued diseases or other enhanced diseases as a result of breathing capacity, the enhancement to the environment, the preservation of long-term environment, the diminishment of carbon dioxide, the diminishment of the damaging effects of acidification on the oceans and the impact that is incalculable on species, on coral reefs, on spawning grounds – I mean, you could run the list – the impact on energy security for nations, the lack of conflict as a consequence, the impact on populations that don’t have to move – all of these things are key.

So when you add it all up, the pluses of what we’re talking about here today are just enormous, and we hope that that becomes more and more self-evident as we go forward. And Federica, thanks for hosting us. We appreciate it.

SECRETARY KERRY MAKES REMARKS WITH UK FOREIGN SECRETARY HAMMOND

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT 

Remarks With UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond

Remarks

John Kerry

Secretary of State

Wind Technology Testing Center

Boston,, Massachusetts

October 9, 2014

SECRETARY KERRY: Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you very much. Thank you very, very much. Thank you. Good morning, everybody. First of all, there is nothing better than being home in Boston on a beautiful October day. The only thing that is missing, the Red Sox are not in the playoffs, not this time. Foreign Secretary Hammond, I want to share with you the four most important words in Boston sports are, “Just wait till next year.” (Laughter.) We’ll be back.

It’s very special for me to be back here for a lot of different reasons, and Deval, our superb governor, just hit on some of them. But since I’ve been privileged to be Secretary of State, I’ve now had occasion to travel and be either in the trail of or in the company of Deval Patrick. And we went to Panama together for the inauguration of the new president, and the reason Deval was there is he has been totally focused on jobs and opportunities for Massachusetts and for the United States, and he’s been a terrific ambassador in that cause. And I’m not at all surprised to hear that he has just come back from a clean energy conference in London, because as governor, he has made absolutely certain that Massachusetts is leading the way with respect to clean energy, future energy, renewable alternative, and together, with states like California, we really are setting the trend.

I might also point out the fact, which I’m very proud of as a Massachusetts citizen, that the governor has set the next big step of helping to move us forward by setting the goal for ending all reliance on conventional coal generation in the next four years, and that is something I don’t believe any other sitting governor in the United States has had the foresight to do. So Governor, thank you very, very much for that. (Applause.)

I also want to thank Massachusetts’s terrific Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Maeve Bartlett for her great work to help make Massachusetts more energy-efficient and the most energy-efficient state in the nation. As the governor just mentioned, not once, not twice, but for the third straight year in a row, we are leading the nation in energy efficiency, and I’m proud of that. I also want to brag on her brother for a minute. Those of you who don’t know it, but Maeve is the youngest sister of one of my oldest friends in politics and life, and a great citizen of our state, Tommy Vallely, and we will not hold that against you, Maeve. (Laughter.)

I want to also thank Alicia Barton, the CEO of the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, and Rahul Yarala, executive director of the Wind Technology Testing Center, for showing us this remarkable facility here today. And most of all, I want to express a very warm Massachusetts welcome to our guest, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond. We’re really happy to have you here today. We’re grateful for your leadership, and I’ll say a little more about that, but thanks so much for being with us here. And Mr. Ambassador, Madam Consul General, thank you for being here with us too.

It was in a time of war and a time of challenge when exactly 70 years ago this year, Sir Winston Churchill first talked about the special relationship between the United States and Great Britain. And his deep conviction expressed then that unless we always kept the United States and the United Kingdom together in that special relationship untold destruction would be the result. Well, seven decades later, our two countries are confronting real danger together, taking it on, stopping it, and ultimately, we will defeat it – not just on the battlefield against ISIL, but we’re also together confronting what is a “gathering storm” of this century. The gathering storm that Sir Winston also warned about. And there is no element of that gathering storm more critical than climate change.

Together, both of our countries recognize that never before has a threat like climate change found in its solution such a level of opportunity – the opportunity to unleash the clean-energy economy that will get us out of this mess but also take us forward towards a safer, more sustainable future.

Now I know that climate change to some people can just seem like a very distant, future prospect, maybe even a future challenge. That’s dangerous, falling prey to that perception, because it’s not. And it would be very dangerous to lull ourselves into believing that you can wait with respect to any of the things that we need to do to meet this challenge.

Climate change is already impacting the world in very real and significant ways. This past August was the hottest August the planet has ever seen in recorded history. And each year of the last ten years, a decade, has been measured as being hotter than the last with one or two variations of which year followed which, but as a decade the hottest in our recorded history.

There are now – right now – serious food shortages taking place in places like Central America because regions are battling the worst droughts in decades, not 100-year events in terms of floods, in terms of fires, in terms of droughts – 500-year events, something unheard of in our measurement of weather.

Scientists now predict that with glaciers and melting of the ice at the current rates, the sea could rise now a full meter in this century. A meter might not seem like a whole lot, but let me tell you, think about it just in terms of Boston. It would mean about $100 billion worth of damage to buildings, to emergency costs, and so on.

And thinking about climate change as some distant challenge is dangerous for other reasons too. We still have in our hands a window of opportunity to be able to make the difference. We don’t have to face a future in which we’re unable to talk about anything except adaptation or mitigation, already present in our planning. But the window is closing quickly. That’s not a threat; that’s a fact. If all of us around the world do not move to push back against the current trend line of what is happening in climate change, we will literally lose any chance of staving off this threat.

The good news is that we actually know exactly how to do it. This is not a challenge which has no solution. This is not a challenge that’s out of our reach. The solution is staring us in the face. It’s very simple: clean energy. The solution to climate change is energy policy. And the best news of all is that investing in clean-energy economy doesn’t just mitigate the impacts of climate change and make our communities cleaner and healthier. It actually also reinvigorates our economies and creates millions of good jobs around the world.

Let me just share with you something. We in Massachusetts ought to be particularly tuned into this. In the 1990s, America created more wealth than at any other time in our history, more even than the famous 1920s and ’30s, when people read about the history of the Carnegies and the Mellons and the Rockefellers and the Fricks and so forth. We created greater wealth in the 1990s in America than we did when we had no income tax in the 1920s.

And the truth is that that came about as a $1 trillion market with 1 billion users – remember the one for one – in technology, in personal computers, in communications. And guess what? Every single quintile of income earner in America saw their incomes go up. Everybody did better. Well, the energy market that we are looking at today, in a nation that doesn’t even have a national grid, a nation that has an east coast grid, a west coast grid, a Texas grid, and a line that goes from Chicago out into the west towards Dakotas – that’s it. We have a huge, gaping hole in the middle of America. We can’t take energy from solar thermal in the Four Corners down there by New Mexico and Colorado and California and bring it to the northeast where we need it. We can’t take energy from those wind farms of Minnesota or Wisconsin or Iowa and sell it south, or our wind ultimately from Cape Wind because we don’t have a transmission system.

Guess what? $1 billion of investment in infrastructure is somewhere between 27,000 and 35,000 jobs. And if we were to do what we know we need to do to build the energy future of this country, we’ll put millions of people to work, and here’s the kicker: The market we’re looking at is a $6 trillion market with four to five billion users today, climbing to a potential 9 billion users by the year 2050. It is literally the mother of all markets. Governor Patrick understands that. Massachusetts has understood that. But we have not yet been able to translate that into our national policy.

So once again, I’m proud Massachusetts is setting the trend. Massachusetts is leading by example. And that’s why many in the United States and the UK who are leading by example. And as the governor said, we’re a little behind them in terms of some of the things we ought to be doing, behind Europe in some respects. But in the United States we’re now targeting emissions from transportation and power sources, which are 60 percent of dangerous greenhouse gases. And at the same time, we bumped our solar energy production on a national basis by ten times and we’ve upped our wind energy production on a national basis by more than threefold thanks in large part to facilities just like this one.

So because of the steps that we’re now taking, we’re in a position to put twice as many people to work in the energy sector, nearly double the amount of people currently employed by oil and gas industry. This is the future. It’s already a $10 billion chunk of the Massachusetts economy and growing; 90,000 – almost 100,000 – people employed here in Massachusetts; 6,000 companies statewide are defining this future. And the Massachusetts wind testing center that we’re in now helps ensure that the global wind power industry is deploying the most effective land-based offshore wind turbine technologies to be used around the world.

This is global, what’s happening here, and that’s why Philip Hammond and I wanted to come here today, to underscore not just to Massachusetts but to America and to the world what these possibilities are. And the fact is that there is a lab not unlike this, a Narec blade testing facility in the United Kingdom city of Blyth. So we share this vision in very real ways.

I’d just say to all of you here that people need to feel the pressure from you. You all know what politics is about. I’m not in it now, but I’m dependent on it to help make the right decisions so that we move in the right direction. A clean energy future is not a fantasy. Changing course and avoiding the worst impacts of climate change is not a fantasy. And supporting healthier communities and ecosystems and driving economic growth and job creation – none of that is a fantasy. And for those people who still stand in the way, for those people who even still today want to try to question whether or not their science is effective or not, I’d just ask you – ask a simple question: If we’re wrong about this future, what’s the worst that could happen to us for making these choices?

The worst that could happen to us is we create a whole lot of new jobs, we kick our economies into gear, we have healthier people, healthier children because we have cleaner air, we live up to our environmental responsibility, we become truly energy independent, and our security is stronger and greater and sustainable as a result. That’s the worst that happens to us.

What happens if they’re wrong? (Applause.) If they’re wrong – catastrophe. Life as you know it on Earth ends. Seven degrees increase Fahrenheit, and we can’t sustain crops, water, life under those circumstances.

So I know, with Philip Hammond and I and President Obama and Prime Minister Cameron and a whole bunch of leaders around the world know, we need to go to Lima, Peru this year and we need to push forward on an agreement, and next year in Paris we need to reach an agreement where we live up to our responsibility to future generations and make all the difference in the world.

I am proud that we have a great colleague to help us in this fight, an individual who understands the security connection of this better than most because he just finished serving as the Secretary for Defense in Great Britain and was transferred into this role as the Foreign Secretary for Great Britain.

So will you please welcome a terrific partner, a great colleague in this endeavor, Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary of Great Britain. (Applause.)

FOREIGN SECRETARY HAMMOND: Well, thank you, John, for that introduction, and one of the great things about having just been Secretary of State for Defense is that I’m quite used to speaking in aircraft hangars, which have vaguely similar acoustics to this room today. John, it’s a huge privilege to be here, to be invited to visit your hometown. Thank you for that. Thank you for the things that you’ve shown me today. And thank you to our hosts for hosting this event in this world class facility. It’s a fascinating snapshot of the degree of global collaboration that is going on as the green energy business develops on a worldwide basis.

I know that we’re looking at a facility here that is testing blades made in Europe, in China, in Brazil, as well as in North America. And nothing could more encapsulate the global nature of the challenge and the global nature of the response to that challenge. This is a city with a worldwide reputation not only as a seat of learning, but also as a hub for cutting-edge technology, and it’s been a great pleasure to see some of that here today.

Those of you who are working in the low-carbon energy sector know that you are generating jobs and investment for the long term. But above all, you know that you’re in the front line in the battle against climate change. Secretary Kerry, the governor, and I are in complete agreement that this is a battle that we have to win for the sake of our long-term security. When we think about keeping our nation safe, we have to plan for the worst-case scenarios, and Secretary Kerry just spelled out in very, very graphic terms how that equation works. We have to take the precautionary principle, we have to plan for the worst possible outcome, and we have to protect future generations from the impacts of those.

In the case of unchecked climate change, even the most likely scenario could have catastrophic consequences: a rise in global temperature similar to the difference between the last ice age and today, leading to rising sea levels, huge movements of people fueling conflict and instability around the world, pressure on resources, and a multitude of new risks to global public health. The worst case is even more severe: a drastic change in our environment that could see heat stress in some areas surpass the limits of human tolerance, leaving as the legacy of our generation an unimaginably different and more dangerous world for our children and our grandchildren.

So we have to act on climate change, but by doing so we will not just protect the future from the worst effects of climate change; we will bring tangible benefits to our people here and now. We’ll get cleaner air, more efficient transport, better cities, better health. And more than that, the technological transformation that is required will provide a greater stimulus than the space program did 50 years ago, generating massive new opportunities for innovation, jobs, and economic growth.

For too long this debate has been dominated by purists and idealists, people who are happy with the notion that we would have to sacrifice economic growth to meet the climate challenge. I think you’ve heard from all three of us on this platform this morning that we reject that choice. We do not accept that we have to choose between our prosperity and the future of our planet. Indeed, we are demonstrating across the world – here in Massachusetts, in the UK – we are demonstrating that the response to climate change can be a generator of economic growth, innovation, and quality jobs.

In the UK, 92 percent of business leaders think that green growth is an opportunity for their own businesses. Demand for green goods and services is growing faster both here and in Europe than the general economy is growing. Globally, as Secretary Kerry has said, the green economy will be worth over $6 trillion by 2030, and it’s expanding all the time.

But the full range of benefits is beyond our ability to estimate. The dividends of technology are often unpredicted and unpredictable. The potential is immense. And by seizing the initiative now, we can take first-mover advantage.

Moreover, in addition to creating jobs and growth, embracing green technology increases our energy security. At a time of international turbulence, this is an advantage we should not underestimate. And we in Europe, facing Russian energy bullying on a grand scale as we approach the winter, understand that better than most people. ISIL’s assault on Iraq poses another serious threat to our energy security, which could have knock-on effects in global energy markets and the prices that we pay at the pump.

Here in the U.S., the shale revolution has eased worries about dependence on overseas oil and gas, and in the UK we are committed to exploiting the potential of shale as part of our energy mix. But over the longer term, renewable energy sources, like those being developed and tested here, will be critical to reducing our vulnerability to energy supply shocks.

So the benefits of addressing climate change are multiple, but it will not happen by itself. It requires leadership, leadership that is now, some would say, at last beginning to take shape. Britain is leading by enacting into our domestic law the most demanding emissions targets in the industrialized world. We’ve already reduced emissions by more than a quarter, putting us on track for an 80 percent reduction in emissions by 2050. We have the world’s leading carbon-trading center in London, and we’ve established the world’s first green investment bank.

Here on this side of the Atlantic, Boston is leading with its innovative technology. Northeastern states collectively are leading with their Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Other states, from Iowa to Texas to California, are leading in their separate ways. And John, if I may say so, you are leading with your tireless diplomacy on this issue.

The U.S. has begun to take on the leadership role, which, as the world’s biggest economy, is essential if we are going to make progress globally. And there are signs that these efforts are inspiring others to follow, with positive steps from China, from India, from Brazil. This is a momentum that we have to harness and increase if we are to secure an effective global climate deal in Paris next year. And I look forward to working with Secretary Kerry and our partners in the European Union in order to bring that about.

But it isn’t just about governments and diplomacy. Scientists and universities are shaping the debate. Ordinary people and civil society are helping to keep this issue in the spotlight through actions like the Climate March a few weeks ago, but also through their own individual choices as consumers, which in turn drives the vital role that businesses have to play, shaping their investment, channeling innovation to support the fight against climate change.

Both here and – in the U.S. and in the UK, business is at the heart of our approach. We will get this job done by going with the grain, by using the power of the market, by creating the necessary incentives and structures to mobilize the creativity of private businesses to respond to the challenges of climate change. It is a complex task, but as Secretary Kerry said, it is not rocket science; it is something that we know how to do, we just have to put our shoulders to the wheel and get it done.

Fifty years ago, the U.S. showed us how a strategic challenge – putting a man on the moon – could guarantee innovation through economy-transforming investments. Today, we have an opportunity to do that again in response to the challenge of climate change. If we are to achieve our common goal of limiting climate to two degrees Celsius, we need everyone to play their part. It is clear that we have no time to lose.

Secretary Kerry just repeated his oft-repeated remark, that the window of time is still open for us to be able to manage this threat. But as he, himself, observed, that window is fast beginning to close.

To counter the threat and to seize the opportunity that rising to the challenge of climate change represents we have to act now. And by acting now, we will not only maximize our changes of avoiding catastrophic climate change, we will increase our resilience and create huge new opportunities for growth and innovation in all our economies. That is what I call a true win-win situation. Thank you very much. (Applause.)

NSF ON WALKING FOR ENERGY

FROM:  NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION 

Walking can recharge the spirit, but what about our phones?

Device captures energy from walking to recharge wireless gadgets
Smartphones, tablets, e-readers, not to mention wearable health and fitness trackers, smart glasses and navigation devices--today's population is more plugged in than ever before.

But our reliance on devices is not problem-free:

Wireless gadgets require regular recharging. While we may think we've cut the cord, we remain reliant on outlets and charging stations to keep our devices up and running.
According to a 2009 report by the International Energy Agency (IEA), consumer electronics and information and communication technologies currently account for nearly 15 percent of global residential electricity consumption. What's more, the IEA expects energy consumptions by these devices to double by 2022 and to triple by 2030--thereby slowly but surely adding to the burden on our power infrastructure.
With support from the National Science Foundation, a team of researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology may have a solution to both problems: They're developing a new, portable, clean energy source that could change the way we power mobile electronics: human motion.

Led by material scientist Zhong Lin Wang, the team has created a backpack that captures mechanical energy from the natural vibration of human walking and converts it into electrical energy. This technology could revolutionize the way we charge small electronic devices, and thereby reduce the burden of these devices on non-renewable power sources and untether users from fixed charging stations.

Smaller, lighter, more energy efficient

Wearable generators that convert energy from the body's mechanical potential into electricity are not new, but traditional technologies rely on bulky or fragile materials. By contrast, Wang's backpack contains a device made from thin, lightweight plastic sheets, interlocked in a rhombic grid. (Think of the collapsible cardboard containers that separate a six pack of fancy soda bottles.)

As the wearer walks, the rhythmic movement that occurs as his/her weight shifts from side to side causes the inside surfaces of the plastic sheets to touch and then separate, touch and then separate. The periodic contact and separation drives electrons back and forth, producing an alternating electric current. This process, known as the triboelectrification effect, also underlies static electricity, a phenomenon familiar to anyone who has ever pulled a freshly laundered fleece jacket over his or her head in January.

But the key to Wang's technology is the addition of highly charged nanomaterials that maximize the contact between the two surfaces, pumping up the energy output of what Wang calls the triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG).

"The TENG is as efficient as the best electromagnetic generator, and is lighter and smaller than any other electric generators for mechanical energy conversion," says Wang. "The efficiency will only improve with the invention of new advanced materials."

Charging on the go

In the laboratory, Wang's team showed that natural human walking with a load of 2 kilograms, about the weight of a 2-liter bottle of soda, generated enough power to simultaneously light more than 40 commercial LEDs (which are the most efficient lights available).

Wang says that the maximum power output depends on the density of the surface electrostatic charge, but that the backpack will likely be able to generate between 2 and 5 watts of energy as the wearer walks--enough to charge a cell phone or other small electronic device.

The researchers anticipate that this will be welcome news to outdoor enthusiasts, field engineers, military personnel and emergency responders who work in remote areas.

As far as Wang and his colleagues are concerned however, human motion is only one potential source for clean and renewable energy. In 2013, the team demonstrated that it was possible to use TENGs to extract energy from ocean waves.

The research report, "Harvesting Energy from the Natural Vibration of Human Walking", was published in the journal ACS Nano on November 1, 2013.

-- Valerie Thompson, AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow
Investigators
Zhong Wang
Related Institutions/Organizations
Georgia Tech Research Corporation

PRESIDENT OBAMA, PRESIDENT BACHELET OF CHILE MAKE REMARKS BEFORE MEETING

FROM:  THE WHITE HOUSE 

Remarks by President Obama and President Michelle Bachelet of Chile Before Bilateral Meeting

Oval Office

11:05 A.M. EDT

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  Well, I want to welcome back to the Oval Office President Bachelet.  She is my second favorite Michelle.  (Laughter.)  And I’m very much pleased to see her again.  We had the opportunity to work together when I first came into office.  Since that time, President Bachelet has been extraordinarily busy doing excellent work at the United Nations, particularly around women -- an issue that the United States has been very supportive of.  And we’re very proud of the work that she did there.

She’s now back in office, and it gives us an opportunity to just strengthen further the outstanding relationship between the United States and Chile.

Let me say, first of all, congratulations to the Chilean National Football Team for an outstanding showing at the World Cup.  I know it was a tough loss, but it also showed the incredible skill and talent of the Chilean team.  This is as well, I think, as it’s ever done against a very tough Brazilian team on their home turf.  And so congratulations to them.  We play -- coming up, we’ve got a tough match as well.  So I want to wish the U.S. team a lot of luck in the game to come.

The basis for Chile’s and the United States’ strong bilateral relationship includes the fact that we have a free trade agreement that has greatly expanded commerce in both countries and has created jobs in both countries. 

We have excellent cooperation when it comes to a wide range of issues -- energy, education, people-to-people relations.  Chile has been a model of democracy in Latin America.  It’s been able to consistently transition from center-left governments to center-right governments, but always respectful of democratic traditions.  Obviously, those traditions were hard-won, and President Bachelet knows as well as anybody how difficult it was to bring about democracy.  And now, the fact that Chile across the political spectrum respects and fights for the democratic process makes it a great model for the entire hemisphere.

Today, we’re going to have an opportunity to discuss how we can deepen those relationships even further.  I know that education, for example, is an issue that is at the top of President Bachelet’s agenda.  It’s something that’s at the top of my agenda here in the United States.  For us to be able to strengthen student exchanges and compare mechanisms and ideas for how we can build skills of young people in both countries is something that we’ll spend some time on.

We’re both very interested in energy and how we can transition to a clean energy economy.  And we’ll be announcing some collaborations, including the facilitation of a construction of a major solar plant inside of Chile that can help meet their energy needs.

We’ll talk about regional issues.  Obviously, we’ve seen great progress in democratization throughout the region, in part because of Chile’s leadership, but there are obviously still some hotspots that we have to try to address, as well as issues of security in areas like Central America and the Caribbean.  And I’ll be very interested in hearing President Bachelet’s views.

And we’ll discuss international issues.  Chile, with its seat on the United Nations Security Council, can serve as a leader on a wide range of issues, from peacekeeping to conflict resolution, to important issues like climate change.  And we have great confidence that in that role Chile will continue to be a positive force for good around the world.

So I just want to say thank you for not only the friendship with President Bachelet, but more broadly, our friendship with the Chilean people.  And President Bachelet’s predecessor, he and I had an excellent relationship; she and I have had an excellent relationship.  I think that indicates that it really goes beyond any particular party.  I’m confident that my replacement after I’m gone will have an excellent relationship, because it’s based on common values and a strong respect in both countries for the value of the U.S.-Chilean relationship.

So, welcome, and I look forward to an excellent conversation.

PRESIDENT BACHELET:  Thank you, President Obama.  I want to, first of all, thank you for the invitation to visit you and your country.  And, of course, we are looking forward to enhance our cooperation in many different areas. 

As you just mentioned, Chile and the U.S. have had a very strong and mature relation for so many years, and we want to make it deeper and to enhance them in different areas.  Of course, this will be a great opportunity, as you said, to discuss some of the regional and international issues, given the fact that we’re also sitting at the Security Council.  But also, we will be able to in the bilateral dimension be able to increase our cooperation in areas that are very sensible, and for the U.S. and for Chile, such as you mentioned, education, energy, science and technology, people-to-people relation. 

We already have, as you know, a very good -- I mean, not only the bilateral way, we also have a very good Chile-California and Chile-Massachusetts programs.  We have been working very strongly and we will continue on that path. 

And we are really interested -- this year, I think we are commemorating 10 years of the free trade agreement from the U.S. and Chile.  And the U.S. is our, I would say, our most important foreign investor.  We want to continue that path, and of course, we will have also the possibility of having activities with the Chamber of Commerce and others because we really want to make our relations in all dimensions -- political, economical, social, et cetera -- stronger and stronger every day.

So I’m very happy to be here with you again, and I’m sure this will be a great meeting.

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  Thank you.

END
11:12 A.M. EDT

ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE BURKE SAYS CLEAN ENERGY IS NATIONAL SECURITY INTEREST

Photo:  Wind Turbines.  Credit:  Wikimedia Commons.

FROM: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Clean Energy Tied to National Security, Official Says
By Claudette Roulo
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Feb. 7, 2013 - The changing U.S. and international energy pictures have a profound effect on security, a senior Pentagon official said here yesterday.

Sharon E. Burke, the assistant secretary of defense for Operational Energy Plans and Programs, told industry partners and congressional leaders at the American Council on Renewable Energy's National Renewable Energy Policy Forum that the motivation for seeking out clean energy sources is strongly rooted in national security interests.

The International Energy Agency's world energy outlook, released in November, is "the shot heard 'round the world," Burke said. According to the report, she said, the world will need $37 trillion dollars in new investment in the energy supply system from now to 2035.

Even as mature economies increase their energy efficiency, switch fuels and reduce their petroleum demand, the thirst for oil among the world's economies -- particularly developing economies -- will continue to grow apace, Burke said.

"China will account for something like 50 percent of that [growth]," she told the audience. "When you add in India and the Middle East, you're talking about 60 percent."

The United States is affecting the most change on the world energy picture, she said. The IEA estimates that by 2020, the United States is going to outstrip Saudi Arabia as an oil producer. Another report predicts that the U.S. will succeed Russia as a natural gas producer, she added.

This means the possibility exists that North America could be energy self-sufficient by 2035, Burke said. "Even as everyone else in the world has growing demand and contracting supply, we're bucking the trend," she said.

This possibility has generated a lot of justifiable excitement, and for a variety of reasons, Burke said. There are positive consequences for the U.S. economy, for jobs and for the manufacturing sector, she said. But the Defense Department is most interested in the second-order geostrategic effects, Burke noted.

A danger in all this enthusiasm, she said, is that it overlooks the fact that the United States will still be part of a highly volatile global energy market, "and the world's supply and demand trends are going to continue to shape our own prosperity here at home."

The energy security variables have implications that aren't yet understood, Burke said. For example, she asked, what will happen if Saudi Arabia -- already the largest single consumer of petroleum in the Middle East -- becomes a net importer?

Iran is suspected to have been behind two attacks on Saudi Aramco: a cyberattack in 2012 that damaged 85 percent of the company's computers, and a two-vehicle suicide-bomb attack in 2006, Burke said. Both attacks failed to disable oil and gas production, but they were clearly intended to do so, she added.

Last month, Iran conducted naval exercises in the Strait of Hormuz, which it has repeatedly threatened to close, she said.

"I know a lot of people who think those are empty threats, because such a closure would certainly hurt the Iranian people most of all, but this is 20 percent of the global oil market," Burke said. "It would cripple the global economy, so certainly at DOD we take those threats seriously."

Territorial disputes pose a different kind of threat, she said. Tensions flared recently between China and Japan over the Senkaku Islands, due in part to the expected presence of oil there, Burke said. In the Arctic, global climate change has made more oil and gas accessible, driving bordering nations to stake claims on formerly ice-bound geologic provinces.

The Defense Department has a history of looking at how the effects of climate change -- droughts, floods, population migration, sea level rise and shifts in arable land -- are an accelerant to instability, she said. In May, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta called climate change a threat to national security, Burke added.

The need for clean energy and energy efficiency has an enduring security angle, she said, adding that it's the only way to break out of the paradigm of foreign energy dependence and its associated instability.

The Defense Department's changing mission also has energy security implications, Burke said. In January 2012, Panetta and President Barack Obama released new strategic guidance that called for a rebalance of focus to the Asia-Pacific region.

Considering that the Defense Department already is the single largest consumer of fuel in the country, if not the world, she said, it's "sobering" to think about what the rebalance means for fuel consumption. Last year, the department used 4.3 billion gallons of petroleum, and spent about $20 billion on fuel, Burke said.

Beyond the rebalance and the long supply lines that it implies, the strategy articulates a changing security environment, Burke said, including rising powers, weapons of mass destruction, anti-access/area-denial and violent extremism. "We are organizing to meet these challenges," she said, but the ability to do so hinges on maintaining energy security.

Everything from cyber to special operations to large-scale humanitarian assistance efforts requires a lot of energy, Burke noted.

"Consider this ability to disperse, to maneuver, to operate over long distances in remote locations, and to be aware that people are going to try to interdict your movements, try to prevent you," she said. "That's a fuel challenge, and it's a fuel logistics challenge, and we have to get our arms around it."

The department has to apply the lessons it learned over the past decade of war, Burke said. An average of 45 million gallons of fuel is consumed each month in Afghanistan, she said.

"Delivering all that fuel takes a toll on a lot of different things," Burke said. "It takes a toll on helicopters, aircraft [and] trucks that are moving the fuel, and that's a bill that's going to come due, because we need all those things for other missions in the future, and their life has been shortened."

The Army and Marine Corps have documented thousands of casualties related to fuel movements in Afghanistan and Iraq, Burke said. U.S. forces can protect those lines, she added, but the cost in people and resources is higher than it needs to be.

Maintaining a military that's ready for missions everywhere means it's vital to use energy better and use better energy, Burke said, noting that the Defense Department is looking at a variety of energy efficiencies and renewable energy sources for military systems.

The conflicts of the last decade have made it clear that individuals are themselves a military system, Burke said. "Because they carry so much electronic gear now, it gives them great capabilities, ... but it all requires power. It requires batteries," she explained.

According to one Army estimate, soldiers walking a three-day foot patrol in Afghanistan may be carrying anywhere from 10 to 18 pounds of batteries, Burke told the audience. "We want to look at how we can power that particular system -- the human system -- better," she said.

Other systems that require large amounts of energy are combat outposts and forward operating bases, Burke said. These bases serve as hubs for troops when they operate -- they project power from there, fight from there, live there, get intelligence from there and communicate from there. These activities are all powered by diesel generators, she said.

Fuel for those generators is delivered by truck convoys, helicopters, airdrops and even by donkey, Burke said. "Whatever it takes to get it there," she said.

"The next system ... is what I would call 'big movers,'" she said. "The individual on the base may be very critical to the operation, but the big volume is in ships and vehicles and aircraft. They go through an enormous amount of fuel." They also provide the U.S. military with one of its biggest advantages -- the ability to move people and things anywhere at any time, Burke said.

The final system, "game-changers," is a bit different from the others, she said.

"For example," Burke said, "we're seeing a lot of unmanned systems come into the force in all domains -- underwater, on the ground, in the air -- and those radically change how much energy you consume and they also give you a lot of flexibility for the kind of energy you consume."

For each of those systems, the department is investing in new, more efficient technologies, she said, including the technology of efficiency itself.

"I recognize efficiency isn't a technology, it's a suite of technologies, but for us, it's an extremely important investment, Burke said.

For example, she said, power management and distribution for forward operating bases is critical to reducing fuel use, but generators at those bases are often oversized and underloaded. The department is working to use generators more efficiently, including by stringing together several to create a microgrid, Burke said.

Those oversized generators burn a lot of fuel heating and cooling non-insulated structures, she said, so the department is looking at more efficient tents and other shelters.

"Heating and air conditioning is one of the biggest power users on the battlefield," she added. "We've put a lot of money into research and development lately for how to get more innovative in heating and cooling for these environments."

A second technology area of interest is energy storage, Burke said. "We're interested in a whole range of battery technologies," she said, "from Nano batteries for sensing, to more efficient lightweight batteries, to power equipment for the troops to large scale energy storage."

Solar energy is being put to some promising uses, Burke said. At the troop level, she said, flexible solar rechargers are already out on the battlefield.

"We're also interested in ruggedized solar that can generate power at forward bases ... [and] we've tested unmanned aerial systems using solar [power]," Burke said. In one such test, she said, the aircraft was aloft for two straight weeks without refueling.

Other technological developments the department is looking into, Burke said, include waste-to-energy and fuel cells for troops on the move and for unmanned systems.

The department is investing in alternative energy technologies because it makes strategic sense, Burke said.

"These are technologies that we think are going to help the troops do their missions better," she said. "At the end of the day, in some respects we're technology agnostic. This is not an exhaustive list. We want anything that's going to help our troops meet the mission and to do their jobs better."

OUTGOING SECRETARY OF STATE CLINTON ON NEW PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS

FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Secretary Clinton Announces Up to $86.5 Million in New Public-Private Partnerships
Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
January 31, 2013

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton today launched up to $86.5 million in new public-private partnership commitments to support a range of activities including women’s clean energy entrepreneurship, clean cookstove investments, support for programs that advance the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons, and access to affordable internet in low-income communities. These announcements were made at an event celebrating the public-private partnerships launched during Secretary’s tenure, and recognizing their success in promoting sustainable solutions to key global challenges.

"..Partnerships have been a hallmark of what we’ve done in the last four years here at the State Department, because many of the challenges that we face extend beyond traditional, political, and even geographic divisions," said Secretary Clinton. "And I’m confident that the United States, under our next Secretary and in the Obama Administration and, I hope, for years to come, will continue building this capacity for creating and nurturing and growing partnerships that produce results around the world."

The new partnerships commitments include:

wPower. With an amount that is anticipated to grow to more than $10 million subject to Congressional appropriations, wPower is designed to advance women’s clean energy entrepreneurship around the world. It is supported by the State Department, USAID, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves. This innovative new partnership will unlock women’s capacity to increase energy access across India, East Africa, and Nigeria by empowering more than 7,000 women to launch small businesses around small-scale energy technologies including solar lanterns and clean cookstoves. The partnership will provide training and business assistance and scale efforts to build women’s distribution networks.

Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves. The Alliance, launched by Secretary Clinton in 2010 to address the 4 million premature deaths that occur each year due to exposure to toxic cookstove smoke, announced four new commitments today to clean cookstove technologies from leading firms. These include:
Up to $70 million investment in promoting clean cookstoves in East Africa. The Paradigm Project – a Colorado-based cookstove business – and Bunge – a global agribusiness and food company – are collaborating with the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves to expand Paradigm’s clean cookstove program in the region and will aim to bring 4 to 5 million clean stoves and thousands of new jobs to the market by 2020.
A $4 million commitment between the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation and General Electric under the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves to finance a cookstove manufacturing project in East Africa in coordination with Burn Manufacturing Company. The partnership will establish a clean cookstove manufacturing facility in Kenya and satellite assembly plants in Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda, which are expected to manufacture and sell 3.6 million clean cookstoves in the region by 2020.
A partnership between Philips and the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa (IDC) to fund the development of a new company, African Clean Energy, to manufacture the cleanest solid biomass cookstoves made in Africa that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has tested. The pilot manufacturing of 5,000 stoves has been a success. Both Philips and the IDC are now working with channel partners and through direct consumer sales, to make the Philips clean woodstove available across the African market so that cleaner air and reduced fuel usage may benefit many, particularly the poor.
Mongolia and France officially joined the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves as partners.
Other partnership commitments include:
Pledge of support to the Global Equality Fund. The Arcus Foundation has made a $1 million commitment to match corporate contributions to the Department of State’s Global Equality Fund, which seeks to protect and advance the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities worldwide. In addition, the M·A·C AIDS Fund, the philanthropic arm of M·A·C Cosmetics, committed resources to the Fund.
Announced the Alliance for Affordable Internet. The Alliance will promote affordable access to the Internet and reduce the gender gap associated with connectivity in low-income communities by working with governments and regulators and private sector partners. The Alliance is supported by the State Department, Omidyar Network, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.K. Department for International Development, Google, Cisco, Intel, Microsoft, Yahoo and several civil society organizations and the World Wide Web Foundation.
U.S. –ASEAN Prize for Women in Science. The Department of State and Underwriters Laboratories will recognize the accomplishments and contributions of women scientists in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region through the newly established U.S.-ASEAN Prize for Women in Science. The competition will raise the profile of women scientists and seek to enhance and sustain science and technology cooperation in the ASEAN region.
Partners for a New Beginning. The partnership is releasing its 2013 Status Report highlighting the collective work of the global initiative over the past two years. In that time, PNB and its local chapters have launched, expanded, or pledged support for more than 180 new projects that promote entrepreneurship, expand access to capital, and enhance educational opportunities in the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia.
Benjamin Kane Gupta Fellowship. The Fellowship will enable youth and others interested in public service to spend a year working in the Global Partnership Initiative learning about partnership building. The Fellowship will be funded by the Gupta family and administered by the George Washington University in honor of Ben Gupta, a former colleague in the office of the Global Partnership Initiative. The first Gupta Fellows will start at the Department in the fall of 2013.
Since 2009, the Secretary has worked to strengthen and deepen U.S. diplomacy and development around the world through partnerships that leverage the creativity, innovation, and core business resources of private sector partners for greater impact. To date, the Department has worked with over 1,100 partners and leveraged more than $650 million in public and private resources to support key foreign policy objectives including climate change mitigation, women’s empowerment, economic growth, and human rights.

CONNECTING THE AMERICAS 2022 INITIATIVE

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Connecting the Americas 2022
Fact Sheet Office of the Spokesperson Washington, DC
April 13, 2012
At the Sixth Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, the United States joined Colombia and other leaders of the Western Hemisphere in committing to achieve universal access to electricity over the next decade through enhanced electrical interconnection. This initiative, developed by Colombia and called “Connecting the Americas 2022” will increase access to reliable, clean, and affordable electricity for the region’s 31 million citizens without it. Connecting the Americas 2022 supports the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas (ECPA), launched by President Obama at the 2009 Summit of the Americas, which promotes regional collaboration on low-carbon development, energy security, and climate change.

Electrical Interconnection in the Americas
The Western Hemisphere produces one quarter of the world’s oil, almost one-third of its natural gas, and nearly 30 percent of global electricity, and is also endowed with abundant renewable energy resources. The region requires a 26 percent increase in new power generation capacity to meet annual projected GDP growth of as much as 6 percent over the next decade. Electrical interconnection benefits all countries by allowing those with excess power to export electricity to countries that have a power deficit. Interconnected power systems allow for greater integration of renewable energy resources, as well as power exchanges among countries with varying climate and seasonal needs. Interconnection expands the size of power markets, creating economies of scale, which can attract private investment, lower capital costs, and reduce electricity costs for consumers -- that makes businesses more competitive and helps create jobs. When coupled with national strategies to develop off-grid, mini-grid, or clean cook stoves, electrical interconnection will bring modern energy services to hundreds of millions who have limited or no access, including in this hemisphere.

Connecting the Americas 2022: The Decade for Electrical Interconnection
This hemisphere has made significant progress to integrate power sectors and promote cross-border trade in electricity with support from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), World Bank, Organization of American States (OAS), donors, and private companies. Connecting the Americas 2022 will serve as a framework for the Americas to reinforce regional and bi-national efforts to bring electricity to all parts of the hemisphere. Connecting the Americas 2022 is a platform for development and prosperity: it means education for children, cold chains for vaccines, reliable power for clinics and hospitals, and lower costs for business. Connecting the Americas 2022 will create a business climate that accelerates development of renewable energy and attracts private investment, big and small. Connecting the Americas 2022 will open markets that bring the best in power technology to markets that need low-cost and efficient solutions. Working through ECPA and other mechanisms, Connecting the Americas 2022 will tap the expertise, technology, and capital of individual countries, regulators, utilities, the private sector, and multilateral organizations and institutions.

U.S. Government Support for Connecting the Americas 2022
Ongoing and new technical assistance and capacity building programs through ECPA and other mechanisms include:
U.S. Department of State (State) grants to the Institute of the Americas to support policy dialogues among Central American energy ministers and regulators to overcome regulatory barriers to increasing intra-regional electricity trade. State will increase technical assistance to support the development of commercially sustainable regional power trade between Central America, Mexico, and Colombia.

U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) support for a completed feasibility study examining the potential for electrical interconnection between Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, which concluded that the interconnection is technically and economically possible.

State grant to the Organization of American States to determine the potential for electrical interconnection between Saint Kitts and Nevis and Puerto Rico. This grant also supports a policy dialogue with Caribbean Energy Ministers, the Caribbean Community, donor governments, and regional institutions to discuss the potential for electrical connection via sub-sea cables and renewable energy development.

State support for Smart Grid technology demonstration projects in Latin America.

Deepening the work of the U.S.-Mexico Cross Border Electricity Task Force to promote renewable energy markets between our two countries.

Enhancing cross-border trade in electricity through the U.S.-Canada Energy Consultative Mechanism.

Facilitating Smart Grid technology cooperation between DOE and Colombia through the U.S.-Colombia High Level Partnership Dialogue’s Energy Working Group.

New State-supported technical assistance to governments and utilities in Dominica, Saint Kitts and Nevis to develop their geothermal sectors and establish the commercial, regulatory, and legal frameworks needed to support inter-island sub-sea power connections.

New U.S. Trade and Development Agency Smart Grid Series that will host Mexican and Colombian regulatory and power utility company representatives in 2012 to familiarize them with the U.S. Smart Grid regulatory environment, technologies, and equipment, based on a successful Chilean program in 2011.

Creating commercial opportunities and expanding market access for U.S. investors and suppliers of power and communications systems and clean energy technology through trade missions and economic statecraft.