SECRETARY KERRY'S REMARKS AT NATIONAL CENTER FOR ASIA-PACIFIC ECONOMIC COOPERATION LUNCHEON

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Remarks at the National Center for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Luncheon
Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Intercontinental Beijing
Beijing, China
November 8, 2014

SECRETARY KERRY: Scott, thank you. Thank you very much. I apologize for being a little bit late. And it’s an honor for me to be able to be here. I’m delighted to be here with everybody. I’m particularly happy to be here with my good friend and colleague, the Foreign Minister from the Philippines, Albert Del Rosario. Albert, always good to be with you, and thank you very much. Albert said to me he was deathly afraid he was going to be late and he was glad I was the guy who was. (Laughter.) Modern diplomacy.

Scott, I’m really grateful to you. Monica sort of described it in her introductory comments, but we’re really delighted with what you have done to make NC-APEC what it is at this moment at the 20th anniversary celebration. And I think nobody who knows Scott is going to be surprised by what he has been able to accomplish, congratulate you on your new and large role. But through programs like Direct Farm at Walmart, he’s made it his mission to balance the needs of customers with corporate social responsibility, and I think all of us are very grateful to him for the leadership that he has shown.

I also want to thank Monica. When you think about the progress that we have made in building a public-private partnership here in the Pacific, it’s fair to say that Monica has been there every single step of the way. And I’m delighted that she is able to be here with us this afternoon. I also want to acknowledge a few folks that are in the APEC Business Advisory Council. All of them contribute significantly. I had the pleasure to be starting a conversation last year in Bali. Particularly from an American point of view, I want to single out Bart Peterson of Eli Lily, Peggy Johnson of Microsoft, Ed Rapp of Caterpillar, and we’re delighted for all that they represent in terms of their corporate engagement and the ability of their companies.

When you consider the long list of challenges that we are discussing here at APEC, it’s interesting for me to note how APEC itself has been somewhat transformed not just into an economic forum, but frankly, it has also evolved so much and has become such a competent place of discussion of important issues, and it’s also security (inaudible). And I think it’s fair to say that in today’s world, a world with ISIL and Ebola, Ukraine, Syria, climate change, it’s impossible not to recognize the relatedness of a lot of the choices that we make economically with the choices that are also (inaudible) at the same time integrated into a security matrix.

Nowhere is the unprecedented set of challenges, but also opportunities more clear than here in Asia and throughout the Asia Pacific. And it is important for people to focus on the fact that even as there are the challenges that I listed, we are staring at a world with absolutely unprecedented opportunity. I think that’s part of the attraction in putting so many of the businesses here, not just to APEC, but to the region, and has brought so many more over the last years. We are literally building prosperity and stability in the long term, and that’s why, unabashedly, economic policy is at the center of President Obama’s rebalance to Asia.

This is my fourth trip right here just to Beijing, my multiple trips to the region over the course of the last year and a half that I have been Secretary. And it will be one of many trips of the President when he arrives here on Monday and spends not one day or two days, but I think about eight days going to the ASEAN meeting and to the G20 meeting, ultimately, in Brisbane. There is no doubt that how this region grows and how we engage the 2.7 billion customers who live here is going to shape the future of the global economy, and it will do much to define the 21st century.

The numbers themselves of the last years of development actually define this story. The fact is that more than half the world’s GDP is represented in this region. Fully half of America’s top 10 trading partners are APEC economies. And we send the majority of our exports here to the Asia Pacific. And outside of America over the next five years, this region is expected to grow as much as all other countries combined. Just think about that. So if we put it all together, it’s pretty obvious why we all have a huge stake in the choices that are made here.

But getting these choices right is not automatic. That means to have to develop even closer cooperation between the public and the private sectors. And what you sell, how you invest, how you operate – these are all major parts of the equation. Our ambassadors throughout the region, including our outstanding Ambassador to China, Max Baucus, are completely at the disposal of all businesses. And I have said since day one, when I became Secretary of State, that foreign policy is economic policy, and economic policy is foreign policy. We’re living in that much of a different world in many ways.

And I have directed all of our embassies, under the good stewardship of our Assistant Secretary of State Charlie Rivkin, who’s sitting over here, Assistant Secretary of State for Business Affairs, and our Assistant Secretary of State Danny Russel, who’s over here, for East Asia and Pacific, that I want all embassies and every official within our embassies to be economic officers. That’s how important it is for us today to be able to promote and help to marry businesses with opportunities.

President Obama has set the tone by saying again and again that the way to grow our economies is to grow our exports. And that’s exactly what’s happening. Since the President took office, U.S. exports have increased more than 50 percent, and the two-way trade between the United States and other APEC countries, economies has grown by nearly the same amount during that period of time. That’s five, six years now (inaudible) growth nearly 50 percent. Every single one of you here, almost all of you, have been involved here for decades, frankly. I know this. So you’ve seen with your own eyes how dramatic the transformation is. Many of you are the transformation. You understand it. And it’s been a remarkable transformation in the 25 years since APEC was founded.

Back when it was founded, real GDP was 15 trillion in the region. Now it’s doubled to 30 trillion. Back then, when it was founded, trade was around $3 trillion. Now it’s grown to nearly seven-fold more than 20 trillion and growing. Back then, the average tariffs were 17 percent. Now, they’re under 6 percent. And that is a fundamental of the kind of growth that has taken place. And today, the 1.1 trillion in U.S. foreign direct investment in other APEC economies is a tremendous vote of American confidence in the region. Investment coming the other way – from APEC economies into the United States – now tops some $660 billion and it has created tens of thousands of jobs throughout the region and in the United States. The mutual benefits are absolutely undeniable.

So we have made extraordinary progress. The question now is: What do we do with the next 25 years? How do we guarantee that what we can do together, the steps that we take together, are going to build an even more prosperous future for all of the APEC countries? Well, today, I’d argue that we have to organize ourselves fundamentally around four principles of growth: We need to grow openly and accountably. We need to grow green. We need to grow just. And we need to grow smart. Now let me tell you what I mean about each of those.

First, openly and accountably. As any business leader would agree, freer markets create more opportunity, more competition, more growth, and more innovation. And that means that we need to do everything we can to open up trade and investment in every single corner of the globe, particularly here in the Asia Pacific. And that’s why President Obama and I are laser-focused on the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement.

The TPP represents a state-of-the-art, 21st century trade agreement that will connect more than 40 percent of the global GDP and one-third of global trade. But more than that, it doesn’t just connect it; it raises standards. It creates a race to the top, not a race to the bottom. And any of you who are wondering today about the security challenge of increased level with extremism, just look to those places where it is most taking hold, and you’ll find places that aren’t just racing to the bottom; they’ve been stuck at the bottom. And if you stay stuck at the bottom, your people are going to find something to latch on to that they will organize themselves around.

Governance is a critical component of being able to grow effectively and have this race to the top, where all people do better, and any one of you in business here in this part of the world understands the difference that moving to the top has made to the sense of quality of life and the opportunities that citizens have in the countries that are affected. And that’s true whether we’re talking about agriculture, manufacturing, or intellectual property, or the challenge of ensuring that state-owned enterprises compete fairly with privately owned companies. TPP will build prosperity and ensure prosperity and stability throughout the region, and it will do so based on shared principles and shared values. It is not just a technical trade agreement. It is a strategic opportunity for all of us, and we need to make sure we seize it. That’s why we need every single one of you here to make the case – with all of the leaders and all of the population that you come in contact with, particularly all the opinion leaders – make your case for TPP in every country and in every capital. This is a battle that we need to be prepared to make, and make no mistake, it is a battle that we absolutely must win, because if you don’t, the levels of unfairness and the shut doors will create inequities that will encourage corruption and begin to insidiously invade populations of countries that are affected.

Secondly, we need to grow green. That means stepping up our engagement on clean energy and oceans conservation. Cleaner energy means more sustainable sources of energy. It means reduced air pollution. Reduced air pollution means healthier populations. In America in the summertime, the greatest single cause of young kids being hospitalized is environmentally induced asthma. You want to reduce the cost of hospitalization, the cost of healthcare? Breathe cleaner air. Reduce the level of long-term illness that comes from carcinogens in the air that give people cancer.

There’s a long list of benefits – your healthier populations, your reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. The latest UN panel report of just a week or so or two weeks ago is chilling, and I urge everybody here to read it. It’s not a political document. It’s a scientific document. And most of us learned at the elementary stages in school science has value. It’s not everything in life, but facts are facts. The latest report tells us that those who deny climate change are playing with fire. And all of the evidence that has been predicted for the last 20 or 30 years is not just coming back the way it was predicted; it’s coming back faster and it’s coming back with bigger consequences than were predicted.

For anybody in public life, the warning is clear. It means the precautionary principle has to be applied, and you need to take steps to deal with them. Scientists now predict that by the end of the century, the sea could rise by a full meter. Now a meter, 39 inches, may not seem like a lot to everybody here, but I got news for you: It is enough to displace hundreds of millions of people, and it is enough to throw a multi-billion dollar monkey wrench into the global economy.

That’s why we are promoting the use of electric cars throughout the APEC region, and that’s why more countries are reconsidering the wisdom of fossil fuel subsidies. And this week, I am proud to say that we are set – that we set the ambitious goal of doubling the share of renewables in the region’s energy by mid-2030. We’re also strengthening our partnership on oceans. Now oceans are affected by climate change. The amount of acidity in the ocean, which is affected fish populations, food, coral reefs, plankton, comes from greenhouse gases that dump into the ocean. And we are seeing significant increases in various parts of the planet. Scientists have even noticed that in the Antarctic, the ocean has regurgitated carbon mass out that it once upon a time could contain and now isn’t – another warning signal.

This fall, President Obama declared the world’s largest marine sanctuary in the Pacific, and that is critical. APEC Ocean Ministers have pledged to conserve at least 10 percent of coastal and marine areas by the end of this decade, and we’re improving the transparency of the reporting of subsidies that contribute to overfishing. I’ll tell you something: I’ve been chairman of the fisheries subcommittee for years in the United States Senate. I have major fisheries in New England. We no longer have the same cod fishing we used to have. Our fisherman are now in port most of the days of the year because of what’s happened to the stocks. And most of the fisheries of the world are overfished. There’s too much money chasing too few fish, and unless you fish in sustainable ways, unless you engage in sustainable agriculture on land, we are all going to be challenged by this onslaught coming at us.

I’ve got good news for you, though. The solution to climate change is really very simple and it’s staring us in the face, and it’s not something that’s somewhere down the road. It’s here now. The solution is energy policy. Make the right choices in your energy policy; you solve the problem of climate change. And guess what? It happens to be the biggest marketplace the world has ever seen. The market that drove America’s great wealth production of the 1990s – I don't know how many of you know know this – America got richer in the 1990s than we did in the 1920s when we had no income tax. Greater wealth was created in the 1990s for every single income-earner in America, every single quintile of American taxpayer went up in their income when we had a $1 trillion market with 1 billion users. It was the high-tech telecommunications computer revolution. Well, guess what? The energy market is a $6 trillion market with 4-5 billion users, and it’s going to grow to something like 9 billion in the next 30, 40 years. So there’s an enormous opportunity staring us in the face. We need to grab it.

The third thing we need to do is grow just, and that means avoiding bribery and corruption. Obviously, that has a terrible impact on the ability of businesses to do business. We’re all hurt by it, and we can’t level the playing field if there’s corruption. And I know that a number of countries around the world are increasingly focused on trying to eliminate corruption, and we have made that partnership very key in APEC.

And finally, we need to grow smart, and that means empowering women and promoting educational opportunities all across APEC economies. I’m very proud that the United States is contributing to the APEC Scholarships and Internships Initiative. We have commitments from Caterpillar, Eli Lilly, Microsoft, General Electric, EMD Merck Serono, as well as three universities: Colorado State University, the University of Colorado, and the University of Washington Evans School, and they’re making contributions that can help us bring more students back and forth.

Finally, let me just say that it is clear that APEC really has the ability to define the future here. There’s no business sector over here and government over there; it is really all one and the same now. We’re all connected. And it is absolutely vital that we create greater opportunities for this generation and the next. Twenty-five years of APEC, 20 years of the National Center have done an extraordinary job of really defining the possibilities for the future. That’s what’s happening here. And I’m excited by the notion that we’re going to recommit ourselves to making certain that we live up to our responsibilities but seize the opportunities at the same time, and that’s how APEC is actually going to help define the 21st century.

Thank you all very much. (Applause.)

PRESIDENT OBAMA'S REMARKS ON ENERGY AT WALMART IN MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA

FROM:  THE WHITE HOUSE 

May 9, 2014

Remarks by the President on American Energy

Walmart
Mountain View, California

9:48 A.M. PDT

THE PRESIDENT:  Hello, Mountain View!  (Applause.)  It’s good to be in California.  Everybody, have a seat.  Have a seat.  This is actually my third day on the West Coast.  On Wednesday, we went to L.A., then we went to San Diego, we’re here in the Bay Area.  But I have to get back because Sunday is what?

AUDIENCE:  Mother’s Day!

THE PRESIDENT:  It is Mother’s Day.  That is a public service announcement -- do not forget.  (Laughter.)  It’s Mother’s Day. 

I told Michelle one time, I said, how come people put so much emphasis on Mother’s Day, and Father’s day not so much?  (Laughter.)  She said every day other than Mother’s Day is Father’s Day.  (Laughter and applause.)  Which I thought kind of quieted me down.

I want to thank your mayor, Chris Clark, for hosting us.  (Applause.)  I want to thank the folks at Walmart.  And I know this looks like a typical Walmart, but it is different -- and that’s why I’m here.  A few years ago, you decided to put solar panels on the roof of the store.  You replaced some traditional light bulbs with LEDs.  You made refrigerator cases more efficient.  And you even put in a charging station for electric vehicles.  And all told, those upgrades created dozens of construction jobs and helped this store save money on its energy bills.  And that’s why I’m here today -- because more and more companies like Walmart are realizing that wasting less energy isn’t just good for the planet, it’s good for business.  It’s good for the bottom line.

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  (Inaudible.)

THE PRESIDENT:  Yes, see, he agrees.  (Applause.)  And it means jobs.

Changing the way we use energy is just one of the ways Americans have been working so hard to move this country forward.  In the wake of the worst financial and economic crisis in generations, our businesses now have created over 9.2 million new jobs.  A housing market that was reeling is rebounding.  An auto industry that was flat-lining is now booming.  You’ve got a manufacturing sector that had lost a third of its jobs during the ‘90s and now is adding jobs for the first time.  More than 8 million Americans have now signed up for health care coverage through the Affordable Care Act.  (Applause.)  Troops that were fighting two wars are coming home.  And rather than create jobs in other countries, more companies are actually choosing to create jobs and invest right here in the United States of America.

But we’ve got a long way to go before we get to where we need to be -- which is an economy where everybody who works hard, everybody who takes responsibility has a chance to get ahead, and that we have a chance to build an economy that works not just for a few at the top, but for everybody.  That’s our goal -- the idea that no matter who you are, no matter what you look like, no matter where you come from, what your last name is, if you work hard, if you take responsibility, you can make it here in America. 

And that starts with helping businesses create more good jobs.  One of the biggest factors in bringing jobs back to America has been our commitment to American energy over the last five years.  When I took office, we set out to break our dependence on foreign oil.  Today, America is closer to energy independence than we have been in decades.  We generate more renewable energy than ever, with tens of thousands of good American jobs to show for it.  We produce more natural gas than anyone -- and nearly everybody’s energy bill is lower because of it.  So are our carbon emissions that cause climate change.

We set new fuel standards for our cars and trucks so that they’ll go twice as far on a gallon of gas by the middle of the next decade.  That saves the typical family about $8,000 at the pump.  And for the first time in nearly 20 years, America produces more oil here at home than we buy from other countries. 

So we’re producing more traditional energy, but we’re also becoming a leader in the energy sources of the future.  We’re becoming a global leader in solar, thanks in part to the investments we’ve made in the Recovery Act.  Over the past few years, the cost of solar panels have fallen by 60 percent; solar installations have increased by 500 percent.  Every four minutes, another American home or business goes solar, and every panel is pounded into place by a worker whose job cannot be overseas.

So today, no matter where you live or where you do business, solar is getting cheaper and is getting easier to use than before.  And with more businesses and rural cooperatives and homes choosing solar, prices keep coming down, manufacturers keep getting more innovative, and more jobs are created.  Last year, jobs in the solar industry increased by 20 percent.
 
But we’ve got more work to do.  And I want to work with Congress to do it.  Unfortunately, Congress has not always been as visionary on these issues as we would like.  It can be a little frustrating.  But in this Year of Action, wherever I can go ahead and create my own opportunities for new jobs, I'm going to take it. 

And so far, I’ve taken more than 20 executive actions -- from launching new hubs to attracting more high-tech manufacturing jobs to America, to reforming our job training programs to make sure more Americans are getting the skills they need to get the jobs that exist right now.

And so today, here at Walmart, I want to announce a few more steps that we’re taking that are going to be good for job growth and good for our economy, and that we don't have to wait for Congress to do.  They are going to be steps that generate more clean energy, waste less energy overall, and leave our kids and our grandkids with a cleaner, safer planet in the process.

So let me list these out.  Number one, we know that making buildings more energy efficient is one of the easiest, cheapest ways to create jobs, save money, and cut down on harmful pollution that causes climate change.  It could save our businesses tens of billions of dollars a year on their energy bills -- and they can then use that money to grow and hire more folks.  It would put construction workers back to work installing new systems and technologies.  So this is what you call a win-win-win.

So that’s why, three years ago, I announced what we called the Better Buildings Initiative.  It's an ambitious plan to improve the energy efficiency of America’s commercial buildings by 20 percent by the year 2020.  And already we've got 190 businesses and organizations that have signed on.  On average, they’re on track to meet their goal -- cutting energy use by 2.5 percent every single year.  Together, they’ve already saved $300 million in energy costs.  So we know it works. 

And that’s why, over the past few months, I’ve been picking up the phone and reaching out to more leaders to get them on board.  And today, they’re stepping up -- from cities, school districts, businesses, universities, you're seeing folks move on energy efficiency.  GM is pledging to improve energy efficiency in 31 plants.  The University of Virginia is doing the same thing in its buildings.  Cities like Little Rock, Kansas City and Detroit are replacing regular street lights with more efficient LEDs. 

And at Walmart, you’ve committed to reducing energy consumption across 850 million square feet of space.  That's a lot.  That's enough to cover more than half of the city of San Francisco.  Taken together, this is going to make a difference, and it's the right thing to do for the planet, but it’s also the right thing to do for the bottom line.  Because when you save that money you can pass that money back to consumers in the form of lower prices, or you can use it to create more jobs. 

So folks in the private sector are doing their part to create jobs and reduce pollution and cut waste.  I’m making sure the federal government does its part.  Two years ago, I ordered $2 billion in energy upgrades to federal buildings.  Today, I’m ordering an additional $2 billion in upgrades over the next three years.  And these upgrades will create tens of thousands of construction jobs and save taxpayers billions of dollars. 

The Department of Energy is putting a new efficiency standard -- set of efficiency standards in place that could save businesses billions of dollars in energy costs and cut carbon pollution -- and it's the equivalent of taking about 80 million cars off the road.  And I want to thank Ernie Moniz, Secretary of Energy, and Secretary Donovan -- Shaun Donovan of HUD -- who are here today because they’ve shown extraordinary leadership on these issues.  That's worth applauding.  (Applause.)

So that’s the first announcement.  Cities, schools, businesses, the federal government -- we’re all going to pledge to waste less energy and we’ve got concrete strategies that we know work.   

The second announcement is about more Americans coming together to use more clean energy.  Last month, I called up leaders from a whole range of industries and made the economic case for why solar is a good idea.  And they listened.  And today, more than 300 organizations -- from homebuilders, to affordable housing owners, to companies like Home Depot and Apple -- announced that they are going to expand the use of solar energy, thereby creating more jobs and cutting carbon pollution. 

We’ve got public banks like Connecticut’s Green Bank and private banks like Goldman Sachs ready to invest billions of dollars in renewable energy.  The Treasury Department and the IRS are making it easier for renewable energy companies to operate and attract investment.  And we’re going to support training programs at community colleges across the country that will help 50,000 workers earn the skills that solar companies are looking for right now.

Walmart has already got the most installed on-site solar capacity of any company in America.  And now you’ve announced plans to double that capacity.  And it’s all part of your goal to buy or produce 7 billion kilowatt hours of renewable energy by 2020 -- something that could save Walmart $1 billion a year in energy costs. 

So we know that generating more clean energy, using less dirty energy, and wasting less energy overall can be good for business and consumers.  And it’s also good for the world that we leave for our children.

So together, the commitments we’re announcing today prove that there are cost-effective ways to tackle climate change and create jobs at the same time.  So often, when we hear about how we’re going to deal with this really serious issue, people say we can’t afford to do it; it won’t be good for the economy.  It will be good for the economy long term -- and if we don’t, that will be bad for the economy.  Rising sea levels, drought, more wildfires, more severe storms -- those are bad for the economy.  So we can’t afford to wait.  And there’s no reason why we can’t even go further than we are so far by working with states and utilities, and other organizations to change the way we power our economy.  Climate change is real and we have to act now.

Earlier this week, I issued -- or we issued a report that was years in the making called the National Climate Assessment.  Hundreds of scientists, experts and businesses, not-for-profits, local communities all contributed over the course of four years.  What they found was unequivocally that climate change is not some far-off problem in the future.  It’s happening now.  It’s causing hardship now.  It’s affecting every sector of our economy and our society -- more severe floods, more violent wildfires.  It’s already costing cities and states and families and businesses money.

Here in California, you’ve seen these effects firsthand.  You know what’s happening.  And increasingly, more and more Americans do -- including, by the way, many Republicans outside of Washington.

So unfortunately, inside of Washington we’ve still got some climate deniers who shout loud, but they’re wasting everybody’s time on a settled debate.  Climate change is a fact.

And while we know the shift to clean energy won’t happen overnight, we’ve got to make some tough choices along the way.  And we know that if we do, it’s going to save us ultimately money and create jobs over the long term.  That's what Walmart understands, and Walmart is pretty good at counting its pennies.

So that’s why this fight is so important.  That’s why the sooner we work together to adapt the economy to this reality of climate change, the more likely it is that we do right by our kids and leave a more stable world.  And ultimately that's what motivates a whole lot of us.

As Americans, we don’t look backwards.  We look forward.  We don’t fear the future, we seize it.  We shape it.  And when it comes to energy, we have a chance to shape that sector that is probably going to have more to do with how well our economy succeeds than just about any other.  We are blessed when it comes to energy, but we’re much more blessed when it comes to the innovation and the dynamism and the creativity of our economy. 

If we do our part right now to rebuild an economy and transition to a clean energy future, we will create new jobs, we will reduce our dependence on foreign oil, we will leave our children with a better America and a better future.

So thank you very much, everybody.  God bless you.  (Applause.)  Thanks to all the companies who are doing the great work, and the not-for-profits.  We appreciate your leadership. 

Thank you, guys.  Happy Mother’s Day, moms!  (Applause.)

END
10:02 A.M. PDT