 Good afternoon everyone. This has been a very, very day and we are very glad to have you join us this afternoon in spite of that and in terms of addressing this very, very important topic that is before us. In terms of talking about fast action, climate mitigation, the whole role of short lived climate pollutants and we're going to hear a lot more about that from an unbelievable exciting panel of experts this afternoon. To kick off our briefing though, I want to start by recognizing somebody who has been a real leader on this issue in the United States Senate. Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, we are so delighted that he is able to hear, that he's able to be here with us at least for a short while this afternoon to kick off this briefing before we turn to Mr. Aachensteiner. Senator Murphy. I would say that it is wonderful to be here with you today except for the fact that the reason that I was originally scheduled to be otherwise engaged was that today is the day that I preside over the Senate floor and so normally I would be in the presiding chair today but because of events at the Navy Yard the Senate has adjourned for the day and so as was mentioned all of our thoughts and prayers are across the city. We hope for as much good news to come out of the day filled with bad news as possible. I am though thrilled that you're here today to hear from a very distinguished panel and my role here is just to get out of the way as quickly as possible so that you can hear from the true experts. Except to say that I think that there is enormous room to build upon some very positive announcements at the international level with some real action here in Washington. Clearly we are an overall stalemate when it comes to big bold action on the issue of climate but the issue that you're going to talk about today the issue of shortening of climate pollutants I think gives us some ability to have some action that may avoid some of the particularly thorny political problems that surround trying to mitigate the contribution of carbon dioxide these other non-CO2 forms of climate pollutants whether we're talking about methane or HFCs or black carbon they certainly present political problems but none lies to the level of CO2 and so right now our office along with Senator Menendez and Senator Frank and we hope one or two Republican offices are trying to put together the initial stages of draft legislation that will be very least try to lend some support from the United States Senate and House of Representatives to the initiatives of the US State Department in the United Nations and potentially start to accelerate some efforts that the Obama administration has already begun here at home for the United States to lead the way when it comes to some of these most insidious greenhouse pollutants. Now I'll give you one quick example. We know that one of the primary short-lived climate pollutants is the methane that escapes from the oil and gas production that happens in the United States and around the world and we frankly know that there's a lot more that the industry can do to try to stop that leakage from occurring. It frankly is in their best interest to do so because they keep more of the gas for themselves and for their customers and for their bottom line of course it's in the interests of our efforts. We here in the United States have begun to aggressively work with the industry both with respect to new standards being propered by the administration but also with respect to new voluntary efforts and our work shouldn't stop there. Once we start to set new standards here in the United States we should do everything possible both on a voluntary basis and based on international negotiations to make sure that those efforts become the standard industry wide around the globe. And you put together those efforts with so many others that are happening whether it be in the oil and gas industry, in the landfill industry, in the air conditioning and refrigeration industry, we can make some pretty significant progress and we have to because even if you are an optimist about global climate talks even if you believe that we can get an agreement in 2015 that will be operative on 2020 the damage that is done to the overall environment and atmosphere just in the intervening eight years is unacceptable and so some short-term agreements with the United States taking the lead with the UN on short-lived climate pollutants can put a real dent in the pace of global warming up to a half or a degree Celsius and some reports are saying before we even really get to an overall framework and we hope the United States will be part of as well. So we hope to have good news on the legislative front in the coming weeks as I mentioned senator Menendez, Franken and myself as well as we hope others joining our effort will be introducing legislation in the Senate to take on this issue of providing congressional leadership on the issue of short-lived climate pollutants. I'm going to stick around here some of the wonderful presentations today but by the fact that we have a standing room only crowd here on a very busy day in Washington tells us that progress that we have made, progress we continue to make is only the beginning. Thank you very much for having me here today. Well we are simply honored and delighted that you are here and hope that you can stay as long as possible to be part of this and if there are questions that you have that you want to raise while you're here please do interject them. The Environmental and Energy Study Institute is delighted to be partnering with regard to this briefing with the UN Environment Program and we are especially honored to have with us today Aachen Steiner who is the United Nations Undersecretary General and the Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program which is playing such an important role with regard to the topic before us today and a couple things that I just wanted to mention briefly with regard to Aachen Steiner who will come to the podium in just a minute and I also want to say that he is under a very very busy schedule we're just delighted that he is able to be here while he is in Washington but he has to leave right around 3 30 and so we want to make sure that he has time to to present to us to talk to us about this issue and perhaps take a couple questions but I think that it is very telling about the kind of gifts that this man brings to the issue when he was nominated by Secretary General Kofi Yanar in 2006 to become the Executive Director of UNEPRA four-year term he was unanimously elected. He was then re-elected for another four-year term in 2010 and I have to say to be unanimously elected to anything and particularly something in terms of a UN agency I say our hat should go off to this man so he is in a very very important place at a very very important time in our planet's history. He brings a lot of experience he knows Washington well he'd been formerly the Director General of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature he also served as Secretary General of the World Commission on Dance he has worked in many different countries he's worked with government non-governmental and international organizations and he's worked at grassroots level as well as at the highest level of international policy making all of which really equips him well for this very very important job that he has now and in terms of the kind of leadership that that we all need in terms of dealing with these terribly important issues for our planet. Mr. Steiner is both a German and a Brazilian national he was educated both in the United States at Harvard also in the UK as well as in Germany so he truly is a citizen of the world I can it's almost tempting to continue listening to you always makes my life so well Carol thank you thank you so much for this most generous introduction Senator thank you so much for finding time even if the occasion is one that actually we were sorry to hear about the events this morning but I'm delighted that you could be here because to be here in Washington full of congressional staffers and with my distinguished panel of experts here on an issue that ten years ago probably just a few people on this planet even realize what its significance would be tells a story in itself it's the story of science guiding human awareness and reflection recognizing opportunities to act and taking action it is only 18 months ago when we met at the State Department with the seven launch partners of the climate and clean air coalition which became the vehicle through which the research on short life time politicals had begun to hit the radar screens of policymakers it was under secretary of state thinking that a number of countries from north and south have come together to launch this coalition with a lot of input from from scientists amongst them I want to particularly highlight the result of who has played an untying role in trying to bridge science policy the Washington arena also which was so critical because when the US takes a proactive interest in an issue the rest of the world pays attention doesn't always mean that agreements immediately imagine we are seeing that right now on the issue of HFCs and the mantra protocol but the moment that the United States takes an interest in issue the rest of the world begins to take an interest in the issue as well and that is always a precondition for actually making progress indeed I myself saw this happen just a few years ago on the issue of macroism we now have in a few weeks time a diplomatic conference in Minamata Japan to agree on a new middle instrument to phase down and hopefully ultimately phase out the use of mercury in our lives and it is another example of how science has brought countries with very different interests very different challenges very different thresholds also together and perhaps it is just for two of these coincidences but I'm sure Carol it isn't probably with your planning but today is also the United Nations General Assembly designated day to commemorate the signing of the mantra protocol and substances that decreed the ozone layer if anything here is a treaty here is an example of nations coming together on the basis of science committed also through a financial envelope and an agreed set of targets to move together in phasing out a substance or a series of substances that perhaps for the first time illustrate us that we really do depend on one another in keeping this planet functionally alive and also stable today we can look back on the history of the mantra protocol with 98 percent of ozone depleting substances agreed at the time phased out and lo and behold taking the recent meetings also between China and the United States at the highest level looking perhaps to this most successful of all environmental treaties as perhaps a partial vehicle that will help us address the challenge of CFCs HFCs ozone depleting substances and our ability to first recognize that the mantra protocol has even already made a significant contribution towards addressing global warming or this climate change in the sense of the mix of substances that are in our atmosphere but more importantly to allow international cooperation to emerge i work on the short list long politicals is also a fascinating journey of science beginning to recognize certain phenomena and two days from now in new york at the american history natural history museum we will be rewarding and recognizing this year's champions of the earth awards amongst them this is the highest recognition the united nations has for people across the world to provide leadership on environment and sustainable related issues one of the winners this year will be professor ramanathan who over 10 years ago 15 years ago already was at the forefront of recognizing this phenomenon of the atmospheric bound cloud the fact that black carbon super particles were beginning to accumulate in a on a scale of Asia and was related to some other parts of the world but not only had a pollution impact directly but also had a climate relevant signal it is out of this work and then the work of many others also such as drew shindal who led the methane assessment that you know put out a few years ago and our work on tropospheric ozone related to that and the recognition of the rapidly growing potential use of hfc's which could if not avoided account for up to 20 percent of co2 equivalent emissions in just a few decades if you could not address these short-lived climate pollutants which by the very nature are different from carbon dioxide which remains the biggest challenge and should never allow these two to be trade off against one another but the big difference is that on shortly of climate pollutants two fascinating things allow the world to come together first of all if you stop their emission you have an almost instant impact because shortly of climate pollutants as their name says do not linger in the atmosphere for hundreds of years or longer they are a matter of days months perhaps a couple of years until you begin to be able to see the impact of reducing emissions so they act or action translates immediately into impact secondly as so often and often forgotten perhaps in the climate debates of this world an action taken for example black carbon and soot has perhaps an even more immediate impact just on basic health of literally millions and millions of people at our recent meeting in Oslo the World Health Organization estimated that the number of premature deaths alone from pollution black carbon soot indoor and outdoor related pollution is around six million people imagine any single action that you could take today that could save six million people from premature death because it is pollution because it is so elusive in one sense because it is sometimes far away we don't recognize the magnitude the significance of actions that could be taken so here we are with science giving us not only an immediate health impact for millions of people on top of that we also can take steps that will help us to at least stay within a likely scenario of managing also the global warming potential we'll hear more from that from my colleagues in a minute as you have seen with President Obama and President Xi Jinping if we do indeed move forward on the issue of HFCs and the Montreal Protocol we could open up a second track in which an existing instrument could immediately begin to deliver with a proven formula joined international efforts to avoid something becoming a major problem before it has gained that magnitude in terms of impact the benefit of also addressing tropospheric ozone and methane are self-evident to those who look at methane from the point of view of landfills and pollution but tropospheric ozone long for long had been underestimated in terms of its impact on agricultural production so yet again having a kind of co-benefit perspective here will allow you to take action on tropospheric ozone even if climate doesn't interest you at all because it has a major direct impact on the agricultural economy and therefore the economies of our nations around the world and that was the guiding idea that we in the United Nations environment from beginning with my predecessor saw as the role that we could play in helping emerging science to find a quicker way into the policy arena because the timelines for action today are getting shorter our ability to for instance act on science that is available in the scientific journals and publications often can take 10-15 years until it makes its way into the policy arena one of the roles that we can play in the United Nations and the United Nations environment program has in a sense taken that real time beginning with such things as the ozone layer the ozone-heating substances mercury lead and sulfur and fuels is to in a sense enable countries to come together and this was the driving idea behind the climate clean air pollution which began as I said just 18 months ago at a long period in Washington DC of the state department and has today over 72 members over 30 of these are states and they have states from north and south they have developed and developed countries or economies who normally in some of the international negotiations find themselves on opposite ends of the negotiating table in this particular context they have joined forces and they're approaching these initiatives as well from a commitment joining that coalition to act domestically and to support international initiatives today if we have identified 10 high impact initiatives I'm sure Dave you will speak to them in a moment in more detail let me just mention a few where we want to collectively figure a lot of action because it is low hanging fruit with immediate impact and immediate benefit they include actions on municipal solid waste and heavy-duty diesel vehicles and engines on print production many don't know the role that pills and factories in the world play for example in the issue of black carbon all of the natural gas production center in church already mentioned those agriculture HFCs and household cooking and domestic heating you will hear a little bit more in a moment the idea behind this coalition is it is not prescribing single actions but it is it's actually bringing a global community of countries and of industry stakeholders of scientific institutions and institutes into a coalition a coalition that is willing to act right now and that is also offering us an opportunity while the world is struggling to figure out how exactly to deal with for example the climate challenge at the negotiations in 2015 and even if the world works with me in 2015 on a new instrument for addressing global warming climate change actions were really not kicking me for 2020 I'm ready so in the meantime we have at least six seven years in which these actions here could make a significant contribution to human health to agricultural productivity to our ability to also manage the pace of global warming and about all the liberal international coalition that might actually help us also address the issues of climate change more effectively in international context I'm very proud and very pleased to be here in Washington today because I know sometimes the work that we do in the United Nations seems remote from the daily issues and agendas of your electorate all the issues that we occupy in American public but you know one of the roles that we have to play as leaders in our society in the international community is also to help the public understand why sometimes something that a scientist at the Scripps Institute life was around up and began to think about 20 years ago may prove to be a fundamental asset for action to us today and our role in the United Nations is often to try and provide a validation in a sense of science from the perspective of a common interest and to help that science enter into the policy space and there begin to attract governments to commit to action the climate clean air coalition the short the climate policy story is truly a success story of science helping society to understand where there are options to do something rather to sit back to be resigned to be frustrated or on the lament in the sense of the cost of inaction thank you very much thank you and then are there a couple questions thank you and thanks for taking questions before you go I appreciate my name is Lisa Friedman I work for climate wire um but there's often the senator cast some ifs in front of the possibility of a 2015 treaty can you tell us how you know what's your level of optimism and and maybe if you could be a little more specific about what are some of the ways that the dynamics of the short-lived climate pollutants can help further the possibility of a treaty well I think neither to you nor to me is 2015 a day in which you can just sit back and say well the world will somehow come to agreement I think we have many reasons to be concerned I think concerned because we are still living out the tail end of a financial economic crisis that has many cases taken the capacity of countries to think beyond tomorrow um out of the political equation I think also the you know debt crisis that many countries have been affected by is something that has reduced our capacity to think about investments in transitions nevertheless if um I would tell you that you know you know publishers every year sustainable energy finance report we actually have a lot of reasons to believe that the world is moving on responding to the challenge of climate change but also moving towards clean energy greater energy independence and security at a pace that perhaps many of us wouldn't have expected in you know five or ten years ago uh the year 2012 saw again a total investment in renewables and new infrastructure renewables that actually if you add it together was equivalent or even actually greater than the total combined investments in oil gas and coal so that gives you a sense of how the world is beginning to implement in the energy sector a really quite significant transition and there will be many debates about instruments and costs and so on but what is quite clear is that we are on the verge of seeing a global uptake of renewable energy technology was unimaginable five or ten years ago so while we struggle at the negotiating table because of a number of diametrics or let's say asymmetries in terms of interests of who is to act first in the data act we will not act underneath that we see the enormous amount of action happening in the economy in the marketplace but also the level of cities in recent other cities and provinces and indeed also at you know in some sectors at the nation state level so my argument would be we only have a limited period to recover a political momentum for a global treaty but clearly 2015 is now a day in which the world I think will be reconvene to figure out how to act collectively and in a fair way with you know a number of different avenues in which action is possible. Secretary General's decision to call the climate leadership summit in September speaks also to the fact that the political leadership operations are going to reconvene to try and set the scene for 2015. So I'm not pessimistic but I think we have no reason to be no reason to be assuming that you know a 2015 outcome is an automatic conclusion and this is where the short of time pollutants provide an interesting antidote to those who think that nothing can be done because what we've actually seen in these 18 months is an extraordinary interest of countries to do something together on the lake of silence with immediate impact and maybe for some it is actually the health impact that is the more important one and the climate benefit is a co-benefit for others it is climate benefits and the other things are co-benefits. That is what so often is lost in our debate about what we mean in a multiple the transition towards a greener economy that actually one domain has multiple benefits in others and this is sometimes less to the environmental benefit but it can be a health benefit it can be an agricultural benefit and I think if I could just say we are about to see a new series of reports on the climate science emergency climate science will continue to be not an imperfect science but an imperfect knowledge base because until we can comprehend the entire complexity of how our planet works atmosphere biosphere chemical reactions we still have a long way to go the question is do we have a sufficient base upon which we can assume that if the climate risks are manageable if transitions are possible multiple benefits kick in immediately then why would we not act now and in particular also the attraction as I say of the shoulder climate is that here you can literally see a decision to act today with a result tomorrow which I think will build the confidence also of many actors that this is not an issue on which we are more divided than having a shared interest in the world and that is why I believe also Secretary of State Clinton at the time and the Obama administration and many others in fact also from a bipartisan perspective I've looked at shoulder climate pollutants as this is science-based action with clear economic and social benefits and if you can demonstrate the value of acting together on this front then I think we will be confident about another international system Mr. Stainer, I'm Babu Guraman, I'm a Fulbright Huberti Chambray Fulbright fellow at the University of Maryland and I'm from Banalj the developing country you know and we are one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change in our country we are really experiencing what is climate change although it is a research topic or it is a topic for developed countries like United States or other. So my question is what the developed countries did in the past and continue doing like United States and China due to renown gas emissions and we have seen that the conference of parties over in the UN is fading and the world is not reached any any kind of global devastation process till now although we are hoping but in the meantime and the countries which are suffering what is the plan from UN to support them to rescue them because I have seen I mean southern Bangladesh is sinking our indigenous production is decreasing day by day and we really know what is irrigated for so I mean I think what is your opinion? Let me first of all begin by congratulating you on coming from Bangladesh because Bangladesh was one of the seven launch partners of the climate in circulation Bangladesh is one of the first countries to have a national climate change strategy and a national climate active place and Bangladesh government and citizens and scientists and also NGOs have been at the forefront of in a sense integrating thinking about the consequence of climate change about the future development of the country but as you point out the challenges are enormous the support from the international world has been slowing and being forthcoming and some of the decisions that Bangladesh will have to take for example in terms of adaptation to climate change are beyond the imagination of most macroeconomic planners in the world because the threat leads into a kind of like Bangladesh has often been described of sea level rise extreme weather events and other such consequences now what are we doing as an international community to work alongside a country like Bangladesh that has actually taken initiative? I also want to emphasize in this room here that you know there is so much more happening out there also in developing nations and economies on addressing the issue of lower warming climate change mitigation adaptation that is often recognized in the capitals of the developed world whether it is Brazil's significant reduction in deforestation whether it is the decision by Indonesia to suspend you know new lobbying concessions and try and fully reducing emissions from deforestation degradation system in place Mexico's Climate Act results initiatives also in energy efficiency sectors with massive investment China Indian renewables and these are all actions that sometimes in the climate negotiations dynamics are actually lost in the international perception and if you work for the United Nations Environment Programme today you have a reason to be very worried because the pace of everything doesn't add up with the need for a response but you actually can go into virtually any country on the planet today and see some fascinating policy changes economic changes happening and also leadership from the private sector our own unit particularly as part of the red family is to help for example on the technology front unit now hosts the climate technology sector network which is meant to be a kind of shortfall for countries to access latest technology in terms of low power and economy energy efficiency be in terms of rural electricity access systems or be in terms of solar water heaters for urban sectors which can save 30% of the electricity bill and consumption it is our role also to help the world try and see how adaptation is a practice that is very new for most countries how do we bring experts together we today have a global adaptation network in different regions of the world where we bring experts together we also try and bring an ecosystem perspective for adaptation which is critically clear to achieve all of the benefits unit works in the renewable energy front on the transition towards low-carbon mobility systems around the world so much of what we can offer countries that are interested is how do you learn from one another how can we pass track technologies how do you know the threshold of introducing more energy efficient technologies for example also to make sure that the poor are excluded and are part of that solution and I could tell you about many of them the programs but these are just a few examples of very practical support building the capacity of helping national legislation bringing national policies into place for instance in our home country that is based Kenya is one of the few developing countries in the world today with a green energy policy it is massively investing in geothermal in wind and soon over 95 percent of its entire new energy investment for double the capacity of electricity are actually renewable energy sources so it's just a few examples that I hope give you a flavor of how when a country like Bangladesh realizes the threat takes actions can then be supported also from the outside and that's why also global climate finance public and private investments will play a critical role with I think maybe in 10 years time allow you to come back here and say you know there was actually a kind of compact at work at the moment we are still struggling with that idea I'm sorry I have to step out right now but thank you very much for having me actually the real experts come to take you guys out to my right so I hope you all have a very good afternoon with them and thank you very much for having me thank you even overstayed his time a little bit so we are very very appreciative to have been joined by UNF's director on the hill leadership is very important and we're very fortunate to have heard briefly from Senator Murphy on the house side here is a representative from California Scott Peters who likes Senator Murphy has been very very concerned and and very eager to us in leadership in terms of looking at the whole role of short-term climate pollution and while he cannot be here today we are very pleased that his legislative assistant who is working on these issues very closely with him is here and I'd like to ask her to if you'd like to make a couple minutes remarks I'll be really short but thank you all for being here I'm so glad that Senator Murphy could also be here as well I know Scott was disappointed that the house was in a session today but you know my name is Malumae Long and I'm representing Scott Peters from the 52nd district of California and that's a lot of coastal and northern and central part of San Diego and last year the city of San Diego did a climate assessment and they realized that they would be incredibly impacted by climate change by sea level rise by more extreme weather and for wildfires and so Scott Peters in fact was inspired by an op-ed that Derwood and Dr. Romanathan lived in the New York Times to work on short-term climate pollution and so he has introduced a piece of legislation and I hope you all write the number down it's HR 1943 the Super Pollutant Emissions Reduction Act or the Super Act and what this bill does is that it establishes a task force to review policies and measures to promote and to develop best practices for the reduction of super pollutants or short-lived climate pollutants and specifically it reviews existing and potential policies that promote these reductions in part by identifying and evaluating the programs of the federal government so the idea being we need to better coordinate what the federal government can do and be more efficient it also identifies and recommends specific existing programs and activities that are duplicative and that can be consolidated to achieve greater efficiency and effectiveness so as you all know the GAO puts out a report every year of duplicative or overlapping programs and we know that there are about 15 programs that deal with dirty diesel and so to the major driver of black carbon and so while we know that some duplication is good perhaps we can find more efficiencies and therefore be more effective not only is it the Super Act find overlaps it also finds gaps right so where programs don't exist and it recommends focused programs and activities to fill such gaps with an emphasis on industry and public-private partnerships because the federal government can't do this alone and it compiles, evaluates and develops best practices for reductions of super pollutants the Super Act has a good group of supporters including the League of Conservation Voters, the Environmental Working Group, the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development and Siri the group of investors interested in sustainability it's got sponsors sponsorship from our representatives on the east and west coast especially districts that will face serious consequences of sea level rise so I hope that your boss or your organization will consider supporting the Super Act and please don't hesitate to find me afterwards to talk about it thank you thanks Lenay and I want to also just briefly mention that Jesse Young who is the legislative assistant to Senator Murphy is also here and and of course Senator Murphy has introduced legislation there so did you want to add anything? Sure yeah I'll be I'll be similarly brief when when Carol was introducing Mr. Steiner and she said he used to front the International Commission on Dance I thought she momentarily said the International Commission on Dance My name is Jesse I work for the guy who opened up the briefing and has taken a big interest in this issue along with Lenay's boss since we have a huge subject matter experts here I won't pretend to go in the substance of the issue here just to make a pitch on the political side as Chris said you know we're largely talking to I think friends here but we really need on the hill we need Republicans we need folks on the other side of the aisle to care about this as Mr. Steiner said you can make an argument for action on short-term climate foods it doesn't even mention the word climate we here in the United States are in a position of authority to share a lot of sort of groundbreaking technology we've done whether it's on methane wellhead containment green completions hfc alternatives they're produced by some leading american corporations we're in a position to export our knowledge around the world and achieve really exponential benefits in agricultural production and public health you have some folks like Susan Collins senator Susan Collins who's about to reintroduce her clean cook stoves bill over here primarily making the argument as a question of public health not even getting into black cartons effect on Tibetan plateau snow melt and things like that so as you talk to offices and as you talk to other organizations I hope you'll help make the pitch because we could have every democrat in the senate every democrat in the house represented as co-sponsoring great legislation on this front we will get nowhere um you know regardless of what happens as chris said with the unf triple c we can make real progress right now whether it's getting china to actually lay out a schedule for forming a contact group getting india to start drawing down something under the montreal protocol we can do real work right now but if we don't have folks here domestically they're supporting those efforts the administration can only do so much and david and john and the folks in state are doing a tremendous job but here on the hill we want to make sure we have the political support for them to make this mainstream because if we're just talking to ourselves it's just that we're just talking to ourselves so thank you guys for coming and um looking forward to the rest of the presentations thanks jesse we will next here from david turk who is counselor to the u.s. special envoy for climate change at the u.s. state department he is also the u.s. representative to the working group of the climate and clean air coalition and you heard mr. steiner talk about that important coalition and the fact that there are now more 34 governments that that are involved in this important international effort david has previously served as a special assistant to the president and as a deputy assistant secretary at the state department he also was on the hill for eight years on both the senate and the house side so he brings a wealth of experience in terms of working in both the legislative as well as the executive branch side on this important issue and he has a travel schedule that just won't stop as we know from trying to schedule this david go ahead if you want to come to the podium sure that'd be great no thank you carol thanks for having me here today it's a privilege to be with such a distinguished panel it's a privilege to speak after akam steiner there's a good and bad about that the bad is that he's so eloquent anybody else sounds really like they're butchering the english language the good part is he laid everything out very eloquently and so i'm going to keep my remarks short so we have plenty of time for for q and a jesse and louis it's terrific to be here with you your bosses have shown such great leadership and you two personally have been such champions on this issue it's terrific to work with both of you and your bosses as well so i think i'll i'll i'll keep it short and i'll focus on two main questions the first one is why focus on short-lived climate pollutants and then i'll give secondly an update of some of the things we're doing internationally from the state department side but on behalf of the u.s. government to advance the cause on on short live climate pollutants primarily through the climate clean air coalition but there's some other related efforts as well i'll just give a brief update and then be happy to answer any and all questions so i think akam and louis and and jesse and senator murphy laid out a pretty compelling case for why to work on short-lived climate pollutants and in fact the better question would probably be why not work on short-lived climate pollutants i think the arguments for doing so in being aggressive in this action to me come down into two two buckets if you will one is that's a very pragmatic area to make progress in um secretary clinton was always fond of saying launching this coalition that you've got real-world technologies already existing out there to deal with some of the the issues whether it's methane black carbon hfcs and you have real-world actors out there and so all you need to do is take an analysis of different sectors figure out where we're at what are the obstacles and how to overcome that and what you find when you do that analysis and unit has done some terrific analysis others have done some terrific analysis is there's relatively modest obstacles to overcome some are a little more challenging than others some are finance related some are political will but it's a doable proposition you actually can make real-world progress in some of these areas and i think that's something that's very attractive to those of us who want to spend their lives actually advancing causes making progress that's why most of you are probably working on the hill recalling my hill my days on the on the hill way back when we did not have a capital visitor center and we ended up meeting and really not as not as a gust environment but that's sort of the pragmatic focus and i think that's an attraction that a lot of people share on that the other part is it's meaningful you can actually make a meaningful difference working on short-lived climate pollutants and akham and some of the other speakers have referenced the fact that it's not just climate but there's health benefits and agricultural benefits so if you look at all of those the climate benefits the statistics is probably used the most often is if you do aggressive action that kind outlined in a groundbreaking unit report you can achieve up to a 0.5 degree Celsius reduction in global temperature by 2050 and those of you who follow the climate change discussions 0.5 degrees is a pretty big deal and a significant part of what we're trying to do overall this is of course to reference on co2 is the main ballgame i think everybody should be very clear about that it's something i know when we speak about the short-lived climate pollutant piece we always make clear on you're not going to solve the climate challenge that we share by just focusing on short-lived climate pollutants you need to very much focus on co2 and the bulk of my efforts the bulk of our efforts are focused on co2 but you can have a meaningful climate a significant climate benefit by focusing on slcps and there's no reason you can't walk and chew gum at the same time you can't make progress on co2 you can't make progress on the short-lived climate pollutant piece and that's the approach that that we that we very much take to it even if you put aside the climate benefits all together you can get a lot of benefits and frankly be motivated solely from the health benefits or the agriculture productivity benefits akam laid out in quite compelling terms some of the health benefits you see some of the black carbon methane ozone precursors etc we had as akam mentioned two weeks ago we were in norway for a high level session of our ccac where ministers came together and our newest partner one of our newest partner the world health organization was there and laid out in very compelling terms some of the health benefits the millions of lives as you could say the premature deaths avoided by working on the short-lived climate pollutant piece so even if you put climate to the side it still makes sense to work in this space even from just the health side you also get other multiple benefits and i prefer the term multiple benefits as opposed to co benefits because they're all benefits in and of themselves that all stack out out there you get some significant agricultural productivity benefits and frankly that's one of the reasons i think that a lot of countries have come to the coalition is you can get benefits that are localized a lot of times the health and agricultural benefits and some of the climate benefits in some sense are global or more regional in nature and it's really one of those ideally win-win situations that you can have so again the question less is why focus on s lcps and the question is why wouldn't you focus on s lcps and that's the attitude that we certainly take so assuming you buy that then what do you do about it and how do you actually make some real world progress in this area so we have spent a lot of time at the us state department working with our other interagency colleagues on this climate and clean clean air coalition and i should emphasize that this is very much a partnership it was started as a partnership we had as aca mentioned seven partners at the founding 18 19 months ago countries both develop developing and non-state partners as well at that point unip was the first non-state partner flash forward fast fast forward now 18 19 months we're up to over 70 partners and that includes developed developing countries a lot of the key players out there not all and we want to bring on more key players out there in the world to get as much meaningful benefits as we possibly can from this coalition but we also have other very important powerful institutions out there as part of this partnership we've got the world bank who is an incredibly constructive active partner in this coalition we've got unip of course the whl other partners who bring some real meaningful expertise political clout etc a number of non-governmental organizations ngo's as well we also have instituted a science advisory panel with some of the most eminent scientists in the world so that our coalition is guided by the best science the science is ongoing in these areas especially if you look at something like black carbon in which there's a new study that seems to come out every day or every week focused on not only the climate benefits to health benefits etc and it's very important as a coalition to be guided by the science to have that as a solid foundation so we've not got a science advisory panel that's up and running and guiding our efforts we've got some significant amounts of funding going into the coalition at our meeting a couple weeks ago norway was hosting the meeting put forward another 20 million u.s. dollars into the coalition that brings us up into the range of 60 million plus dollars and it seems to be snowballing which is actually quite useful if you think about some of the challenges faced in this area and the funding that we do through the coalition is less a project by project focused basis it's more the catalytic funding it's sometimes you need a little extra funding funding to make the the the plan actually work so how do we actually do the bulk of our work in the ccac in the climate and clean air coalition it's guided around initiatives and so what we've done as aca mentioned is basically take a look at the major sectors do a sophisticated analysis of what would actually get some real-world action get some obstacles overcome and make progress in some of these sectors so we have an initiative for instance focused on heavy-duty diesel vehicles because the transportation sector is about one-fifth of global black carbon heavy-duty diesel vehicles are the super emitters in this space so can we work with local jurisdictions countries the private sector to actually reduce the emissions coming from these vehicles the complicated issue it takes some work you have to reduce the sulfur content in the fuels in order to be able to get the particle filters on the trucks but there are ways to do it there are countries who have gone through this transition there are lessons to be learned that could be leveraged and utilized for other countries so we're both targeting specific countries specific cities in which this transition can be moved along at quicker speed but also working on some global architecture to try to make this more possible more realistic happening as quickly as possible we have an initiative focused on the oil and gas sector methane and black carbon emissions on methane it's the second largest sector next to agriculture in terms of methane emissions largely some big companies who have the means to be able to control their methane emissions so the challenge there is how do you work with the private sector how do you get a value proposition that works from them economically getting some reputational benefits other kinds of things it'll motivate some of these big countries to or big companies to to make the emission reductions that are possible solid waste again third largest sector in terms of methane lots of potential in terms of open agriculture burning on black carbon side we're working with cities primarily there they're the main actors who control the landfills and other waste how can we work with them in a pragmatic way world banks a partner helping with some of the finance pieces we're leveraging some of the technical expertise in our government and cities like Stockholm to make real world plans within some of these big cities out there especially from some of the emerging emerging economies so happy to go into any chapter and verse and if there's a particular sector that you're mostly interested chances are we have an initiative we now have 10 initiatives in this coalition trying to again make as meaningful and a big pragmatic progress as we possibly can the US is also of course working on SLCPs beyond the CCAC beyond the climate and clean air coalition as well the president's climate action plan had several references several real world action oriented efforts in the short-lived climate space one of the ones that I think will be quite meaningful is an interagency task force that is focusing on methane doing an inner doing a thorough interagency scrub to see what more we could be doing doing on on on methane emission reductions and I should say one of the big challenges with short-lived climate pollutants in our government and frankly other governments as well as a lot of this does cut across a number of different agencies and now having worked in the legislative branch and the executive branch that interagency coordination problem is one of the biggest obstacles frankly that needs to be overcome in any of these spaces so we're trying to work that interagency piece better on our own US government we've also been very focused on HFCs as Gerwood and Mack will get into in some length and won't take up time in explaining the scientific backing and the impetus for why to work here we see this as a very fruitful area to make real-world immediate progress that has huge climate implications climate benefits the statistic that's thrown out there is if you follow current growth rates in HFCs small portion now of the overall GHG package or portfolio if you will for the world but it's at a growth rate to become 20 percent of CO2 emissions by 2050 which if you think about it 20 percent of CO2 like that's a big deal so we're trying to nip that in the bud as much as possible HFCs are these chemicals they're sort of super greenhouse gas emitters can we work with other key countries to make reductions to have a practical plan that reduces these in a way that works for all countries involved to us the most obvious way to do this is through the Montreal protocol it has a tried and true system for dealing with these things and I suspect Mack and Derwood will get into that a little bit more so we've been trying to work with some of the other key countries and you've likely seen some statements come out joint statements between our president and president from China the G20 recently put out a statement and we're trying to use all angles as we possibly can to make progress in that area as well so that's it for my presentation but certainly happy to answer questions at the tail end of this as well but thanks again for having me here thanks so much and as David said it it takes a lot of different kinds of partners coming from multiple kinds of organizations and whether it's governments at the the local level state international and also the private sector in terms of looking at how these things all work together and how we both solve problems and also create many multiple benefits at the same time and so to talk a little bit more about that we are very glad to be joined by someone who has been deeply engaged in this for many many years and that is Dr. Mack McFarland who is the global environmental manager with DuPont fluorochemicals Dr. McFarland joined the DuPont company in 1983 and where his primary responsibilities have been in the areas of coordinating research programs and the assessment and interpretation of scientific information on stratospheric ozone depletion and global climate change so he has as a result participated in nearly all of the major international scientific assessments of stratospheric ozone under the Montreal protocol and with regard to global climate change in terms of the IPCC the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as an author reviewer or review editor to let you know how valuable his his scholarly background has been in his advice and his research capabilities I want to point out that during 1995 and 96 Dr. McFarland was on loan to the atmosphere unit of the UN Environment Program and then in 1997 he was on loan to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change working group to its technical support unit and I think one of the things that is important to recognize in terms of again thinking about how it is so important not only to be able to do the research to be able to interpret it and to understand it and to figure out what does it really mean and what does it tell us and what do we do with this but I think that the value is also represented by understanding that that Mc was awarded an individual climate protection award by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for his contribution in providing understandable reliable information to decision makers now folks it doesn't get better than that Matt that's that's right so our expectations are running very high Matt right thank you I hope I don't disappoint looks like I'm the only one that has charts you're seeing my scientific roots come out so please bear with me as I go through these we're gonna I'm gonna focus strictly on HFCs so what are HFCs they're part of a broader class of compounds known as fluorochemicals that are that serve in equipment and products that have high societal value primarily refrigeration and air conditioning but also things like the propellants for meter dose inhalers asthma sprays their value proposition is primarily safety but they can't just be safe they've got to be efficient in how they're used and be compatible with the equipment in which they're used refrigeration air conditioning equipment whatever else and because of these properties they serve these functions in a cost-effective way however CFCs and HCFCs that are being phased out under Montreal protocol are both ozone depleters and global climate warmers HFCs the compounds that are now replacing those to some extent contribute to climate change next chart please in this chart you see the transition that has occurred from 1970 to 2015 and this is actually tons of thousands of tons of the chemicals that have been used our estimates over the time period and at the bottom you see how they've been used the ozone depletion theory was published in 1974 and at that time most of the use was as a propellant in personal care products over the time you can see that there has been if you look at the growth it would have been off the chart both from 74 and then from 89 continued growth but you see that there's been a change in the both the the magnitudes of use and in how they're used from refrigerants being about 25 percent here to projected to be about 75 percent by the time you get to 2015 CFCs have been phased out globally under the Montreal protocol eight CFCs which are lesser ozone depleting compounds were viewed as transition compounds to allow the rapid phase out of CFCs and then now we're transitioning to HFCs again when the the theory was first published in 74 there were some actions by some countries and voluntary actions and you see that that growth stopped but it wasn't until you had the comprehensive international agreement the Montreal protocol that you really solved the problem where it was comprehensive in terms of being global in nature and addressing all of the compounds next chart please now the Montreal protocol was designed to protect ozone point is it also had a tremendous climate benefit if you wait these compounds by their global warming potential so they could get billions of tons of CO2 equivalent here on the vertical axis and you look at this growth curve from the time the Montreal protocol was signed and you extrapolated out and then look where we were in 2010 you've got about five to six times the Kyoto target in other words the Kyoto target would have reduced global greenhouse gas emissions by about two billion tons CO2 equivalent in 2010 the Montreal protocol did about 11 billion tons the issue is the growth going forward if we don't do anything about HFCs they could eventually become a significant contributor wiping out much of the gain that we had with the original Montreal protocol by eliminating CFCs and you've heard twice now about HFCs by 2050 could be 20% of CO2 if we're going to reach the target that most countries have acknowledged 450 parts per million CO2 concentration to a limit global average temperature increased by to no more than two degrees that's where you have to be this is the 20% that people are talking about where HFCs could be a significant fraction of that next chart please and I'm going through these fairly fast but you have them in your packet I believe they were distributed outside so the question is how valid are those projections or scenarios well from atmospheric measurements of these gases you can deduce the emissions into the atmosphere and that's what we see here from data from the NOAA labs here where these are measurements of 134a weighted again in millions of tons of CO2 equivalent on the vertical scale and then the sum of all of the major HFCs here where the circles are the measurements the solid lines are the projections from this paper that I just showed in the previous and you can see that they track very well the question is what's going to happen here in 2013 and I'll get to the minute why 2013 is a an inflection point here another thing you can tell is by looking at the distribution of these gases which ones were being measured individually you can deduce that about a third of the of the total in CO2 equivalence is coming from mobile air conditioning about a third from commercial refrigeration supermarkets and about a third from everything else all the other uses of HFCs today next chart please so why was 2013 so significant well it's because this year the developing countries have frozen their use of HFCs and are beginning their transition to phase out HFCs develop countries like the united states are well on their way to phasing out HFCs in large part primarily in refrigeration air conditioning HFCs have been the compounds of note to replace the HFCs also developing countries are rapidly expanding their economies and their standard of living as they do that they want more refrigeration more access to air conditioning with all of that you can project a significant growth so here is the developing country projected growth rate out to 2050 here's the developed country so to really address this issue we truly need a global agreement to prevent the growth and like some of the other short-lived or the other short-lived climate pollutants this is a case of preventing growth rather than eliminating them in the atmosphere now next chart please so what would be the impact of a of implementing something like the North American proposed amendment to the Montreal protocol well in this paper that you see reference down here we ran a scenario of a control system that was not that far from what is in the North American proposal and if you look at the cumulative amount of emissions that you could avoid or consumption you could avoid between now and 2050 it's about 100 billion tons co2 equivalent which is over 15 times the total greenhouse gas emissions from the united states in 2011 the last year in which it was reported next chart please so what can you do about it well when you look at these things i said as i said before are used primarily because of their safety characteristics and their desirable properties so when you're looking for alternative you've got to look for things that are safe you've got to look for sustainability which means zero adp and low gwp they've got to be energy efficient have the right chemical perform chemical properties and they've got to be cost effective to use if and on the safety issue you've either got to find other compounds that are safe or you've got to mitigate the safety problems with for example hydrocarbons that are highly flammable the next chart in the then the last thing here is the timing of commercial availability so the question is do we have the ability to meet what the u.s. Canada and Mexico had proposed in the north american proposed amendment next chart this shows what we're doing at dupont to address this where if you look at the sectors where these hsc's are primarily used we're looking at a wide and the current compounds that are used the gwp of those compounds and then the options that we're exploring it's primarily based on a new class of fluorochemicals called hfos that have the common that the desirable characteristic of hsc's but they have a chemical property that means they don't last very long once in the atmosphere which significantly lowers their ability to contribute to climate change so you're seeing a reduction of over 99 percent in some cases less but a very significant reduction in the ability of these compounds that could replace hfc's to affect climate if you go to the next chart looking more broadly there are multiple options from multiple companies so there are a wide range of options that are either in late development stages ready now or will be ready very soon and again some of them are based based on these new this new class of hfos some of them are co2 hydrocarbons are blends of these things and again you get very significant reduction in terms of their ability to contribute to climate change next chart please about two months ago two and a half months ago epa issued a report with analysis of could the united states meet the north american proposal and they looked at the business as usual forecasts of the demand for hfcs then the north american cap proposal is here shown in blue so that was is what the united states would have to meet their analysis indicated that you can meet this green line so in this analysis it's met all the way out to 2035 you know that's over 20 years in the future and then you almost meet it going beyond these bars in between show the different sectors and how you would meet it well we have done the analysis only out to 2030 and we agree with the epa that you can exceed the north american proposal in terms of reduction so we're at a line that would be at or below the green line that epa is showing here and there's lots of time to develop the uh what would be needed to meet it all the way out to 2050 next chart so in conclusion the scientific case for doing something about this issue is compelling the and the amendment if adopted as proposed could have the effect of between now and 2050 eliminating emissions that would contribute to climate as much as 15 times the current total greenhouse gas emissions from the united states a very significant impact there are options out there that would allow the us and other countries to meet this schedule and finally the pot supports the north american amendment and why one the science is compelling the options are out there and importantly the montreal protocol is a 25-year-old working agreement that industry has been working under all this time we're comfortable with it we know how to operate under it's both all the affected industry and very very important something is being done about this issue it's being done at the country or regional level and we're seeing a patchwork of regulations right now you have a carbon tax in austria you've got bands or gwp limits in europe you've got japan developing something else it is very difficult when you've got products both in terms of these chemicals and in the equipment they're used that are traded globally it is very difficult for business planning under certain situation so we need a formative agreement that provides a basis for consistent national regulations is flexible with a single that to allow a seamless transition with a predictable timetable and it is flexible and market-based with it doesn't require you to ban certain uses or have a gwp limits but allows industry to choose where it can most cost effectively meet it so in conclusion we've got an agreement out there it's worked for 25 years we're looking at the same class of compounds the same applications and we believe that the world can continue to achieve these environmental gains under a montreal protocol okay mac i think you delivered right so for our last speaker we've asked uh dirwood zalki who is the founder and president of the institute for governance and sustainable development which has offices here in washington dc as well as in geneva that's dirwood because he has really been up to his eyeballs in in focusing on how to best reduce short-lived climate pollutants in a whole variety of venues and to do it in a way to complement the un framework convention on climate change including the montreal protocol and he's also been heavily engaged with the climate and clean air coalition that was organized and launched 18 months ago and so as a result of all of this work that dirwood has been doing in terms of being very closely involved with these both the climate negotiations as well as looking at short-lived climate pollutants we've and and looking at environmental compliance and enforcement he's a secretary it for a network of compliance officers that involves over 5000 enforcement and compliance officials from different countries so he brings a very special eye to uh to these issues that we're hearing discussed so we've asked him to be kind of a respondent to what we have heard today dirwood thank you carol and thank you for the role of wrapping up this is a fantastic group i mean you really got the a team here and uh i will try to try to put some emphasis on what you have heard there are two key packages of benefits that we have had presented the first one is near term mitigation through multiple venues using existing technologies and existing laws and institutions in most cases that can deliver something profound for the world we can cut the rate of climate change in half by taking out the short-lived climate pollutants in half we have a big serious problem if we cut it in half we have half the problem that's a damn good target for us we can cut the short-lived climate pollutants by and cut warming in the arctic by two-thirds okay and the arctic is a flashpoint i mean this is the defensive shield that's sending a lot of heat back into space with the big white ice we lose that we lose that shield and we get the positive feedback that accelerates warming liberates methane and co2 from permafrost and from methane hydrates and we risk going into runaway feedback that we're not going to restabilize that until till bengal dash is gone okay sorry i mean it's uh this is uh this is a pretty serious thing but we can cut the problem in half i mean that's i think this is just brilliant for us to think of of the challenge that we have and it's again existing technologies existing laws and institutions and uh the best one to to use to illustrate is the montreal protocol max set this out i mean this treaty has done 10 times more climate mitigation than the unf triple c i mean this poor cousin of ours is struggling to learn how to do serious climate mitigation and for 25 years montreal protocol has blasted ahead solving the first great threat to the global environment the atmosphere of the stratospheric ozone layer we have basically solved that problem and put the stratospheric ozone layer on the path to recovery by mid uh 2065 maybe takes a while for the system to catch up and we've made this huge contribution to climate protection already now we have the chance to do the next huge piece which is to take out the hfcs while they're still tiny they're one to two percent of climate forcing right now that's really small but they are the fastest growing greenhouse gas in the united states in china in india and they're going to be 20 percent of business as usual co2 but even more telling i think they could be 40 to 45 percent of the co2 curve if we bend it down to the 450 level that we need to bend it to so here's where we're going with co2 we need to bend in here and here's where you're going i don't have my charts here so here's where you're going with the hfcs you know and we're going to be a big percentage if we succeed with the co2 which we must so we're going to make it twice as hard on the world if we don't take out the the hfcs right now montreal protocol allows us to do something that is big fast cheap how big is it it can avoid just the hfc piece can avoid up to 0.5 degrees and warming by the end of the century by 2050 it can avoid up to 100 billion tons of co2 equivalent so this is these are really big numbers do it fast because the treaty knows its business and it can do it very cheaply okay it's probably going to be about five cents a ton of co2 equivalent okay that's pretty amazing okay now the so we should take this challenge on you know it's it's half of climate change the other half of the solution the other thing that we've heard and i want to elaborate a little more on is what the success with short-lived climate pollutants can do for first i want to acknowledge ambassador stereo to kasey from the federated states of micronesia stereo was a first country to propose using the montreal protocol to phase down hfcs even before that in 2006 and 2007 you were the first country to say let's also accelerate the phase down of hcfcs for climate purposes so we owe a great debt to the federated states of micronesia for helping point the world in this direction so the other thing that we're getting from the success with short-lived climate pollutants is is a change in global climate policy so over here you have the unfccc it is struggling and it's it's basically a system that's about reparations who's the bad guy who's going to have to pay the most and it's run by dementors okay i mean people who who have very little hope of saving the world and they're in this bad loop over here we on the side of short-lived climate pollutants are the ones with hope and optimism i mean this is really important and we're pioneering something that is now being recognized and given a new name called icis international complementary initiatives or international cooperative initiatives to help the unfccc to complement the unfccc they need to be complimented and they need some help over there so this is a broader package of venues a distributed package not the the monopoly that the unfccc has had in the past but a recognition that we've got a lot of ways we can help solve climate change monitor a protocol ikeo for air emissions imo for shipping the ccac great initiative and the the ccac one thing i love about it is it's all about optimism you go to the meetings that i did with david and oslo everybody there has a great time because they're making progress solving problems so it's it it will change the broader climate game by bringing in our success and our optimism and and and we need to do it very quickly uh success does breed success and one more point and i'll end and that is that we need not only to be bringing this to the world as the state department and epa have done so well and the president this is on the president's top agenda he when he was negotiating with president she and sonny land in june he came away with two agreements north korea let's work together on north korea and the others let's work together on climate change on uh monitor our protocol in particular he goes to the g20 last week and he's facing syria i mean this is a this is a big issue and still managed to negotiate a successful agreement on the monitor a protocol and hfc so and then a separate side agreement with the china president as well so so this is really important uh keeping this at the leader level but for the us we have to demonstrate that we're not only telling the world how they should be doing climate but we need to do it at home and so the task force that dave mentioned the legislation that we heard from senator murphy and uh and from lou may for congressman peters these are really important steps we must continue to show the world that this is not a bait and switch strategy this is what we can do and we will continue to do it at home we'll continue to succeed and we will share our good practices with the world so that we'll all ultimately solve climate change thank you thanks stirwin we have a few minutes for questions so if anyone has a question if you could just identify yourself please okay let's start clearing the back and then we'll come up here i'm john Fitzgerald um the question i have actually a couple of questions for uh david turk the first is whether you can comment on the possibility of using section 115 of the cleaner act which allows the secretary of state to sign bilateral or multilateral agreements on reducing air pollution with other countries number two is we have a series of agencies that might offer help to countries that want to make the transition to cleaner refrigerants whether they be ammonia whether they be the more advanced hfo's or whether they be various other technologies um like xm exporting port bank opic overseas private investment corporation monium challenge corporation usa id question is why are they not already out there leading that progress as i'll leave it at those two thanks no thanks um as i mentioned at the outset of my presentation our our pragmatic focus applies not only in the short-lived space but beyond that and so to answer your second question first we very much work with the full interagency and the state department plays a coordinating role with the interagency whether it's department of energy epa xm opic etc usa id certainly to try to leverage that interagency expertise across the range of across the range of challenges that we have on climate change on the co2 front and on the short-lived climate space so for instance we've got some work that we announced um as far as our us china climate change working group in which we're trying to leverage some of that expertise to help reduce some emissions in china we're doing a similar exercise with india we're doing a similar exercise with a lot of the key players on on there so your point in terms of leveraging those the that expertise um in the hfc context in particular is a good one and we'll certainly we'll certainly um look to do even more of what we're already doing on there um first question on section 115 just don't have anything to say to say on that at this point okay um and and i just wanted to mention too that if anyone has any questions uh with regard to unab um hillary french from unab is here and so she is also available for um if you have any particular questions okay um go ahead thanks for letting me have a second question and thanks for doing this this was really helpful um a question on on the clean air coalition climate and clean air coalition again for for david um and that is about targets and i'm wondering if there are any or if there is going to be any any i i recognize this is a different animal than the un f triple c and nobody you know it's voluntary coalition but um how do you measure what you've done and how do you know if you are successful or not no thanks great question and i think our load star for this coalition is on meaningful real world reductions so the success or failure of the coalition won't be the number of countries that are on board the number of organizations that are on board but what are we actually achieving out in the real world can we show demonstrable progress that um happens from our various initiatives and other efforts along those lines we're 19 months in so as you suspect we have not shrunk short-lived climate pollutants by half at this point we're starting to get some things up and running some initiatives are further along than other initiatives are each initiative is very different depending on the sector and so some are focused on cities some are focused on the private sector some are focused on sharing experiences among countries as well and a lot of the um um a lot of this particular sectors and approaches are less project by project by project when you have a particular project and you have some reduction there you can actually measure it and you can know we reduced x tons of co2 equivalent etc when you're focusing on changing policies on that a national level or getting cities to do something or getting the private sector to do something you can understand that that may be a little bit more challenging in terms of directly attributing our actions to specific x y and z reductions um so i'd say a couple things on your particular question one i think we very much have in mind as i said will be judged on the success or failure of what emissions we actually reduce and so it's in our own interest as a climate and clean air coalition um for all the reasons we've talked about the whole day to show that we've had some meaningful impact and we're trying to work through right now again depending on which initiative in which sector how do we actually show the benefits how do we actually in a fair way attribute benefits from our from our actions and lots of ongoing discussions about there about that your question specifically on targets goals etc again i think we have had some internal discussions in the coalition will have more discussions i think targets goals can be tools to achieve significant emission reductions they're not in and of themselves the ends they're a tool to get you the the shared goal that everyone shares of seeing actual reduction real world emissions out there in some sectors it may make sense to do that and we may be able to do that in other sectors that's not the model that's going to get that's not the theory of change that's going to get you the emission reductions you're going to get for whatever reason maybe it's country sensitivities maybe it's company sensitivities etc so still a work in progress about what what um what effort or what role the targets and goals will be part of the part of the equation but again it's all focused on the load star achieving meaningful significant real world reductions okay um we'll take a question over here and then i also go ahead and then i'm going to my name is josh silverman i'm with the doe um you talk a lot it's all about and i'd love the approach but it's all about substitution and are you looking at greater efficiencies with the systems already in place as they're going to continue through their life spans um answer is absolutely yes whatever you do clearly the the energy efficiency standards in most countries are separate from the the regulations that would control these greenhouse gases so you must have solutions that are as energy efficient are even more so and meet the existing energy efficiency regulations and will be able to continue to meet ever more stringent energy efficiency regulations going forward but that's a very important point because you know let's take an extreme example your home refrigerator freezer it has hfc 134 a in it it has about half a pound in it if you look at the lifetime contributions of climate change from that refrigerator freezer even if the 134 a is emitted to the atmosphere the hfc over 99 comes from energy usage from our us mix of of energy so your point is a very important one that we must keep energy efficiency in mind and i had that on a chart but i just didn't have time to emphasize it let me make a further comment about that um in the past phase outs under the montreal protocol they were phase um phase out to that point we have catalyzed improvements in energy efficiency in the range of 30 to 60 percent so we we expect that the hfc amendment will have that same effect and will catalyze further improvements but we do need to pay very close attention to it because it is most of the climate impact and and in throughout the world i'm sorry i actually wasn't particularly uh clear my question and thank you for the answers and that's wonderful i'm actually curious more about fugitive emissions from the pressurized gas in the systems themselves so that as we're operating say a commercial size uh or industrial size chiller uh and losing gas from that system i'm really curious about improvements in minimizing fugitive emissions as part of this process uh also big support of course of the efficiency well that's the equipment manufacturers and they are working on that the issue you have is there are you know hundreds of thousands of technicians around the world and how do you control those and you know it is clearly an issue of training of those technicians and industry is working on it as best you can and there are regulations against vending in the united states as you know but again ultimately these things are going to get to the atmosphere you can you can minimize the amount but ultimately they do get there okay um i wanted to ask the ambassador if you wanted to say something since you've played such an important leadership role and um and obviously countries like micronesia are looking at things in a very very serious serious way and thank you very much before i do ask the question and the comments i do want to thank EESI for convening this very important um meeting i was very excited about derwitz commons about half and two-third for us in micronesia it's existential much of our land is already disappearing and if we continue to do business as usual we will be history by maybe 2050 that cannot be the talks today gives me a lot of hope and encouragement i would like to ask the folks from ccac that we need to do a better job in selling by demonstration to the small countries to those of you that have cnn and other media you know information is easy enough but for us in the pacific where there is very little media coverage ccac is is unknown otherwise we would have been lining up you know at the door to sign up but there is lack of information demonstration that this is serious it seems to some of us that this is just another ploy to sort of divert attention from bad you know performance at the unf uh triple c which derwitz it hasn't gone very far but this is positive and we would like to ask you to please support our amendments at the montreal protocol amendment and that is to face down hfcs because that will save my island thank you very much thank you it is pretty incredible when you think about the outsize impact that short live climate pollutants have with regard to climate and therefore addressing them will also have an outsize impact and at the same time as you've also heard from all of the speakers we are finding multiple multiple benefits that make sense for so many reasons to address so many other problems at the same time and so i think that this is a very very important opportunity it's an exciting opportunity to problem solve to improve uh so many things for so many people and and in the case of so many places it's survival so i want to thank all of our panelists for being here today this really really important issue there are so many things that i think are so exciting to learn about as we've heard there is a lot of good news there are things that can be done that can make a big difference and so we are hoping to be able to tell more of those stories in terms of looking at other things that are important to address and what makes sense how we address those pragmatically and if you've got questions you know information from the briefing will be posted up on the ESI's website and also please let us know so that we can ask our speakers in terms of follow-up information that you may want and um and if you want i think that they probably would be happy to take additional questions but we want to thank everyone for being here today and i really want to thank our wonderful wonderful panel thank you