Transcripts For CSPAN3 Discussion On Climate Change Maritime Security Part 2 20240713

Excellent panel and were start off with heather. Thank you so much. I think the arctic is the best place to talk about the intersection of climate stress and security. In many ways, the arctic is telling us, both polar regions are telling us theyre under the most stress as the arctic is warming two to three times faster than anyplace on the planet. In many ways, were now dealing with a very new ocean. In fact our former coast guard commandant called the arctic americas fourth coast. I thought that was a powerful way of thinking about it because Many Americans do not know the United States as an arctic nation to bring it home, this is homeland security. We now have a new coast that requires our protection. That is what in many ways the nexus between the rapid diminishment of the arctic polar ice cap is now creating new borders, new coasts to protect. Which is why we need enhanced coast guard presence. Certainly thats through the enhanced ice breaker component, what we call a polar security cutter. This always required deep water ports. Greater domain awareness. Were seeing an increase in commercial and human activity in the arctic. Its also this new ocean and the opportunities that this new ocean provides is really requiring a much more rethought i would argue about sovereignty in the arctic. This is certainly the russian governments perspective because russia is now developing a very ambitious Economic Development plan for the russian arctic. Which not only includes the development of oil and Gas Resources in the russian arctic, but also the creation of a major transit route, the northern sea route. What were seeing is russia needing to enhance the protection of the northern sea route. Theyre reopening oil fields, putting search and rescue Centers Across the northern sea route. Theyre also making important chan changes to the structure and how they regulate the northern sea route. Of course, what underpins all of this, both the science and environmental change were seeing in the arctic, as well as the economics, its all underpinned by science. Science is power in the arctic. Using traditional knowledge of the indigenous communities is power. Of course were trying to understand the Science Behind the changes were seeing in the arctic. Im going to touch on some of the key Security Issues. Its the good, bad and ugly if you will. There is some very good things that are happening in the arctic to manage this nexus between climate stress and security. First and foremost, i think at this point the arctic is wellgoverned. The United Nations convention of the law of the sea provides that maritime space with good legal frameworks for territorial waters, exclusive Economic Zones, as well as the high seas area around the north pole, the Center Arctic ocean. One of the most important forms of monitoring and innovating governing the arctic is through the arctic council, the Intergovernmental Forum that was created in 1996. It brings the five coastal states together. Plus iceland, sweden and finland. Whats important about the council that gets missed is that at the center is the indigenous communities. They have a seat at the table. Its their way of the table thats dramatically changing. The council has been groaning under the changes, both the Climate Change and the new demand on it. Right now there are 20 plus observers to the koucouncil. I would argue that very much changed the dynamic. The arctic is not just for the regional countries, its becoming a global issue because what happens in the arctic impacts the global environment. As chinas role became more and more apparent in the arctic and russia began to assert itself, now were at a point when were viewing the arctic through a lens of Great Power Competition. That was framed by secretary of state mike pompeo in finland of may of this year. He gave a stem winder of a speech that surprised some of the us where it came from, describing this Great Power Competition in the arctic. Nats chinas growing economic presence through infrastructure, thru i and of course russias increased military presence. These are challenging how the u. S. Thinks about it. But i always want to end with good news. So often in our line of work were just talking about challenges. I want to say the arctic has demonstrated great resilience and governance innovation. When we needed to strengthen the maritime shipping code in the arctic, it took it a decade, created the polar code which strengthens demands and mandates that ships must be hardened for traversing the arctic. Weve created an International Oil spill response agreement. We negotiated a fisheries agreement for the central arctic ocean. There are no finish in the central arctic ocean. This agreement puts a moratorium on that for 16 years until science tells us it could be okay if we needed to do that. We have innovations like the Arctic Coast Guard Forum which helps do that search and rescue, that oil spill response. Something whit and i have been looking at is getting to the high seas challenge to protect the biodiversity beyond the national jurisdictions, beyond the exclusive Economic Zones thats targeting those high seas area. Fisheries, biodiversity, shipping. You know what . Its a little chaotic right now, i dont think we have it all exactly the right place. Im very worried about the military dimension. Im worried about chinas dual use infrastructure in the arctic. Im heartened when i see innovation, pragmatic governance thats helping to protect the arctic. I want to end on a high note but looking forward to your questions, thanks. Thats great. Were going to turn to asia and the pacific. Asia is a crucible for Climate Change and security. If you think about it, its got two thirds of the global population, many of those are a poor populations. They live coastly. They rely heavily on seafood for nutrition. Theres already overexploitation of those fishing resources and its intensifying. The governments typically have low capacity to deal with those issues and then these in Southeast Asia, especially, these are the countries that are going to be hit hardest by Climate Change where some of those impacts will be felt the greatest. To put this in context i want to use indonesia. Ill start with that and ill back up a little bit. Indonesia is the second largest fishing power in the world in terms of amount of wild fish harvests. China is the first, obviously. Its a country that struggled with poverty, has 10 poverty rate of its 270 million people. 10 live below the poverty line, which indonesia is about 0. 76 a day. The fishing is often referred to as a last resort occupation, when agriculture and other jobs dont work out. You can go fishing. And so many of these postal communities depend upon fish for nutrition and for climb out of poverty. If youre not certain how important fisheries are at indonesia, google ministers, and ill sure youll pull up the photograph of the boats, the fishing boats that have illegally traversed into indonesian fishing waters. Its made her one of the most popular politicians in indonesia today. As an example of the role that fisheries play, i can tell you a little bit about a blue swimming crab fishery that edf works in. Its the third most important export commodity economically. Swimming crab. If you go to the chesapeake and order a crab cake sandwich, chances the local supply cant keep up with demand. Chances are very good youre eating blue swimming crab from indonesia and perhaps one from the java sea. 808 of the product goes to the y u. S. There are 300 people in that fishery as far as supply chain workers there. It brings in the country about 300 million. 300,000 people, 300 million, you do the math. That keeps these people just above that poverty line, but only hovering just above it. They remain vulnerable. Climate change, impacts will be very serious for communities like these. Sea level rise. Some of these communities are not just coastal, there is a fishing village that we work with thats literally built on a sand bar ten kilometers from shore with sticks sort of put down in the sand and theres a platform and women and children and fishermen live there so they can get further access to the fishery. Sea level rise is going to be challenging. The losses in productivity you heard about in the first panel, we heard global fish production may decline by about 4 or so. But regionally in places like indonesia could decline by as much as 50 . Thats because of the loss in fundamentally productivity and also because of fish migrating to cooler waters and polar northward and southward. So this is, of course, potentially catastrophic for these poor communities that are hovering on the poverty line. This will create a potentially downward spiral. If theres a loss of catch, the logical response is to fish harder. That makes these fisheries even more vulnerable to Climate Change. Theres an interesting link to understand here and its talked about in the report. Overfished fisheries are more vulnerable to Climate Change. And Climate Change will have a negative impact on fisheries. These communities that experience drops and catches will then make their own resources more vulnerable by overfishing. The governments in many of these places have little capacity to control that. So these communities have the potential to spiral downward. Another response to declining catches will be for fishermen to go further and further abroad. Many indonesian fishermen go right up to the border of the eez of australia and they fish along the line. Australias fisheries are wellmanaged and indonesian fishermen get the benefits. Weve seen choina do the same thing. This of course creates huge challenges in asia where the eezs are packed in so tightly that it will create a lot of potential for tensions to grow among countries. Turning to solutions. What can we do about this . The Number One Solution is to mitigate Climate Change, to reduce pollution number one. Number two, i would say is to promote low carbon energy, wind energy, wave energy, and perhaps thermal water energy as well. Solutions that promote blue carbon. The report speaks well to the issue of mangroves, salt marshes, sea grasses. But theres also the carbon thats found in increasing fish stocks. Reviving those to historic labels. There was a paper i saw recently that estimated that if you could replenish whale populations, thats two gig atons of carbon. Thats a startling number. Another potential way to mitigate is to eat more fish. This may sound controversial. We can talk about it in the q a. Beef is about 20 times more emissions per gram of protein in a life cycle analysis than seafood. Okay. But critically, as we heard in the last panel, we cannot just mitigate, we also need to adapt and manage. This is an urgent issue because of the link between fisheries abundance and resiliency. Its urgent we put in place good Fisheries Management in the countries that lack it. This is a food skirt issue. Numb we need to build capacity in these countries who dont have the experience to put in place management. Number two, we need to strengthen International Agreements because as they fish migrate, the countries that host fish that are leaving have every incentive to fish those populations down before they get across the border. The countries that might receive the fish are not going to want that to happen. There needs to be what we know again and again from observing fisheries around the world when theres unmanaged competition. It leads to a decline in the fish population. So there really needs to be an effort to strengthen these International Agreements. There are many International Agreements on fisheries, almost none of them contain climate provisions. Lastly, we need to develop solutions for some of these local communities like aqua culture, blue carbon and perhaps some Energy Solutions as well. There needs to be new Solutions Like that that can provide 92trition f9 nutrition for these communities. There is hope. There are examples that u. S. Fisheries are one of the best managed in the world. Its one of the greatest conservation Success Stories no ones heard of. Management can lead to fisheries rebounding. Its not just the u. S. , of course. Australia has done this, new zealand has done this. Namibia, chile and peru. You can rebuild fish populations. This increases resiliency to Climate Change. In asia theres hope as well. Japan last dates december passed resolutions. China has been implementing dramatic reforms to control overfishing and over exploitation of aquatic agriculture. Theres a lot happening. If countries gather together and promote aid to these countries to build capacity and can share their experiences, can share their experts and their financial resources, i think theres hope to avoid the worst for Climate Change for these countries. Excellent, thank you. Sarah, you can talk a little bit about thei endo pacific and eas africa. Im talking primarily about africa and the indian ocean. John provided an excellent segue into what is happening in countries around africa and the adaptive capacity that needs to be built. I agree kpleecompletely. In countries that are facing extreme impacts, their resources is not the driving factor. Theres a mismatch between the drivers of Climate Change and those in the world who will face the greatest impacts. The new special report makes that clear by showing the greatest impacts will be in the tropical latitudes. Arctics as well. When were talking about the number of people who live in given areas, the tropics are facing a disproportionate impact from Climate Change. Compared to other parts of the world. Some of the mid latitude regions. We wanted today give three examples of recent impacts of Climate Change there are happening in africa. The first was a tropical cyclone, the Hurricane Dorian of east africa. It happened in march of 2019. Over 1,300 people were killed in mozambique and several other countries around there. Currently they estimate over 2 billion worth of damage. And those type of events are made worse as we know by Climate Change. But they destroy the resilience of communities. We talked about ecological resilience, but Community Resilience is extremely important. Thats something we have a much greater ability to impact. The second challenge is whats happening in Central Africa between chad and nigeria. That lake has lost 90 of its water volume over the past 15 years. Thats not solely due to Climate Change, its also due to irrigation. That illustrates the problems were facing. The way we deal with lands creates positive feedbacks. In the area of lake chad in particular, the changes that are being seen in fishing communities and different agricultural communities that rely on rain fed water and the lake for irrigation, have created such levels of poverty Food Insecurity that these areas are becoming a bit of a recruitment for violent extremism. Theres not one direct line between Climate Change and violent extremism or even between poverty and violent extremism. I wish it were that simple. These issues are connected to one another. The third example ill mention is the ongoing drought in the horn of africa which is a terrestrial impact. Given the monsoon seasons, the drought that has been happening there for the past several years that has resulted in the displacement of millions of people internally and has put millions of children at risk from drought impact is made worse by climate warming. This is what africa and thei indian ocean is facing right now, carbon emissions. Part b of the special report looks specifically at the projected risks for people and ecosystems. And one thing that is incredibly valuable to the ipcc report, it puts levels of confidence around things. I wish those of us who look at the human impacts could be as confident in what we think the impacts will be as the people who study the physics and the biology. Its not a simple math equation. Theres a lot lower levels of confidence around what we expect those impacts to be on communities. But thats where the opportunity exists. That because we have the ability to impact through governance, policy changes, the way that human beings may changes in relation to their own behavior. That being said i want to put a pin on that and say it must be incumbent from us whos are creating the most emissions to not rely on developing companies to be the ones that fix our problems. We need to enable them and provide technical expertise. It cant be on developing countries to fix the problems weve created. I think there are three primary mechanisms i see in africa and the indian ocean that are linking Climate Change to Security Issues in the maritime realm. The first is direct competition for fimobile resources. The movement of fish, the changes in eezs. There was a great question from the audience about eez boundaries. Those boundaries will change slightly but with sea level rise. In africa there are 12 different maritime disputes over Economic Zone boundaries, which extend from the shore line out to 200 nautical miles. In Southeast Asia they overlap a lot. In africa, in west africa theres a lot of overlap as well and a lot of contention. These boundaries are the definition of where governance over the Marine Resources for a given country belongs to the domain of that given country. That country can choose to sell off access to oil exploration, mineral exploration, fisheries exploitation, and governments, especially in africa, earn a lot of revenue by selling some of those rights. The access to resources are going to change under scenarios of climate warming. My colleagues have done research on what causes conflict oftentimes violent conflict over fish. Its direct access to the resource coupled with and made worse by declining fish populations and unclear maritime boundaries. Not just maritime, but also the boundaries in inland waters. The second primary mechanism linking Climate Change to conflict is changes to security. I want to dig in a little bit more on what we mean by Food Security and relation to Marine Resources. Food security is defined as the access to nutritional and affordable foods. Affordable and nutrishts. And seafood is some of the most nutritious foods we have. So when youre talking about nutrition at a childs level, youre talking about setting the stage for generations of people to come. And access to seafood and i would agree with john there are ways we can increase seafood consumption without destroying the ecosystems we have. It has to do with choosing what types of fish we heat, and reducing the global trade we have around it. That level of Food Security is extremely important to over 2 billion people in this one. A billion people rely on seafood as their number one form of protein. And most of these people live in undeveloped economies and rely on subsistence and small scale fishing. I mean, one two people out in a canoe collecting fish. Not trawlers that have 40 to 50 people on board who can collect a lot of fish. The third and final mechanism connecting Climate Change to conflict is through the widening gap of Socio Economic inequality across the world. These gaps are replicated at the local level in communities that rely on Marine Resources. At the state and federal level when you have concentration of wealth in different communities. Oftentimes away from coastal communities. And the global level, in the accumulation of wealth in northern and developed countries. As Climate Change affects food and livelihood security youll see a widening gap. All of a sudden the governance and secure implications for what were driven by resource questions do not become solutions that are resource based any longer. Its really a social justice issue i think. So i liked what you said about the good, bad and ugly. I also didnt want to end on a bad note. So i do see good things happening with maritime domain awareness and maritime govance. That is the recognition by the world, really, about the importance of regulating fishing nations and keeping track of fishts that are being done by large scale industrial fleets in the waters of countries that rely on fisheries for small scale subsistence consumption. Place. In Southeast Asian countries, have a very high rate of rati ratification because they know that having control over their ports and understanding the transparency behind fishing, fisheries moving around the Global Economy is so important to what theyre doing. So i would say the port state measures agreement now needs more adopters to have a Global Impact but thats one thing that i think we can have hope about. The bad is really the lack of data that we have on small Scale Fisheries around the world. So earlier, we saw some fan t fantastic data from the gulf of maine and we dont have those kinds of day sets for most of the worlds fisheries. We dont know where the fish are, how theyre reproducing, so in terms of Capacity Building, simply providing avenues and funding for Data Collection at a species level for fish is so very important very developing countries. Just b to be able to track whats happening because with we dont know what we have, we cant manage what we dont know. And the third thing ill say is the ugly. And that is the global subsidies for fisheries and fisheries fuel. A colleague of mine is speaking today with the organization trying to lobby for reduction in fuel subsidies for global fishing fleets and the reason that most of us can afford to eat the food we find in seafood restaurants here in the United States is because of government sub diazing the cost of catching those fish in the first place so thats something we need to address. To end on a positive note what i see changing in africa and throughout the Pacific Ocean is the awareness of the youth on Climate Change and Climate Impacts. Its not you know, not just scandanavian youth. Theyre doing a fantastic job, but across aftercar accideafric awirness of the problem by youth and a focus on local solutions that involve communities and indigenous knowledge which is something the report really focused on and also the power of women and their Security Issues as a means of changing the conversation and the paradigms around economic exploitation. Excellent. Thanks so much. So thats a great segway to amy who is going to talk about the a dapation group and how that looks to developing states. So im really happy to be b here today. Partly because i feel like historically, the human rights and environmental communities have operated somewhat separateseparat separately even though we have a lot to offer. I guess im thinking about this in terms of i think the science provides the what. The human rights provides the how. So ill talk more about what i mean. First ill talk briefly about what are the human rights impact of Climate Change . I think people have covered it well without using the word human rights. But what can human rights tell us about mitigation and a dapation . So just on the impablgts of human rights. Right the food, livelihoods. Impacts on fisheries. These are huge, these also land. Conflict breeds more human rights problems so all of this. Relocation. Migration. Also enormous concerns. I think this is intuitive. The rights of Indigenous Peoples are a concern because theyre going to be some of the first impacted groups because they have no Political Representation and theyre such a smalling segment of the population. But we know what they are. I want to talk about what rum rights might continue to solutions. If we want if we want governments to feel urgent about addressing Climate Change, we need to double down on democracy rule of law. On what the u. S. Government does a lot of. Supporting better governance around the world. Easy. We sort of know how to do it even if not perfect. I want to pick up on something i think i heard in the last panel which is that sometimes communities themselves can help us solve problems. So for example, if we really respected the land rights, the Traditional Land rights of people in the congo basin and malaysia and indonesia, wed be protecting pete lands. People are traditional livelihoods have lived in their environments without destroying them for a long time and they know how to do that. A real marriage between protecting really important carbon states and peoples rights. And what can we learn about a dapation . My particular expertise is in business and human rights. Weve learned a lot over the past few decades about what happens when you u try to engineer big, National Projects from the top. Doesnt go very well. So how do you carry out a project like that. Theyll first of all, understand the impacts better and may know how to mitigate them. Thats true for communities around the world. But the other reason is that i think it also will help Community Buy in. So if youre asking people to change how they make their living, change the way they fish or otherwise earn their daily bread, youve got to have them believe in what youre asking them to do and they have to be part of coming up with that solution or they wont do it. In the worst case, it will lead to conflict. So we know how to do this. We have a lot of experience and i guess my call would be when were coming up with interb National Frameworks or National Frameworks, making sure that approach is embedded. I see bits and pieces of that. Some of the major funds at least have environmental and social policies. Not sure how well thats implemented. This isnt easy stuff. But this has to be part of it. We wont get where we need to be if we dont have Community Buy in and Intelligence Incorporated into Climate Change. Thats the challenge. We have to think big. Its a big problem, Needs Big Solutions and we have to think locally and we have to do both. Thanks. Thanks. Appreciate it. So that was a great translation of impacts we heard from the first panel and how it looks like from the real world. And i want to take a minute to just think about this idea we picked up in the first b panel of a Dynamic World and how we adapt to it. Take a little bit of what sarah and amy were touching on. Im going to throw out a quick question to the panel and all can weigh in as you see fit. How are organizations dealing with this task . Southeast asia. East afterkachlt are they beginning to deal with with this challenge . Are they ready . What kinds of steps do we need to take to improve upon them . Ill start to just pull on the comments of the arctic counsel. My own view is the arctic counsel is strain iing enormous. Theyre putting a burden on a structure that wasnt design ed to carry that. Its an intergovernor mep tall forum. It deals on consensus. It produces some remarkable arctic Climate Impact assessm t assessments and maritime shipping assessments that are extraordinary. I dont think they get much play. Of them, but theyre an incredible value. The six working groups that work on a wide variety of issues, they do important work but its isolated. Its not wellknown. Theres a lot of things now that the arctic counsel isnt designed to do. Things are being built around the arctic counsel. So the innovations that i mentioned to you, the search and rescue agreement, the oil spill response, International Science agreement. It uses the framework of the counsel so the eight members but then the arctic counsel itself has nothing to do with the implementation of those agreements. The members, they failed to approve a declaration in may, but all the members can say yes, this is a graets impact but im not going to do anything nationally to produce the impact. Nice. Its lovely. But its not moving the the needle. What i see happening right now, the council is prohibited. The arctic economic council. The coast guard forum. Their all outside. So i sort of see this duct tape apparatus that were trying to respond to the innovation, which i think is fantastic and important and theyre moving for dediplomacy at lightning speed to get some of these things negotiated, but it doesnt have a home. An organizational framework and what concerns me is these pieces to manage that chaos for their own purposes and i think we have to be very cognizant of it. I think we need a lot of rethinking. Of the arctic governing structure. Theres no political will. Everyone is frightened to do any change so i think were going to be stuck with a council thats going to be less and less efficacious, if you will, in what we need it to do in the future. John , sarah was talk ining t there are different modes of conflict arising from climate. Resources, changes in Food Security. All these things sounded like a witches brew that describes Southeast Asia and things that came together in that part of the world in a dire way. What do you think about the ability of existing International Institutions and agreements in that part of the world to kind of grapple with this challenge . So i think its important to look at all the levels that are needed. Weve got the Community Level t are super important where you need Community Buy in. Youve got action at the National Level which is very, very important then there are questions to focus on, the international. With regard to the International Sphere in asia, i guess ive got two examples. Its still evolving. Hopefully, the conerversation c evolve quickly enough. One exam sl principle is in japan where as i mentioned earlier, japan took this dramatic step of really undertaking this reform of how it manages its domestic fisheries. They did this even though they know and the it was part of the impact on japanese fisheries is not domestic. Its outside by Foreign Police by russia, korea and china and others, but the officials basically said look, we have to do what we can do first. And then we will hopefully have greater agency to have our moral authority to come to the International Realm to argue the case. Well see how that conversation goes. Another example is in the western Pacific Ocean. The International Institution there is the wcpfc. The western Central Pacific fisheries commission. And they are now in the process of grappling with the impact of Climate Change where these Pacific Island countries, some of which are the poor eest in t world, depend so heavily on those resources. Tuna, one of the most valuable fisheries resources in the world. The center of gravity of those fisheries under Climate Change is forecast to shift largely away from those islands and outside of their ways where they can control. So they are grappling right now with this question of how do you allocate quota. How do you do it based on history . Will the rights to fish attach or remain with the countries that have those fish resources originally or migrate with the fish . To the open sea where other countries can have more, can sort of harvest them more on their own without the control of these countries. Thats the conversation thats happening now within that fisheries commission. Its robust. Well see. Thanks. Sarah, what are you thoughts . He mentioned some opportunities for optimism. How do you see that playing out . More regional scale for us. In multilateral institutions . The same conversation is happening with the Indian Ocean Tuna commission around catch allocation of the most value tabl tuna and bill fish fisheries. In the indian ocean, theres a large presence of distant Water Fishing nations. China, taiwan, france, the eu fleet, which is primarily france and spain in the indian ocean and to be part of a regional Fisheries Management organization, you do not have to be a country whose shoreline touches the waters of that commission. You can simply have a presence as a fleet then voluntarily join that organization and that gives you rights and responsibilities to that organization. So the same conversation is happening right now and there are sort of two competing proposals for how to allocate those valuable tuna fisheries. One being forwarded by the euro European Union. The other by what they call the coastal states. And those are its a consortium of some of the smaller countries in the tropical Pacific Ocean. Sorry, indian ocean, and so i dont know what the state of those, that conversation is, but its mirroring whats happening in Southeast Asia so i think thats very interesting that these states are exerting a little bit more influence and Decision Making authority over their own resources and not just simply selling them off to other countries who and keep in mind, the other countries who are coming in are very efficient and for the most part, their fishing methods, theyre targeting a few of these really valuable commercial species that have global trades. So theyre not necessarily coming in very close to coastal waters and damaging coral reef habitats. Im talking about long lining fleets. That for the most part stay out in international waters, although not exclusively. Then there are two regional africa, at least just two im familiar with. One is code of conduct. North africa, east africa and the middle east. In west africa, you have the yun day code. These are frameworks that deal with the maritime space. Climate change is really only dealt with when it deals with plu economy issues, but because these are security frameworks, they mostly deal with issues in west africa and east africa. Piracy, human smuggling. Arms strug smuggling, a lot of which takes place on fishing boats. So i dont know, i cant say how those frameworks are set to incorporate issues of climald b when it come to the migration of Marine Resources. Lastly before we turn to the audience here, you talked about local solutions. The lands report, special report on the lands came out in august. There was a fwraet panel. We also derek on the panel and she spoke about just that and the idea that oftentimes, we talk about these global commitments. Whether its paris or other agreements. Set these national goals, but those goals are often being implemented at the national scales. Regional, global scales and really when you talk to the world, you talk about Community Level anchor. You talk about some pathways for success and that kind of work . Sure. This isnt a problem thats new. Thats the good news. Weve had challenges in implementing large scale projects. At the national and local level nor a long time so weve learned something. So i think you can look at standards theyre not perfect. Theyre pretty good. Tsz challenging. It covers having a system in the f chapters on land rights and resettlement and Indigenous Peoples and other aspects of environmental impact. Also governance around that. They have experts and help to help their clients actually do these things properly if they dont know how. They have a grievance mechanism thats independent and raises problems when these arent people, normal people can bring complaints to come ploplain whe standards arent followed. What ive seen in some of the adaptation funds, theyre picking up some of this with a light touch. That could be strengthen ed and if a government wants to access a that funding, then they have to start developing capacity and republic needs to be financially supporting that capacity. This isnt easy. For a lot of companies that have top down cultures, its a different way of doing things. Theres been some progress on having frameworks on migration. Urnld intour migration framewor are slow. It talks about Climate Change. Maybe not as much it should. It doesnt solve the problem, but theres progress in that area and thats going to be a key issue to get our brains and political will power around going forward. Something that, some particular concerns. Thank you very much. Audien audience, you have some questions. Microphones. Well talk up to three. We have one here. Second. One in the back there. Thank you vchl. My questions are more for john and sarah and i really appreciate a discussion on the impacts of the Community Levels in indonesia and africa like chad, mozambique, somalia. Im very interested to know what is being done at the Community Levels within the most effective communities to address and anticipate the impacts of climate driven risk and to mitigate the chances for driver of conflict. Im partly leave thg question sarah because im aware of your work in somalia, but in the Community Level where people could be drawn into criminality, violence and conflict, what could be done with those communities that are most at risk and on the front lines . Thank you. Well get them together. Hi, im monica. I know a lot of you, my question is about technology and the use of electronic monitoring and reporting systems and whether youre thinking of taking that anywhere else. Sorry, can you hear me . So the question is about electronic monor toring and reporting as a way to better manage fisheries. Wonder if youre seeing an uptick of that anywhere else. I know there are some efforts here in the u. S. , but theyre sort of in fits and starts. I think the case globally, but id be interested in knowing if any of you are aware of any places where its really going well. Get one here in the middle. Thank you very much. I was wondering if you could speak to the role of the International Financial institutions, for example world bank or asian bank with the respect to Capacity Building in places such as africa or asia. Thank you. Weve got one that ties into the International Funding work then another question of electronic monitoring and sort of advanced management as a way for climate management. Ill just throw it to you guys who want to dive . Thank you michael for your question. To answer the question of what is happening at the Community Level, i think that question is difficult to answer. Briefly and it has to do with what the impact of the community are and the capacity and knowledge of the community. In the horn of africa, in particular, the largest impacts of Climate Change are terrestrial, agriculture and drought. I wouldnt even say theres Community Risk mitigation. Theres simply survival. I would say in the maritime realm, probably the greatest amount of Capacity Development is happening in Data Collection. And very basic approaches. Data core approaches to stock assessment that happens through Regional Cooperation with some larger scale levels. So i dont, in a lot of communities that have already been impacted by Climate Change or that are regularly struggling with issues of food and income insecurity that maybe decoupled from Climate Change, im not sure that Risk Mitigation is something thats even where we are right now. I think its more think iing at ways to improve Resource Management that incorporates Climate Change at some level. At some regional level. Not a great answer to your question, but to work at the Community Level, you need to have support from the federal and state governments to enavailable communities to both bring problems to the federal and National Levels. So im seeing a lot of that sort of level of Community Education and Environmental Education around the impacts of Climate Change. Plus youre seeing a lot of mobilization as a result of some of the awareness building. I wanted to address your point and relations to violent extremism and recruitment into violent activity. While we see some of those things happening, i think the issue is so much more complex than just Climate Change causing food and livelihood insecurity causing recruitment into violent groups. Its a much more complex issue. In they of the horn of aftrica, there have been a lot of linkages between rise of parasy about 15 years ago and changes in their Marine Fisheries but in a lot of time, these things are really not, the story that gets told in the media. Simply solving some of these problems will not address the issues around the globe. Theres a lot more to be done. Information about whats happening in the water to help these communities understand there needs to be a lot of improvement. What are these resources going to look like in the future and helping communities plan for that. Then finally, governance and selfempowerment. The governments had never really reached out. The government announced they were opening a sand mine to jakarta. But the fishermen there said no, that mines bright in the middle of our crab fishing and the government heard from these fishermen they have never heard from before. When they shape their own futures. Real quick on the technology. So obviously i think you mentioned in the u. S. , theres a lot of emphasis on improving monitoring, which is important, not just for the science to understand whats happening in the water. To be able to set, to base management decisions on, but also to improve accountability. Because every fisherman will tell you they dont want to c h catch the last fish but they cant sit around and let you catch the last fish. Theres a lot of important importance placed on this. Japan as part of its reform is now pushing to modernize its data with the records there. The records from three years earlier of where the fish are and help manage stocks that are shifting rapidly in these days. China is also and data to track Fishing Vessels around the world. I think there are a number that have signed up to help with this ngo. Helping to understand both the environment environmental impact. Theyve been working to enhance broad band with the most indigenous communities. Tell medicine. Online education and awareness of bringing their observations and helping us understand that and just on the tracking as well. Thats why this code is so important. Vessels have to have ais. We are seeing certainly an eck doe tall instances of fishing stocks moving for cooler waters as the poe r lar ice recedes and the water warm. The plankton changes and were going to see Fishing Vessels increasingly in higher and higher latitudes making sure we understand both that the Fishing Vessels as well as the scientific vessels. Not all is science, my friends, and we have to understand who and what are operating in the arctic. Technology is going to have to be transformtive to how we monitor the arctic in the future. Thank you. Im afraid we have to stop there so we can get to our final conversation, but i want to thank this panel. Really excellent conversation. Appreciate them. We were talking about how the high seas are lawless. And it shows up in the exploitation of fishing stocks. It shows up in transportation of illegal goods. Shows up many piracy. The Logistics Movement of really bad people. This is all part of the landscape. We wanted to do something together so say we have a shared interest in soling this problem. Im so very grateful today that john has chosen to be with us as a concluding speaker. John has just stepped down from having done the chief of nashville operatinaval operations. He worked in every bit of this. Every part of his professional career and certainly the last four years when he was a cno, he was focusing on this very question. Its a unique opportunity for us. So would you with your warm applause, welcome to the stage, john richardson, former chief of the operation. Really appreciate it. Great to be back here, by the way. Excellent. Do you know familiar with our humble abode here. Yeah. But i think this is really just a wonderful way to cap off whats been real stimulating couple of panels this morning. For me, whats really hit home is this idea of of a more Co Competitive and Dynamic World and one that needs to be more adaptive in lots and lots of different ways. We talked about obviously in the first panel, some really grim impacts from climate. We talked in the seblgd panel panel about how these are going to translate to instability. Lots opportunities for challenge. They translate into threats. But threats can take a lot of different forms. What kinds of climate related threats most concern you . I guess if you asked me today, its the acute threats and tomorrow, its the strategic threats. I think that they have sometimes constructive way of interfering with each other and sometimes not so helpful where the acute can really ok pccupy your attenn and neglect longterm things. With respect to ocean and Climate Change, its been maybe particularly vulnerable to that type of a dynamic because those acute challenges that are here and now right in front of us, the ten meter targets if you will, very vivid. Not just wellknown, well agreed upon to a vast majority of people. The sea blindness that arises. We just dont realize how much we detend on the seas and oceans for our prosperity. On top of that its becoming more visible as opposed but its not as viz bable as those captured in the, we have to almost force ourselves and discipline ourselves to spend the prominent time and attention on this. Particularly now because theres a really growing the sense of urgency and the fact that some dynamics that are happening, they may be ir reverse bable if we dont act soon. Looking back across various Strategic Security documents over the last decade, you can go back to 2010 and the review, climate took up a whole chapter within that review. 2014, it was sprinkled throughout though perhaps with the less dedicated focus and of course today, its absent. For political reasons from the National Security strategy. But my question to you is is is a little bit of with this bit of action. How are these documents in terms of driving action in terms of allowing the u. S. Security xh t community to adapt better to the threats theyre going to be facing . Im kind of a believer in the importance of strategy. You know and kind of getting back to our first question. A well crafted and communicated strategy allows us to do is to make sure that you know while some part of the organization may be captivated by the here and now, theres another part of the organization that can get after these longer term things. So i think it really is important that our strategy rngs streendocuments mention these challenges maybe even threats. Having said that, im not sure that the military dimension is really the primary focal point to address Climate Change. Certainly, well have an implication for the i think it could really distort is solution and aprooif at the challenges which are more fundamental. Food security. Thats a much broader challenge than the military can solve. This takes really a whole approach if not international. And the comments about our institutions tune to arise to this challenge and i think are really fundamental types of questions. And you know from a security standpoint, again, i spent a lot of time trying to highlight the importance, that the oceans are, theyre under a lot of stress. Just separate from the Climate Change stress. The ship ng the ocean has increased. Which is astounding. The seabed infrastructure, you know were getting a Natural Resources or whether we are talking about intercontinental communications, 99 of the internet rides on the cables. The seabed is becoming on itself, megacities are moving you know, theyre growing in number of and most of them are coming up on the shoreline. Theres just a tremendous amount of on the oceans and how do you overlay that with the stress and challenge of Climate Change. It could be an approach that would incorporate. Sticking with the idea that we talk about the dynamic nature of the world is static institutions. So were kind of creating gaps if you are creating gaps. A lot can happen in those gaps. Seems like this is the kind of in the world today. I think the other panels touched on the dynamics at play here and in each region, we do a lot of talk amongst chief of navy about this and chiefs of coast guard. The awareness. Just being able to somewhat govern that space and in the slightest manner. In more developed countries. Theyve got secure means of governing their territorial waters. Thats not the case everywhere. It does give rise seas and i think a lot of our institutions particularly the ones i was wrestling with in the navy, they are, well theyre highly structured. Theyre built to handle linear problems. Phase one, phase two, and i think that operate inside regional boundaries. This challenge is really going to impose and its highly linear, it is truly global. We can talk about the importance of the science. And you know, measure it 1,000 times before we get once on this. Because we can end up doing more harm than good if we dont do it right. They had some remarks we often returned to around this idea of conflict and how we are running the risk right now and events around the world through actions or lack of actions on climate. That there is an idea, and beyond that. Just i think we have a lot of partnerships and i guess i would just ask you, what do you think about the opportunity for American Leadership and working with our partners now as to be b more adaptive in the security space. Yeah, i think its absolutely essential. If were going the future is is going to come out of the way that we would like it for the health and prosperity. And america is i would argue still we have a tremendous network of allies and partners. Thats under stress as well. It particular ly in the maritim. On the mission, things, this is one area. I think that of because we share the norms, you know, just that are that Transcend National boundaries. Right. And i would argue that first among equals are navy to navy types things. Go out into international waters. Just to the breaking point. Partnerships can kind. And look forward into the future for this ship of state. And diplomatic winds to blow. We want to come out relatively close to on track when what this, when these winds abate and keeping that structure together is is one of the most critical roles that militaries can play to get us through this. Excellent. Thank you. Well, i think im happy to turn to the audience now and take some questions. We have some folks. One, two and we have a third. Third. In front. Im john with the gis software committee. You were serving the cno when the paris climate accords were steined by president obama. How did you and general dunford view the role of military advice in terms of security parameters of either being in that document or removing us from that document. It went back to i saw my role as primarily being to reach out in together and say hey, look, these alliances, partnerships, how you interpret that. We keep up with person exchanges. Keep inviting each other to other schools. All of those things that create sort of a deep and meaningful relationship that is founded on the common principles that and where they can find. Thats the analysis that i took any way, we did so much good to keep the partnerships as strong as president. Is there a way to introduce introduce fishing for a navy. And have it put into the ndaa as maritime save has been trying to do. And can that then be used as a gateway to corporation with other navies that you mepgsed. Thank you. This fishing topic comes up a lot of regional conferences that i had the privilege of attending because as the early panel, importa important. Havent said that and its in my mind about authorities. And navies. Thats why the Law Enforcement primarily with the coast guard. To service and particularly information sharing and maritime domain awareness. In other nations, those authorities are all unit ed in one maritime body. Those nations. Were out there on the high seas. I think by taking information, to enable authorities to thank for the confusion of technology. Someone at gnais, i know there are others. Okay, what are the rules and norms and how are they enforced in terms of what a particular relationship is squawking on ais. How are we going to respond to that if we find what theyre saying in their ais transmission is different from what we observe d them to be doing and maybe we turn it off all together. The good guys maybe take morex and can respond to them. Hows it going. Weve seen that the navy has pushed back from their climate studies. Recently the task force has shut down. What is the navy doing to compensate for that loss. What are you doing to Research Priorities that youve seen. The new cno. Also the same realm what do you think. Well i think that you would find just some examples, we sent a carry strike group up in the north, arctic sickle in november of 2018. And we, i mean, you craft into the books, the settlement. Whats changed in the 20 or so years, its still cold as hell up there and the seas are very, very rough. We have to get our sea legs back. That was one of the last. Theres nothing like a Louisville Slugger to smash the ice off of everything else. The exercises in alaska. Right and so this is, one of kind of as a nation and the arctic region and in fact, i think we just concluded one up there that involved you know a pretty sophisticated operation with navy and marine corp. Weve got despite the recent trends and headlines the navy had a steady investment in Ocean Science and in fact when i was a chief of nashville operations just to reinvigorate what i saw as kind of a slipping competitive edge. The Task Force Ocean which was an ak dem you can effort primarily focused at those bright stars in the academy. Doing Ocean Research. Infusion of resources to stay on the front end of this. And whether theres a competitive Ocean Sciences that we stay competitive as well. Okay. More questions . Stunned you into silence. One on the back. I love the topic. Thanks for being here. Great discussion. Question. Sorry. Ill get closer. Thaupg so much admiral for being here. Thanks for let iting me ask secd question. You called Climate Change a challenge. Repeatedly referred to it as a challenge. Is is it mat more than that . When you look at u. S. Military i installations and when you think about it, its not only a threat multiplier, but the potential for its reach to our own communities and our shores. Is the challenge not enough . Is it more like any other threat that is exten shl as often people refer to it . Just curious how you rank it. Its a bit of semantics i suppose and i guess in my mind, the challenge or a threat, not meant to prioritize them in terms of their importance. Its just sort of the nature of kind of f a dlub rat deliberate approach to harm. One thing about the climate, its just going to happen a. It has, one of the scariest things about it. It has no aim. No intellect. The science is just going to take over here. Some of the forces and scientific dynamic, i dont mean by calling it a challenge to lessen the impact of that. And you know particularly along the coast and surprised that the navy is present. Its got a lot of impact on the infrastructure. All of those things. But you know, its sort of, its like in those really, the scariest horror movies are those things where this force is just moving without a conscious through and manifesting itself on the environment. This is Climate Change. Almost spookier than a threat that has a deliberate intellect thats after us. Swrus happening to us. And were going to have to just deal with it. We cant convince it not to threaten us. Right . This is something thats a challenge that is is super urgent. I took your point to heart. This is not necessarily a military threat. In as much as its not something that is sparking acute military conflict in the way we think of these things happening traditionally. Its hard the to say maybe. Go deal with this challenge. Go nuke that hurricane. That doesnt mean there isnt opportunity for services to engage and to work. I want to go back to this idea of opportunity for American Leadership and your idea that navy to Navy Maritime conversations are sometimes the most fruitful than most grounded and solid and honest conversations that we have with our international partners. Theres a report just out by the climate and security group, climate screening of america and they call for the National Security directive addressing Climate Response and they go into some detail about what it might look like. They call out the Regional Security plans with our partners. So i want to pose that to you b about our thoughts. About how you might make Something Like happen through the bureaucracy of the pentagon. Go back to the point about Strategic Planning and maybe that gets to the lexicon issue. And what might be useful. Again because were not look in necessarily to you know, deal with a particular issue, but to allow it back in the security. That so first just in terms of what does this mean for the military . We ignore this. Where there are security challenges and threats, tensions, now i dont mean to be you turn the temperature up on thachlt chime change just makes it harder. R more pressure, more stress. So when youre talking about defending and governing international boundary, even at sea, the fact that you know your food source is now migrates outside of your international boundary. Its a security challenge. The most fundamental nature to a nation and so i think that this idea of National Security directive and if you look ed at the people that put that report together, very broad, very distinguished. These are people, very thoughtful people. And you know from a wide variety of National Security, right . Not just military, but so many other places. So i think that this type of an approach is really valuable. And it would be not so much in the department of defense i would suggest would play a supporting role, but this must secure kind of at the National Security Council Level to sort of unite all the levels of the government and all the elements of National Power to get after this. There are some some aspects of this that are going to be highly regional. So these regional aspect of the directive i think are very useful and then perhaps the most challenging would be what are those truly global dimensions. Sort of Trans Pacific types of things that need to be zraddres. When you think about the time frames to bring these sort brin these sorts of structures together, right, it took about, i think, a decade to get ratified. We talked about the some of the agreements in the arctic, again, about a decade to get these things brought together and agreed to and signed. I dont know that we have a decade of time left before they become the momentum builds to the point its very difficult if not impossible to turn them back. And so theres a sense of urgency that is going to have to come to this International Dimension that is its going to be unprecedented in a way to get these agreements together in a time thats relevant. Thank you very much. Im john white. So, roughly 15 years ago today another retired admiral walked in, was testifying before congress. And he stated Ocean Science, Ocean Research in this nation is spread across a number of confusing agencies at the federal, state and local levels. And the public is crying out for data and information in a way that can help them make meaningful decisions. My question, as you look at your great experience of looking at this federal structure of Ocean Science and research, Task Force Ocean, as you did, how far have we come in that 15 years and, i guess, how far do we have to go, especially when you add in the importance of Climate Change and the fact that the clock is running out here, as you mentioned in some of these areas . Thats the question. I think we could always do better, john, you know, in terms of sharing data. You wont be surprised. Even inside the navy some of our labs and the efforts inside the na navy, the collaboration there, were always striving to improve that so we can move forward in a meaningful way, eliminate duplication and all that sort of thing. Its notn any better as you expand that aperture to include other agencies. Task force was an idea to reunify that, give it a focus so it was a gathering point for all those different efforts, particularly as it related to Ocean Science. The technology has really changed in the last 15 years. I think right now we can do some tremendously meaningful Ocean Science work in terms of really getting after this and understanding it. If you think about our understanding of the ocean in the last 15 years, its really been remarkable what thats done. What im going in the near future im going out to Scripps Institution of oceanography and speaking at an event honoring the legacy of walter monk. Walters impact spans, really, his entire lifetime, but, you know, heres someone who did wave analysis to support landings in normandy and world war ii all the way up to us understanding what will happen if we detonate an atomic weapon over the ocean, what are the the ocean response to that. He was, i think, a prophet on ringing the bell on Climate Change with some of his experiments. So, you know, in the spirit of walter monk is what Task Force Ocean strove to do. When i think about what will be had my passion in retirement, this is one of the things. We have to be more coherent, make that data more available. We probably have time for one more question. Anybody else . Right there in the middle. Hi, i actually work for the u. S. Navy. How do you bring ocean issues to the forefront of peoples minds when there are bigger, more pressing issues such as sanctions or Something Like that and make it more relevant so people care and want to look into the issue . I think we cant assume that everybody has as vivid an understanding of how important the oceans are. In fact, i think most people, it doesnt enter their mind at all. And so, again, i dont have to be too convincing in this group, but its almost no matter where you are, right, whether youre speaking before the pta, chamber of commerce, you know, watching your kids soccer game, whatever it might be, i think weve got to use all of those venues to heighten awareness of the ocean and weve got to do it in ways that really are tangible to peoples understanding. How do we do that . If we get too theoretical, talk about 2 degrees tempted change thats not it. Thats not going to captivate it. If we talk about twothirds of our economy is coupled with the ocean, two out of every three jobs is somehow related to the ocean, 99 of the you know, we start to get to something thats more tangible. What is the threat of that . 99 of the worlds information on the internet is run on cables. If thats disrupted, we can only reconstitute 3 . Then you start to deal with you start to discuss this in terms a narrative starts to form, i suppose. Were predisposed to understand narrative story lines. What is the narrative story line we need to create in terms of the importance of the ocean to us as a nation and really us as a people . And then where does Climate Change come into that . Weve been all over the map in terms of is it really happening . Are people really causing it . You know, all of those things. But maybe we can we certainly can do better, right . I mean, who wouldnt weve got the technology, weve got the intelligence to just built systems more sustainable, they impact the environment less. We can do that at a commercially profitable way. There are all sorts of opportunities here if we can unite on a narrative way forward. Dont miss an opportunity to talk about that. When we leave, go forth and preach to all nations about this the importance of what we talked about here. Sometimes it gets a little too insular and we need kind of a broader appreciation. It needs to puncture through all of those urgent headlines were getting on our twitter feeds and everything else, right . That is a wonderful note to close on. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it. [ applause ] thank you all for coming and joining us here today. Please stay in touch, stay in contact. Have a great day. Thanks. If you missed any of our live coverage of this event, its Available Online at cspan. Org. Just type csis in the video search box at the top of the panl. At the National Press coverage, gerald lynn bostick, a gay man who was child dpr his job as a Child Welfare services, hes involved in a case being heard by the Supreme Court. Watch that live today at 1 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan, online at cspan. Org or listen live on the free cspan radio app. Weeknights this week were featuring American History tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan3. Tonight biographer george nash recalls world war i and relief work of Herbert Hoover which saved millions of lives and set the stage for his White House Run at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Were showing you book tv programs, showcasing vaets whabl every weekend on cspan2. Tonight the theme is national defense, including new books from former defense secretaries jim mattis and ash carter. That begins at 8 00 p. M. On cspan2. The white house today barred the u. S. Ambassador to the European Union from testifying in the impeachment inquiry in the u. S. House. Following the decision we heard from the chairman and Ranking Member, but theres late news from that on that issue. The chairs of the house committee, the Foreign Affairs and the oversight committees and intelligence have announced they intend to subpoena u. S. Ambassador to the eu gordon sondland, who was blocked by the Trump Administration from testifying. Heres what the chair and Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee had to say earlier before that subpoena was issued. Good morning. We were informed about an hour and a half ago by the attorney for ambassador sondland that the state department would refuse to allow him to testify today. This was after conversations well into yesterday afternoon and evening with the Legal Department in which there was no indication that it the ambassador would be a noshow. Not only is the congress being deprived of his testimony, the American People are being deprived of his testimony here today, but were also aware that the ambassador has Text Messages or emails on a personal device, which have been provided to the state department, although we have requested those from the ambassador. And the state department is withholding those messages as well. Those messages are also deeply relevant to this investigation and the impeachment inquiry. And i want to just explain for the public the significance of this witness and the significance of the decision evidently by the secretary of state and president or president or both to withhold this key witnesss testimony today. We know from the Text Messages that ambassador sondland was in discussion with ukrainian counterparts, with fellow diplomatic personnel and the president , as well as at least one u. S. Senator about the course of events that we are investigating. We know from those Text Messages that diplomatic personnel raised a concern with him that military assistance was being withheld to secure help from ukraine in the president s reelection campaign. We know that ambassador sondland had at least one discussion with a fellow diplomat on that very subject of why military assistance was being withheld. We know ambassador sondland was a key player in efforts to obtain a commitment from ukraine to investigate a bogus Conspiracy Theory about the 2016 election, as well as joe biden and his son. And we know that the ambassador has relevant evidence on whether the meeting with the president that the ukrainians desperately sought with President Trump was being conditioned on the these investigations that the president believed would help his reelection campaign. It is hard to overstate the significance of not just ambassador sondlands testimony and the documents, but the testimony of others as well. The failure to produce this witness, the failure to produce these documents, we consider yet additional strong evidence of obstruction of the constitutional functions of congress. A coequal branch of government. There are four issues were looking at. At least four issues that were looking at, all that go to the heart of our National Security. And by preventing us from hearing from this witness and obtaining these documents, the president and secretary of state are taking actions that prevent us from getting the facts needed to protect the nations security. We are looking into whether the president solicited foreign help in a u. S. President ial election again. We are looking into the issue of whether a meeting that ukraine desperately sought with the president at the white house was being conditioned on the willingness of ukraine to investigate this bogus Conspiracy Theory about 2016 and investigate the bidens. Were looking at whether ukraine was given reason to believe that military assistance it desperately needed to fight off the russians was being withheld until it made commitments to do these political investigations for the president. And we are boo looking into the question of whether thats been an effort by the president , the secretary of state and others to cover up this misconduct. Ambassador sondland is an important witness on each of these subjects, but he is not the only important witness. And we will consider this act today, and weve had members fly in from around the country to hear the ambassadors testimony, as well as the withholding of the ambassadors documents, as well as efforts that may be made to discourage or have the effect of discouraging other state Department Witnesses from coming forward and testifying, as they have agreed to, to be further acts of obstruction of a coequal branch of government. We understand the reason why the state department decided not to have ambassador sondland appear today. Its based on the unfair and partisan process that mr. Schiff has been running. You think about what the democrats are trying to do. Impeach the president of the United States 13 months prior to an election, based on an anonymous whistleblower with no firsthand knowledge who has a bias against the president. And the guy running the process, chairman schiff, didnt even tell us that he had met with the whistleblower prior to the whistleblower filing the complaint. Adam schiff didnt tell us the way he treated ambassador sondland last week in this excuse me, ambassador volker in this interview last week, thats that treatment is the reason why the administration, the state department said, were not going to subject ambassador sondland to the same treatment. And, look, we were actually looking forward to hearing from ambassador sondland. We thought he was going to reinforce exactly what ambassador volker told us last week. Again, unfortunately, when you have a speaker of the house who says, we need to strike while the iron is hot, when you have a chairman of the committee who is so biased against this president that he wouldnt even tell us that he had met with his staff and met with the whistleblower prior to the whistleblower filing the complaint. Frankly, this is a pattern with mr. Schiff. He did the same thing, if you remember, the first big hearing the democrats did this congress, michael cohen, he didnt tell us his staff had met with mr. Cohen four hours prior to mr. Cohen testifying. He didnt tell us last summer he met with mr. Simpson out in colorado, palling around with a guy with fusion gps. This is a pattern. We hope to hear from the ambassador today but we understand exactly why the administration, exactly why the state department has chosen to say, look, if its this kind of process if youre going to selectively leak Text Messages, 67 pages of Text Messages we have, they take a handful and release to all of you and not give the full context and not release the transcript, we understand why they made this decision at this moment. The house will be in order. For 40 years, cspan has been providing america unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the Supreme Court and Public Policy events from washington, d. C. , and around the country so you can make up your own mind. Created by capabble in 1979. Cspan is brought to you by your local cable or satellite provider. Cspan, your unfiltered view of government. Now, deborah lee james, former air force secretary under president obama, she and other Guest Services at the sea Leadership Association womens Leadership Conference in washington talk about issues women face while serving in the military. This session also includes a panel on womens