Americans interests. Like somehow they are running silicon valley. The reality is we started this 70 years ago as a radio enterprise. We still do some radio. But our ability to provide resources behind it is certainly there. We are no different from any other media company. The New York Times just has well has done a fantastic job. That is our mission is to shift resources, energy, focus and strategy to be more in the peertopeer conversations instead of the onetomany. So we can shift away from the stodgy old media to the new media. We cant leave people behind. Today is a good day to discuss north korea. The potential of a Hydrogen Bomb to have been tested. The only way to get into north korea is with shortwave radio. We do a very good job with that. We should not abandon shortwave radio just because its the only way. We recognize there are parts of the world where next Generation Media is critical, but other parts where it is not the time yet. Ron can you be critical of the u. S. Government in your reporting . John i think critical reporting is professional journalism. It requires any reporter to ask good questions, whether it be the federal government or any other issue or policy. Thats on both sides of the aisle. When the iran deal was being debated on capitol hill, we carry that live on both sides. That is our mission, to tell americas story on every side. John lang thing is the new ceo of the broadcast board of governors, which includes radio asia,urope, radio free and the office of cuba broadcasting. You can read run nixons reporting in the New York Times. Gentlemen, thank you for reading on. For beigng on. Cspan, created by americas Cable Companies 30 years ago, and party was a Public Service by your local cable and satellite provider. Cspan takes you on the road to the white house and into the classroom. This year, are student cam our student cam documentary contest asks students to tell what issues they want to hear from the president ial candidates. Follow our road to the white house coverage and get the details about our student cam contest at cspan. Org. It has been a month since the u. S. And nearly 200 other countries met in paris for a Climate Change summit that resulted in an International Agreement for reducing carbon emissions. Epa Administrator Gina Mccarthy recently spoke about the implications of that deal and other Environmental Issues at the council on Foreign Relations in washington dc. This is one hour. Admin. Mccarthy i know that 25 will go in history as quite a year. It was a year where we began significantly to turn the tide on a Climate Change. There is no doubt in my mind and did many others that that is the case. I am convinced that 2016 is not going to be a year where we will slow down. It is a year where we are going to keep building the momentum on the basis of the historic year past. Last august, the president announced our clean power plant at epa. It is a historical rule that cuts domestic Carbon Pollution from our power plants. The reason i mention this in an International Discussion is because in paris, when it nearly 200 countries when nearly 200 countries came together to announce a universal agreement on climate that is groundbreaking. The clean powerplant was one of the foundational issues that was brought up that allowed that success to happen. I am not saying that just because i want to give kudos to epa, although we did a great job. It was certainly a concerted effort. It was a concerted effort to take a look at where the energy world is heading. And to work with those in the energy world that are both producing the energy, that are using the energy, and those that are regulating it. It was an opportunity for us to show domestic leadership. Wastask as to why it successful as opposed to eluting us, like it has for the past years, was the result of 3 things. We can get entities in much more detail. Get into these in much more detail. The inevitability of taking action was quite clear. We do not hear from climate deniers at this meeting. We did not hear any country saying that action should not move forward. There was a certainty about inevitability to act on climate, and the immediacy of that need that was quite palpable and very different. Secondly, it was about u. S. Leadership. I can get into this a little bit more. It was both the president s leadership not just in setting an aggressive domestic environmental agenda, but in his constant nurturing of this issue over the past few years. We went to paris felipe appeared for a deal. We went to paris full prepared for a deal. Its also the work across the administration. It put the u. S. Back in a leadership position in a way that we have not been for quite some time. It allowed us to speak with a credibility and an energy that we had not seen before. If you look at these issues, why do i know that there was certainty of action . When i went to paris, it was markedly different than any conference i had been to. Many of which i would rather have been helmet doing christmas had been home doing Christmas Present shopping. It was a positive level of energy but i dont think any of us had felt before. There was a collective motivation to come to a Decision Point here that would finally address an International Effort that was commenced rate with the challenge was commensurate with the challenge we were facing. I spent a full week in paris. Many thought that i shouldnt, without it was a long time. It proved to be a valuable opportunity. I got to listen to that energy world. I got to talk to many countries, i got to talk about in detail the issues relative to how you do a transparent system. Has epa done this similarly for with countries . With countibefore res . I saw there was a big difference in the way this meeting was handled. First of all, we went in to there with 180 countries already pledging commitments. That has not happened before. When we stepped off the plane, it was different. Years, we had World Leaders come at the end of the meeting instead of the beginning. This time it was the beginning. What that did was two things. One, it allowed us to recognize the work that has already been done in the past year by this president and others to get the largest World Leaders and economies to the table in a serious way. It also charted the course that the rest of us needed to follow. That meant that every day after that was substantive instead of a preliminary discussion prior to the World Leaders speaking. It was a vastly different way of structuring this meeting and it resulted in vastly more substantive discussion. Which shows in the language of the agreement. The other thing that became very clear, as i have said before, was the leadership of the united states. We were not just at the table, but we work managing we were managing many of those discussions and putting them forward. We know that president obama made a big difference when he reached agreement with countries like china and brazil. When he had such rigorous conversations with india. I know in talking to all of those folks at the table that their job was to get an agreement. Their job was to make a good on those discussions. It showed. I also know that one of the challenges i had going in was to make sure that i could articulate the domestic agenda effectively. I wanted to make sure i talked about our clean powerplant. It turned out i needed to do a lot less talking than i thought. I had the utilities there doing thats talking. That is quite a change. They were the ones talking about their ability to meet this. Its consistency with the way in which investment is happening in the u. S. , and how this is the direction that we need to take in order to get investment once again in our energy infrastructure. That way we can meet the challenges of today and tomo rrow. There were private sectors beyond the utilities that were already on board in making pronouncements. Including investments communities. This was an opportunity for us to double the Research Capacity funding made available from governments, but also to have the private sector stand up and announced opportunities for investments and new technologies. While this is a great agreement that we fully expect to produce terrific results, we know that a lot more needs to be done. We know more solutions need to be driven to the table. And the right people were around the table saying, the only way we are going to get those investments is to get an agreement, is to keep moving forward, is to find an interagency, International Way in which we could Work Together to identify those new technologies, to align those research efforts, and to figure out how developed and developing countries could take advantage of that. Not just to address climate, but to address the multitude of environmental and economic challenges that face them and integrate climate into those efforts. It was a wonderful meeting. I think i should stop there since im at my time limit. I think we should just take questions. I am happy to talk in detail about this. 2016 will really be for epa a tremendous opportunity to move forward to continue with our commitments under the president s Climate Action plan to implement the clean power plant. Plan. An power we will have a heavy role supporting the state and working on issues to bring this kind of detail that you are suggesting to the table. This agreementat is cast in stone, and to provide we will meet the president s domestic commitment on issues like are heavyduty vehicle rule, methane rules, a series of work that will continue. We will not take our eyes off th e ball of sharing her expertise and supporting best International Effort. Which for the first time has a framing that could make it very successful. We intend to get it there. Thanks very much everybody. [applause] can i wear this on my head . Thank you. I think there has been universal acclaim for this many countries agreeing on anything. The headline numbers have been pretty positive. The criticism has been that the details are yet to be hammered out. How do you get to this goal of limiting temperature change to to degrees celsius or less . Two degrees celsius or less . Walk us through stepbystep, how the this now happen . How does this now happen . Admin. Mccarthy for folks that may have these concerns, i dont know if they are criticisms. They are limitations of what you can get done in an International Agreement. This one is much more specific in terms of how it must be carried out. It talks about coming back every five years to look at goals. Every goal needs to be more aggressive than the one before. It outlines new capacity effort new capacity building, to make sure that developing countries can do the kind of work that provides that accountability and transparency. John not just energy capacity, it the intellectual admin. Mccarthy thats exactly right, and technical capacity. This basically says that every country is going to have to meet standards that look at providing a transparent accountability system. Anyone who has Done International work knows that accountability is a big thing. Transparency is a big thing. Is often the key driver to getting countries to do what they are supposed to do. Most countries hate to be the one that didnt meet the goals that they articulated. That is a huge driver in the international world. What epa does, and what we are doing at the conference, is to outline what those steps might look like. And why they are not just a measure of accountability, but for develop and different link countries developed and developing countries to do that. Its the same thing that we have been working on with their quality standards. Their air quality standards. Its not compensated. Not complicated. It takes technical capacity, but the first thing you do is an inventory where the house gases are coming from. It is amazing how bad we are at estimating that before we look at it. Every country is the same. We have done this with china. We taught them how to do inventories. It never matches up where they think the emissions are coming from. We all have a bias on where the bad and good things are. That is why for a long time we have to keep telling people that cars matter, is not just utilities. People just think things. You do an inventory, look at what actions you take. This is what every state does when they implement an air quality standard. Look and a range of action, measure those analytically. Chart your path forward. Every year you look at reconciling that, or every 2 y ears. Thats exactly what this was all about. Reflectedthat process in the background dr. Mentation . Admin. Mccarthy it is in the agreement itself and in the background. It mentions every two years, every country is going to do a report that monitors their success. To do that report, you have to follow guidelines. Those guidelines say what a good inventory is, how you do this. The challenge for epa will work with other countries to expand the capacity of the developing countries to do this as well. We have spent a great deal of time in china doing this. We have detailed folks working with states through Different Countries to in that people there who can teach to embed people there you can teach this. Tojob was to explain countries that this is not punishment, this is opportunities. If you cant say where your Greenhouse Gases are coming from, you are not going to be a market for technologies. You are not going to be able to articulate where your Research Needs are for all of the research dollars. It is a foundation for them to put their hand up and get the assistance they need, as well as develop a plan that might be consistent with twhere their economy needs to head. I think that is essential. For countries like china and india and others, where we now have monitors that look at air quality and recognize the problems they face. For them, this is their opportunity to look at not just Greenhouse Gas productions, but efforts to reduce those that can also have cobenefits. John growth benefits. That with the argument you were making, right . People are leaving beijing because you cannot breathe the air. At the end of the day, is it naming and shaming . This is a lot of countries with very disparate objectives. It is hard to get agreements in even a smaller group. At the end of the day, is the naming and shaming process that will happen every 25 years in those meetings, is that the stick that the agreement has . Admin. Mccarthy no, the agreement isnt enforceable. The goals are flexible. Transparency mechanisms are agreed to. Those would move forward. I dont think it is a naming and shaming. As you build capacities for countries to look at this, they will see the opportunities that the u. S. Is beginning to see. This is all about shifting to a clean economy. That is not punishment, thats simply being smart about the future. John the Global Economy was already slowing in the last couple years. That must have factored into some of the discussions. How does that factor in . If the Indian Economy drifts lower its already happening in china is the temptation to fire up that coal plant, get those factories humming, have jobs so its not sports . Its not pitchforks in the streets . Admin. Mccarthy that is the natural instinct everywhere until you figure out where you want your economy to head. We are certainly going to look at how we spend money to this effort internationally and make sure that the gut instinct to do that isnt all you look at. There are countries clearly trying to move themselves out of are pretty. Out of poverty. The challenge for us is to make other opportunities available to them. To bring options to them that allow them to choose something more sustainable. John when you sat across the table from india, how did you answer that question . 1. 1 billion people in poverty. Half the population is still rural. They have a long way to go. How did you answer that question . Admin. Mccarthy the way to think about this, at this meeting, the other thing that was very different that led to the lack of naysayers was the fact that india recognizes that its on the front line of disasters. It is going to be significantly hardhit in a changing climate. As, not all as cut and dry do we want jobs or not . Is what you do to protect her population at the same time it is what you do to protect your population at the same time. The support for Climate Adaptation was really high. There was a lot of discussion given the change already happening. It isnt as easy for these companies these countries to put limited resources into things that will contribute to the future disasters. Its not that simple anymore. They are recognizing that they have to put people to work, but they are also recognizing now that there are opportunities that dont rely on the same old technologies. John the agreement talked about a big investment in technical capability. Previoushere have been promises of investment by developed countries. That has never really materialized. Why would it materialize no w, but previously it did not . Admin. Mccarthy we already made some additional commitment. President announced we were doubling our adaptation funds. We had a number of countries that have gotten together to invest in a new program that is everybodys research dollars. The different thing now is private sectors stepping up. This is not just a government challenge, its impact on business already being felt. International businesses were there in force. I met with many ceos. They are meeting with other countries and talking about this challenge. John what were they discussing . Opportunities to build wind farms . Admin. Mccarthy opportunities to not make it worse by looking at mitigation strategies. But also adaptation strategies. Water is becoming a problem everywhere. Not just water quality