schools abruptly closed. we will watch the lobby at trump tower in new york city for the next several minutes. [background sounds] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> again, we are looking like a trump tower in newark city. authorities engaging with a couple of young protesters there today. president trump is in the belly. he is expected to leave at two p.m. eastern. he will be visiting wall street today, and later on had back to the golf resort in new jersey. the president will sign a bill that will end a 15 year limit for veterans to use their education benefits, the bill also restoring benefits to veterans whose schools abruptly closed. >> c-span where history unfolds a daily. in 1979 c-span was created as a public service by america's cable-television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. >> now to remark some house science committee ranking member don beyer. the virginia democrat discussed the potential impact of the trump administration's decision to withdraw from the paris climate change agreement. his speech is about 90 minutes. [inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon. welcome. thank you very much for your attention. i'm steve mosley, the recently elected president of the una, united nations association national capital area chapter. i'm just pleased and tickled frankly to see on an august day, maybe because it's a cool august day what a fantastic turnout on capitol hill on an august day. naturally due to the extraordinary line of the people who are going to be presenting at talking to di today i'm sured that brings you here. five years ago, maybe before five years ago united nations with the cooperation certainly of the united states and with many countries around the world began to plan for the future of world global development that would apply not only to the least developed countries but just as will equally and universally to the critical state of affairs for human rights and for development in the best equipped countries including the united states. out of that conversation came this extraordinary set of sustainable development goals to help lead the way for all countries voluntarily,, importantly, voluntarily to collaborate and how we will achieve the outcomes of those goals at set forth for the years 2015-2030. with just two years into this and already there significant progress to be talking about and is built on the progress of the millennial 11 goals that were extraordinary by focusing across the world the attention of development agencies. but now focusing the attention of leaders and almost all countries, 196 nations signed this opportunity for voluntary cooperation to carry us forward. and probably all of you are willfully with that so i won't go for the unlike paula boland in just a moment to tell you a bit for the association i just like to say we are extraordinarily honored that we introduced individually congressman beyer who's been a great supporter of international engagement, international foreign affairs, speaking well of the united nations and serving as one of our leading ambassadors as well is that in the house of representatives so we're so grateful he is here on an august afternoon. i'm particularly delight as well our moderator this afternoon is a colleague of mine for many, many years, dr. george ingram who's an outstanding leader angrily one of the great experts on the process and engagement of the u.s. congress on foreign affairs through his work also on international development modernization. he's now at the brookings institute. they will be further introduced in time. let me know and reduce paula boland tooth our executive director, the working executive director. i voluntary, and carries out the extraordinary work of our association. thank you very much for being here. [applause] >> good afternoon. good afternoon, everyone. delighted to see a full house, congressman beyer, thank you so much not only for hosting us this afternoon but for being a champion. now more than ever we need champions in the u.s. congress, because the nation of una nca and the whole association of the usa is to educate and mobilize americans for a strong u.s.-u.n. partnership. that partnership is more critical than ever before. with all the budget cuts that foreign affairs and other fields are facing, more than ever our efforts to educate and mobilize our communities to support, support the work of the united nations and its many specialized agencies. today you will learn more about the global goals and in particular on climate change and why we need to be an active voice in your community. this is your community. so if you have not yet joined the united nations association of the national capital area, i hope you'll consider doing it. because they're so much that you can get out of that network. you can joint committees. we focus on many different issues such as peace and security, sustainable development, human rights, international law, a very active group of young professionals, aa year around model u.n. program that we do with middle and high school students. we partner with several organizations, and it's wonderful for networking, for really bringing, bringing these goals to the local level. that's what we've been doing at una over the last few years, through community consultation and through programs like the ones at the sustainable development committee has been putting together. this event is being sponsored by our una nca sustainable development committee which is led by patrick realiza, who's here, and has been organized, led by a very active committee member, thomas liu who has been a pleasure to work with and i thank him for his tireless work and commitment. i want to take a few seconds to thank c-span who is with us this afternoon as well as nexus media live. youth collaboration and foreign affairs, the young professionals in foreign-policy, and also to our donors. steve mosley, president and colleen smith. thank you so very much, especially again to congressman beyer for his support tickets also through his office that we celebrate every december human rights of day. so we look forward to your active engagement in una so we can make a difference between are the largest network of americans in support of the united nations in the united states, of 180 chapters. chapters. so get involved. thank you so much. so without further ado let me now call on thomas liu. really deserves a round of applause. [applause] >> thank you, paula, for such a warm introduction to good afternoon, everyone. on behalf of of sustainable development committee and the rest of una nca chapter i would like to personally welcome all of you to united states capital to discuss such an important issue. the sustainable development goals also known as sdgs with congressman don beyer and george ingram for the brookings institution. my name is thomas and on a rising senior at langley high school located in mclean virginia, a proud member of the una nca sustainable development committee and above al all the event lead for today's program. before i start i'd like to thank my parents for encouraging and guiding me to become the person who i am today. and through all the dads here today, happy father's day. >> i would also like to thank an individual to whom if i do not know i wouldn't have the courage and ability to organize this event. and that individual is no one other than mr. edward elmendorf. mr. elmendorf was a former president of una nca and una usa. i'd like to thank you for support over the past year. unfortunately he can't be here today. i met him at the 2016 una usa leadership summit or held a global goals roundtable discussion on goal 17. mr. elmendorf then went on to secure my position as a committee member of una nca but since its reprise ghosted to join such a prestigious organization, he also recommended me to join the sustainable development committee which is chaired by mr. patrick realiza is actively leading at facilitating the development of programs on behalf of of our committee. by following his insight i had the opportunity to learn more about sdgs and be sure today to ask him on behalf of sdgs. as a quick reminder for those present, as policy where currently live on national television. thanks to c-span and their teams efforts for broadcasting today's events. we are strengthened nexus media live to help encourage and engage our online support audiences. please be sure to follow at una nca and that una nca sustainable development throughout the afternoon on twitter. after the panel will be taking questions from our audience members over here and also through the online media platform. today's hashtags are -- climate action and most important hashtag congress and sdg. on this afternoon where gathered here to talk about go 13 of united nations sustainable development goals which is climate action. according to the u.n. climate change presents the single biggest threat to development, and its widespread unprecedented affects disproportionately burden of the poorest and the most vulnerable. in april 2016 under the u.s. leadership, member states of united nations signed a historic paris climate agreement. an agreement that set the stage for such an ambitious climate change agenda. however, things have changed. since president trump decided to withdraw from the paris climate agreement on june first, it's imperative for american leaders, leaders such as congressman beyer to reaffirm the leadership role that the united states has to play. the united states must put on the international stage and especially on issues such as climate change. congressman beyer is an old and my role model, he is america's strongest member of congress fighting against global climate change. i first met congressman beyer as a volunteer for his campaign three years ago when he encouraged me to stay involved in not only policy but also politics. then it went on to serve as a camping intern during his reelection campaign. before being elected to virginia's eighth congressional district in 2014, congressman beyer served as a two-term lieutenant-governor of the commonwealth of virginia, the president of virginia state senate and most important ambassador to switzerland and liechtenstein under president obama. before inviting congressman beyer up to deliver his speech let me say after his speech will be followed by conversation between congressman beyer and mr. george ingram. mr. ingram served as a chair emeritus of the u.s. global leadership coalition and his also senior fellow the global economy and civil development out at the brookings institution. we are pleased up congressman beyer today to be the first member of congress to speak about the u.s. role and the barnes of united nations sustainable development goals. congressman beyer will provide a lawmakers perspective on the need for a strong u.s. leadership in the united nations, and most importantly climate action to with that is by great honor published to welcome the vice member of the committee cite scientific knowl, a champion of u.n. sc a and my mentor, congressman beyer. [applause] >> that is now my favorite introduction of my whole life, so thank you. i figured is said, i guess flattery when i carry as long as you don't inhale it. thank you. the one thing that he got right is i may not be the greatest champion, bu when i was runningr office in 2014 and again in 16, the simplest promise i made was that i would be the strongest clearest voice that i could be to combat climate change. sometimes it's not so much a born to be the best as to try your hardest to do that. so thomas, thank you very much to by the way he goes to langley high school in mclean, virginia, which used to be the number one high school in virginia for years and years and years and then decorated thomas jefferson magnet school for science, technology, now it's a numbered high school in virginia. i am also so thrilled he is a young person to be involved in policy and in politics, when young people ask me how they can make a difference, the result, the simplest, most honest answer, just vote, please. in my primary in 2014 there were ten of us on the ballot and the average primary voter was a 62-year-old woman. and i would be of the postal day and not see anybody under the age of 50. so thank you for being a great one model for your generation and i think the generation above you, too. thanks for inviting me. there are more people in this room that are in the rest of the building. you probably have seen, it's completely deserted. i feel spoiled because i am a member of congress the lives closest to the capital. even though i meant old town alexandria, i'm closer than eleanor holmes norton. i am especially humbled that you asked me to talk about the u.n. and climate change. i feel very connected, first to the u.n. family history, my grandmother clara, who was my role model until she died at 98 and a half, was actually in geneva in 1945 5 as part of the american delegation to organize the u.n. she served as our u.s. representative to the ilo from 45-57 when they involuntarily kicked her out of the department of labor. she then worked for usaid for the next 15 years until they kicked her out age 82, but for the women in the room, and i can send it to they kicked her out, she authored something called the percy and imitate u.s. foreign relations act as you went around the world dizzy when a 50 country she noticed usaid money was for train and education was unequally spent almost completely on the men and the boys. so the percy and then it says it has to be spent equally on men and women. and still part of the law and is probably one of the great pieces of our pride. i was born in trieste, the free territory of trieste was was the united nations protectorate from 1945-953 and my dad was there as u.s. army first and second lieutenant keeping the peace. my united nations protectorate doesn't exist anymore. it's amazing to let me serve in u.s. congress. and then the family is from estonia, denmark, germany, belgium, rants, england, scotland, my oldest child was adopted from dublin, ireland. lots and lots of international connections, and feeling very connected to all of the rest of the world. i am a democrat, left to center democrat. in the first term, maybe my proudest moment was being one of only 28 democrats to vote for trade promotion authority for president obama. and was a very strong supporter of tpp, such as pacific, and ttip, the trade investment partnership with europe. mostly even going back to bretton woods was about the time i was born, because if you look at the world today, it is so different from the world of 1950 because of our international efforts, because of the liberalization of trade, because of united nations, because of usaid and aid organizations around the world. there's a great piece in the sunday papers, two days ago which i pulled down, read quickly before, just about complete the number was 137,000 people per day lifted out of poverty since the year 2007. i had dinner with a bunch of board members from some corporation last night and talked about what we are doing on the capitol hill to address poverty. sdg number one, and the chairman of this corporation sitting next to me said, they just need to go work hard, something like fox news perspective on poverty. i said what about those 137,000 people a day that we been lifting out of poverty? was at a matter of 137,000 people a day suddenly people day suddenly decided to work hard? no. the policies, investment, the leadership that we provide that makes all the difference. also one last thought. as thomas midgett i was ambassador to switzerland and liechtenstein. the bilateral ambassador, but there were four ambassadors in switzerland all in geneva, the permanent representative to the u.n., the committee on disarmament, world health organization, the committee on, the wto and the human rights commission. when i got at the first thing i did was read the inspector generals report on my mission in burn which is very unkind to the previous ambassador who was a rich texan, and very unkind to the ambassador, the permanent rep to the u.n. who was a rich texan in geneva. they had just side-by-side at the airport and they said the problem was that you ambassadors hated each other. they were both texas republicans and did it get along and embassies didn't get along either. i had the opportunity to meet betty king who is our u.s. ambassador to united nations the first week, and we hugged and kissed and decide the we're going to be the opposite for the next four years and best friends. and made such an enormous difference to have the u.n. of the bilateral embassy working closely together. i only bring that up because daddy, -- betty, because there was a north carolina senator whose name jumps out of my head. people my age you will remember, halted the confirmation of our ambassador to the u.n. in new york for most of the second clinton term. so betty was number two and wrote the sdgs. she is a principal staff person on the sustainable develop a goal so what to get i feel very connected to all this. then there's climate change. well, when you first get to congress to ask you what committees you want to be on so i said ways and means committee and appropriations, and energy and commerce, and i got my seventh and eighth choices which where the science committee and the natural resources committee. sweeter are the uses of adversely. i love the committees i'm on because they are so incredibly relevant to the topic tonight and what's really important to me. science, technology committee is unfortunate, and i know we're on c-span's i don't want to do ad hominem attacks but it is sort widely known as the anti-science committee. we have a chairman who doesn't believe that climate change is real or that it is man-made, or if it is there's nothing we can do about it. our climate change your extend to be dominated by climate change deniers who prefer to call himself skeptics now. and so we had a lot of stuff about its not real, the measurement of all, the world is going. look, we were taking an ice age back in the 1970s. even if we got rid of all the false appearance that would make any difference, too late. it's a difficult committee to work on because of that. i'm also on the natural resources committee which is different but it once again tends to be dominated by people who don't believe in climate change is real. the existential issue of the committee is the use of public lands, that basically the one perspective, my perspective is that all federal lands should be given back to the states to get as much gas and oil and minerals out they possibly can rather than being preserved for the american people for the long run. and yet what i discovered in switzerland and here again is that we're virtually the only country in the world where the vast majority of the population doesn't understand that climate change is real and is affecting us each and every day. and we have to fight that in every way that we can. so i live in northern virginia. i have the fourth largest defense contractor trawl based in my district. so i was visiting northrop grumman one of the big four recently and in the lobby is a huge poster that shows the city of norfolk, virginia, and it looks at, it's a graph and the graph is storm surges in norfolk, how often the city is submerged. and it goes back from 1933 today. you see the surges are higher every year and more frequent area. what starts off as small little graphs, relatively spaces become very high grass very dense, and if you expect it all the way to 2050 just 33 your snow, norfolk norfolk is flooded every single day of the year. at our climate change during we had two or three weeks ago with generals and ambassadors and professors, and the admiral who read the norfolk naval base, she told us that it is routine now in norfolk, virginia, beach that before you leave work in the morning you can check waves in this paper and rater to see roger open and haven't been flooded because of the climate change and the sea surge and all that. the city of norfolk itself is at 14-inch sea level rise in the last 20 years, i believe is the number. if 14 inches in front, the use maybe 25 but it's an awful lot among the worst. it obviously knows no borders. the big deal is that somehow we have to come together as a world. my wife and i went to cop 15 in denmark in december 2009. we were over and switch on anyway i thought this was really important, let's go see. it was frightening because you're all these countries that are ready to act on climate change and the bigfork brick companies, led by india and china were saying consistently day after day, you got rich by burning so much fossil fuel come by to shipping so much greenhouse gases and i you want us to come back and you're not doing anything. you know leadership at all. for ten days at cop 15 comments went on as the world spun farther and farther away from any kind of constructive action on climate change, on the last two or three days barack obama who was a relatively ten-month president, 11 month flew in and saved it. by putting together essentially a bunch of voluntary goals and sort of snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. but it was very frightening, and the messages that came through loud and clear is if the u.s. doesn't lead, no one else will. that, and if we don't lead and show our seriousness, why should anybody else really take this seriously and move forward? aas a quick aside, i'm very prod of what obama did in the eight years as president, despite virtually zero action by congress. nothing happened in the house. the senate, or the house actually passed a cap-and-trade bill in the first term that went nowhere in the senate, do nothing in the second term. despite that, the u.s. have the greatest improvement in diminished greenhouse gas emissions between 2008-2016 when he left. i'm an automobile dealer. if any of you don't know that and you need a car, using afterwards. we went from 1992-2008 with a cap rate standard of 22 miles per gallon. it was never bumped in clinton or in bush which met every engineering progress made over those 16 years went into bigger, faster, stronger, expeditions and things like that. and then obama came in at the race of from 22 to 36 and all the manufacturers complained bitterly for a couple of weeks and then quickly adapted to 36 miles per gallon. the landowners we sold -- land rovers all went to force field. now they are plan to go to 45 and altima 54 miles per gallon. an enormous difference. he came in a look at the federal governments gratis was the previous gas emissions were fairly federal buildings. and made enormous investments in the infrastructure that throws it off. we were despite no action by congress one of the things i promised to be part of trying to fix when i got your, we gain a long, long way. in switzerland it was, it's just sitting, if you listen to give her say i do want to be in one of the socialist college with a quality-of-life is so bad. please laugh because a quality-of-life in tremendous -- switch live instruments. their carbon footprint is one-third what ours is on a per capita basis and yet they live longer than we do, happier than we do, they are thinner. they have really great lives. they have found a way to do it with one-third the carbon footprint. so we have to have global leadership which is why it was tragic that president trump us talk about pulling us out of the paris agreement. not a surprise. this is a guy who tweeted that climate change was a chinese hoax and is not real, and we have to end the war on call and will bring all the cool jobs back and things are complete fantasies. we had 170 members of congress led by brad snyder out of illinois strongly support a house resolution that called for the u.s. to remain in the agreement. i sent a letter to rex tillerson back in the early spring begging him to use every lever gfs secretary of state to stay in the agreement. because all of our lives, the united states, has been the leader in the economy, insecurity, in fighting terrorism, in improving the environment in so manydifferent ways that the epa, and now and the most important of all, the existential issue of our century, we have given up leadership at a time when we are most needed. we are most absent. tom friedman has written again and again about the economic, the job prospects of adapting to climate change, 30% more workers workers in the solar industry now and in the coalfields. one in every 50 new jobsin the u.s., last year department of labor, the single greatest job category, new category that needed to be fulfilled was wind turbine engineer. if any of you are looking to recommend what do kids need to do, they can kobe wind turbine engineers. and the whole world is going on without us. you see with the trade tpp, transpacific partnership, article yesterday 27 countries are getting together with japan to do what we should have done, and they're going to do it without us. and now this countries are stepping forward to do on climate change and green energy what we should be leaving and doing on. the world is going to go on without us and the states will go on without us. i have been involved almost 44 years ago, stay to quit on electric following teslas three which is terrific. one for article ii weeks ago about vermont energy doing stepping out and saying we're going to do everything we can to make the independent households and the companies of vermont as independent of the grid as we can make them the opposite of us most company doing, recognize and way to move forward. we are taking this exit ramp just when the intense commercial opportunities that adapting to paris would bring to every one of us. we lose our seat at the table. our international commitment to climate change isn't just climate change. there's so many of the things we do with the other countries that within sacrifice. you don't just have to read the presidents transcripts of his conversations with the president of mexico or some primers of australia the other day. but china, india, the european union, russia, iran, pope francis, everybody was part of paris. the only two countries that joined us in rejecting it, syria and nicaragua. i'm not quite sure that's the company that we want to be proud of keeping. and the paris agreement is probably the prime example of seeing how the sustainable development goals one to 17 are coming alive in public policy. sdg 13 what you know that all about climate change, but also sustainable development goal 17 which is committing to partnership in cooperation with the global community in order to solve world problems. so 13 and 17. in some ways abandoning 17 is maybe as important or more important than 13. all the other things will not be able to lead with. david victor, professor university of california san diego, i will quote, said use international critical is essential not just to protecting the environment but also managing immigration, sharing intelligence, slowing the spread of nuclear weapons, avoiding pandemics and a host of other things that americans care about. the rest of the world won't sit idly by as a country that traditionally has been the main supplier of global public goods creates a vacuum in leadership. nature hates a vacuum. climate change, got to be one of the nation's greatest security threats. you want to be optimistic for a minute. we just passed the ndaa, the national defense authorization act just before he got out at the end of june, end of july. very important annual basis, and my friend bill foster, the only phd physicist in the congress was able to add an amendment in committee that said climate change is a national security priority. some bad folks try to take it out on the house floor, and god bless, we had enough republicans along with the democrats to kill the attempt to take it up. it is now part of the national defense authorization act, at least as it goes to the senate. rising sea levels in norfolk i talked about but it's also melting ice and arctic and all the different national security things that come up in the top of the northern hemisphere. mosquito borne diseases, the droughts in surrey, rising temperatures here what we heard from the generals and admirals again and again is climate change will create so many internal security frictions and tensions that we are going to have to respond to. we are now part of the long piece, the last major war was 1945. instead they're been something like 320 civil wars since 1945 that are mostly caused by fight for resources that will be aggravated by climate change. i'm very proud, the states are reacting, very proud of governor mcauliffe, our attorney general markarian who has been, virginia one of the first eight states his deficit even if use is withdrawing from paris, virginia is not. i know over 1000 businesses and investors have said they will go along with it. lots of people are committing to low carbon policies. 400 u.s. cities have committed to cut carbon pollution. i promise you i will be the strongest advocate that it can be for staying in paris, for rejoining paris when the appropriate leadership is back in place. and to be as resolutely optimistic as we can be. i was thinking about and maki dillion the prince wrote there are some diseases that are very difficult to recognize early on but easy to treat. lynn later they're easy to recognize and impossible to treat. that summer we are right on climate change. the scientists, the report leaked today, again clear he points out how dangerous climate change event for the rest of the world. we just have to get u.s. leadership out the rest of the world will come along and follow our lead and edges of the mom pray that that don't follow our lead in pulling out of paris. i would love to take a question. i'm so glad dr. ingram is here to save me from the hard ones and into the really good ones. so thank you very much for inviting me. [applause] .. how do you catch -- being an internationalist than a believer in the u.n. and you explain this to us. it's in your blog. i grow across the hall and my first exposure was a republican senator from illinois who is very progressive member of the senate peered and i followed the amendment and they went to asia. what i saw there was that the women were doing the work in the field. the men were in the villages and coffee shops. the women were unloading the trucks that cement box in the driver was sitting on the curb watching. and that really socialize me to the importance of the amendment, pain extra special attention, bringing women into the development process and basically in many countries 50% of the population of the country is left out of the economic process. >> i am so pleased that you know about it. that is a wonderful thing. there's sort of two different pieces bear. one is the elevation of women and they know that's one of the sustainable development goals and is incredibly important. carol maloney, member of congress or the upper east side of new york in a the second most educated congressional district in the country thanks to all of you. she has the first. we've been working together on congressional resolutions in changing sec rigs to get more women because you find the companies with more women on the board and grow faster, more profitable. more women in leadership. i'm the offered the fair representation, which is among the other impact should increase the number of women in congress by an enormous percentage by moving the multimember districts buried in both parties have a huge incentive to put women -- which should be very helpful. i went to a men's college and the only graduate program was the development economics. and spent all their summers in growing economies in so that very much was that their intellectual background i was raised with. >> i am sure that newspaper report you mentioned is on everybody's mind. for anybody who didn't see it, there is a government report written by 13 government agencies based on thousands of studies, which is according to the report the most solid documentation of the human influence on i may change. there's an issue now as to whether or not the administration has released a. does your committee get access to unfiltered copy of it and what do you do to make sure we see the original report? >> the majority members of my committee may get access to it if they asked for it. i don't think it was routinely shared with us. whether it's democratic letter republican-led is when it's transparent. i think the obama administration did a very good job at transparent day. the fear right now and i hope it's a needless fear, but clearly the people that leaked the report did think so was that a very important initiative like this put together might never see the light of day, which is why it got leaked. thank goodness it is in the public sphere and we can now look at it and take it apart. unfortunately, we see so many people bail from noah, epa because they feel that they are in a position where the administration leadership is going to suppress their viewpoints or move them to a place where they are not relevant. i wish that were not true. climate change, one of the things i've been arguing for years as it should not be a partisan issue, should not be democrats against republicans or liberals or conservatives. and make the best decisions. >> you talked about the need for government leadership and climate change. you also talked about the fact that there's a lot going on at the local level. like yourself, i see what is happening in the community and i took a look at the strategies of the large multinational corporations and i was struck by how many are embedding the strategies. there is one company that has committed to go carbon neutral by 2020. and in the process, $500 million. i look at that. i see with the corporation had done. i see what the mayors in cities are doing. i say to myself, okay. maybe it's not that bad. maybe at the local level for corporations and private citizen, we are going to get 80% or 90% of where we would have been anyway. but that leadership is very important. where do you come out on this? we are going to get by okay the next three and a half years and make progress? >> yes, i think we will continue to make progress in many ways. they're also things are reset back. clearly not only particularly partisan, but looking at the seven since the new president has come in, the major agendas are rolling back regulations on clean air, clean water, labor, lots of things like that. the moving agenda is reversing. that bitterness over the next three and half years. there are many other pieces of our economy and culture society that can take you to move forward. i am a huge proponent of egg carbon tax. i'm not alone. the chairman or ceo of ups last night said that's part of even though we drive those trucks around, we can stand, especially as it goes to helping infrastructure and the like. exxonmobil, bp was for a carbon tax at least with exxonmobil. there are very real faith to do and you get a very different reaction to climate change across the country. people adapt on the kind of cars they buy, the decisions they make about appliances and really important ways. that's not going to happen at a local level. >> i'm not aware of any member of congress getting the lack it on a platform of a carbon tax. >> i was pretty clear in 2014 of how you talk to your constituent i know what you say when you're in north slope, because you told us that. our focus a fairly sophisticated community. not all of your communities are tied to the defense industry, the global economy the way nor focus. what do you say when you're in more conservative neighborhoods and what sort of question push back? >> i was a tight governor for eight years, so i did have this statewide spirit of the tobacco field, coalfields in the shenandoah valley. right now i'm very spoiled. everyone is smarter than i am. i have more members of congressional staff than anybody. more federal employees, contract employees, so i never need to talk down half an inch to the people i'm talking about. it's wonderful because i can point out that he out that they deeply believe the best leaders are the ones who think long-term, not just about the next election, but 10, 20, 50 years down the road. obviously climate change jumps out. also, so many other issues that differently when you think about them over a generation. immigration, for example. who's going to do the work? when you get to someplace, the coal jobs have largely gone away. it's a lot harder to talk about climate change there, but you still have to do it. i know that people like mark warner and tim kaine that have to campaign in the coalfields, they don't pull any punches. they talk about the climate change is real and that we have to find new ways forward. part of it is the obama administration decided so-called war on cole spent more money on new coal technology than any administration before. trying to find ways to help these communities. with how rogers, who is a republican from the coalfields of eastern kentucky and two others, we are the lead others of the reclaim that, which was a matter of taking the fees to clean up old coal mines. it is the jobs issue when you look at the investments in the automobile industry. you look at the fact that in some areas the investment that is going into windows alert is being competitive. the potential for u.s. competitiveness in the world. in the works that the constituents in places where those are happening here for example, if you go to kansas, oklahoma, those members of congress and those political leaders there realize that the wind investment there have created a lot of jobs in a lot of revenue for them. the people in north virginia don't care about those jobs, but they do realize there's a lot going on. these industries are growing really quickly. >> on the spg's, what strikes me is the millennium development goals were basically were basically a set of specific goals designed to get donors to provide more foreign assistance. the spg's are much different. they are universal and apply to all countries and there is very little focus in the spg's on the donor assistance in a lot of focus on generating revenues and domestic resource mobilization and on the role of private sector. to what extent is there or is there not attention and appreciation and awareness that they are supposed to climb to america and in some ways they apply to the american nature in spirit and the fact they really bring the private sector in to help them to achieve these goals. >> so, you've got me stumped. i honestly can say in the 31 months i've been here i've not heard anybody mention state law. not on the foreign affairs committee, so perhaps they do there. i'm not on appropriations, so perhaps it comes up in those conversations. the committee's item onto the general debate on the floor, at never heard either one. >> i think that is telling and i think that is a charge to this audience because it is clear members of congress are not hearing from there can teach you in spirit they are not hearing from advocacy groups about the sustainable development goals. before he turned to the audience to join this conversation, let me say this is the live stream as you know. and there will be questions outside this room. advise this group of policy activists, some of them political act to this comment to, how they could be involved in bringing the role of the tree and tear to, the executive branch and to fellow american. >> so i live in a world that is both policy and political. s. thomas had mentioned early on, i deeply believe the political is typically the ignored piece, which means to the extent you could get an all on a completely nonpartisan basis with your members of congress, states where you live to talk about development goals really makes a difference. most of us spend an amazing amount of time going from meeting to meeting. but with someone comes up and talks to us about giving issue, we get educated. you can't possibly know everything ahead of time. have a wonderful woman is about four-foot 11, four-foot 10 who lives in alexandria, virginia. every time i shared time i share an event she has another thing i have to go do. she usually has a piece of paper with the filled out and i have to go back and figure out why this is wrong or that is wrong. i'm educated because of it. a second piece of that is my staff and i will probably take 12 to 20 meetings a day in the office. armand will schedule me whenever he can. so i end up learning lots and lots about things i didn't otherwise know about. we had a visit yesterday with the people from dialysis clinics talking about how people on end-stage renal disease has several other comorbidity fact is that what can be gained by comment case management. if folks here came and called on everyone of the 535 members of congress one by one to talk about sustainable development goals, they would be a lot smarter. if you had a poll right now, an honest poll of the 535 members have a say how many of you have heard of the sustainable develop it rules and it gives her honestly, i don't want to guess how many would eat, but it could be a pretty small number. a year from now if everyone who visited, it would be a really high percentage. turn off my wife calling me. i recognized the ring. >> if she's watching this, maybe we will take the first question to your life that would go behold. >> where's dinner? before we open, i assume there's a microphone. >> congressman buyer, i work for a company called collaborate in her mission in life -- [inaudible] thank you for you and your family history of service. my question to you is how might we have a private vector work together with members of congress in both the house and senate to change the narrative around climate change from one international compliance to one more job creation and economic opportunity both in terms of sustainable energy and infrastructure in poverty could not. >> your question holds the answer to it. so i am speculating icy from a reasonable position. why is there so much opposition or skepticism about climate change in the united states? most of it is driven by economics. there's a lot more skepticism in wyoming or louisiana where they draw the stuff out of the oil in the gulf. you can say of climate change is real, i'm unemployed. so to the extent we can rebuild and economic base, we could make it easier for people to move away from a correct reading of the science were a correct reading would devastate them. somebody said the other day, the climate skeptics who have everything at stake. you can't just blow them off and they believe the science because they are scared. >> thank you very much. [inaudible] i'm sure you know very well the process. if you can get a 100,000 it would be a process. i don't think you have in america. [inaudible] we launch with the chinese and the library of congress to help local areas of over 70 countries to get involved with the natural heritage. one of your object is used to support sustaining development goals. at the world bank annual meeting, over 90% of the corporations don't know after almost two years what to do with systemic development. also big government last month in new york is rather discouraging. i do not think that the approach approach -- the issue is bringing the personnel local level, inform and educate people to their heritage in amanner. america is still part and is needed more than ever. when i started in the year 2000, i did not find confident anywhere with the institution. the knowledge is here. innovation isn't america. it is up to you. they will educate them and you will see governments that are local and personalized -- [inaudible] thank you. by california in places like that. what are the adjusted factoids is more than half of the referenda have been held in switzerland. >> my name is chuck woolery, former chair of the world finance organization and i want to talk about the advocacy capacity of the u.s. i started my work mobile issues are goals in the 1980s. i have to say that your world and say this is more powerful then your vote. question the assertion that climate change is the greatest national security threat to development in the organization split 100 u.s. nonprofit groups working together on different issues was that each competed on different campaigns are different issues and to the degree it competed was the degree they do not work together. if there is a nuclear event, climate change is not going to be a problem. if there is a pandemic, climate change is not going to be a problem. what i would like to do is the comprehensive approach that it takes to address all of the various issues that we face. but unless we do it in a comprehensive way in the context of our own national security, we're going to fail with the millennium development goals in the world hunger bowls in the 1980s. i want to challenge that is that we do need to have a comprehensive approach, particularly in the idea of human rights. protecting human rights as a justice issue. that is really the issue. until we do that, all of these other separate issues are going to fail is my prediction. >> a very valuable perspectives. i came to politics worried about the threat of nuclear war back when there was 10,000 warheads and vice versa. is reduced by a factor of 85%, but they are still very real. a couple of nuclear weapons changes your perspective on everything. >> thank you, congressman. i am a staffer for steny hoyer as well as -- i have too many jobs right now. i appreciate your and to because i'm president. and there are fish going through the campus. it's very weird. my question this morning, nikki haley on today show was supporting the president stands on pulling out of the 21 agreement in the development there would benefit u.s. businesses. but she said that just because we're pulling out of the agreement does not mean we don't believe in climate change. i was wondering if you had an opinion on whether or not we can still develop sustainably in the way that it goes with the agreements involve and the rest of the countries as we essentially would well keeping the american people business interests in mind. >> yes or no. it's a complicated question with a complicated answer. as we said, we can continue to move forward, but we will not be moving forward in the global leadership role that we would have if we stayed in paris. as a businessperson, i think the metric about whether we stay in something like the paris agreement, whether it's good for business is not the right metric to be using. there's a lot of other ways they will adapt, can survive. my favorite business book is to move the cheese because it's different every year no matter what business you are in. >> i haven't even read it. >> the answer is yes and no. it will certainly be a lot better. i've got a better. i've got a master healy says climate change is real and we have to adapt. people of the trump administration do have that perspective this is something to deal with gives me greater hope, rather than administrator pruitt or the president. the people on the hope side. >> my name is william pembroke. i'm a student at williams college and admitted turn at the office. i just wanted to ask you, what role do you think we as students can play in helping to encourage environmentally responsible environment both domestically and abroad because people dismiss our voices and i was wondering how you think we can amplify our voices and yours in finding a solution to the problems we face. >> you guys are doing a great job already. we were talking before we broke about how the millennialist and younger are so much more understanding and committed to these issues that as you grow older and take over, we move off the past year. we are going to be in a much betterposition. i never have any statistical evidence to back it up. i knew they didn't believe climate change is really need to adapt to it right away, something like that as a personal threat to them and their future. it is folks more like my age for whom i may change even part of the lexicon. by the way, as the wonderful people mentioned here, your advocacy whether you work in a non-prophet or the campaign bond profited anything in between. all of that makes a difference. i almost never quote charles krauthammer, but he's written essays about how despite her president's erratic leadership, a lot of institutions in our society are pushing back trying to keep the car on the road. >> i think we have a few of my esteemed questions from twitter. >> what is twitter? [laughter] >> afternoon. my name is michelle thompson. i work with the economic development council and also a member of the una nca. so here's a question that we thought i'd twitter not too long ago. without presidential leadership, how can congress, civil society and so forth best advance the agenda in the u.s.? >> we had the same question asked a lot of different ways. congress is a little difficult right now in the sense that the republicans control the house, senate and the white house. so in the interest, i think we should go to republican leaders in the house and senate. edwards sues the republican chair of the foreign service committee, to people like lindsey graham on the senate side and ask them to be champions for the spg's. we can certainly introduce a lot of resolution and build on the democratic side. but that the republican leadership, they would just disappear. they are five minute comment and thought. civil society we talked about the many different things you can do. i forget what the number of environmental ngos in the country is, but it's in the tens of thousands that can lift us up. by the way, going back half an hour, educated members of congress as to what the goals are is a great first step. and if not, they have educated the numbers. >> here is a one week i for one of our viewers. it is imperative for government to meet. .. at what rate, the power of refugee camps within the us government and our legislators do now to partner on goal 13 targets, continue to lead the world in humanitarian response, despite trump's decision to ban the paris group? >> a good piece of that would come from the executive branch, usaid, we are lucky for those partnerships, things like they did with the jordanian government. the simplest thing we could do at the federal level would be to raise our commitment to the money we have invested, i should still believe the largest commitment in the world but as a percentage of gdp we are in the middle. in europe, 2% of gdp was the goal for international development, 2/10 of 1%. we are always -- i don't know what the us is but nowhere near. that would be a simple step forward. the interesting thing is the president's ginny budget, things like eliminate the national endowment for the arts and humanities and public broadcasting, none of that is coming real. the appropriators, democrat and republicans in congress, and the budget he sent down, that we are in right now, cut nih by x billion dollars. the appropriators, democrat or republican bumped up $6 billion instead. stands >> thank you. >> we have time for a few more questions. >> i am a carbon neutrality fellow at the university of california. i have a local advocate lens. this is not intended to be anti-paris at all but has the notion been considered that because the contributions to paris are voluntary that us pulling out and causing international outrage in a wide range of fears be considered a positive for climate action? >> maybe. there are studies that show more americans learned about paris because we pulled out and if we had stayed in. perhaps. there is something to be gained by that. more education is always better, the more people know. >> i didn't know there were carbon neutrality fellows. >> i am bill greer, retired service officer. and total destruction of the department of state and foreign service. >> no, but there's a lot congress won't be able to do. clearly the trump recommendation, skinny budget for the 31 or 28% cut back since the state department/usaid budget, they will be cut somewhat but not nearly that much, maybe not at all. one thing i perceive, i'm not on the appropriations committee, the appropriators of both parties are intensely protective and committed to programs they have been working with for decades and believe in them and know about programs in great depth. what we can't change is what secretary of state tillerson is doing, not filling positions, essentially through attrition. i met with one of my officers last night who just came back from overseas, little by little what you are finding but embassy by embassies through attrition, they are hollowing them out, we had a notion that they would take the commitment to democracy, justice out of the state department commission, back to your comments about human rights is the core of everything, you strip away, that was a great contribution, jimmy carter made good things and bad things but at the top is this commitment of the us to lead on human rights. >> it is bad because we don't have leadership committed to diplomacy, at the centerpiece of american leadership. budget implications won't be as bad. >> your constituents. i am very pleased to see this young man here though he is from an elite high school. the thing is una has had a great program and has been trying to get children involved in understanding what the un does. it is elite high schools, most children tried to do because i belong to the sorority i worked with. we tried to go to the inner-city schools where children were not aware and having worked with those people for a long time, children know practically nothing about the united nations. of the places we have to begin is to educate our young, college students are working on subjects like this but i have spoken to people in my church, the un is just talk, yak yak yak. these are people you think would be much more involved but i think we have to do big education programs in the united states. maybe not through present education secretary, but we should do a great job to educate children who are young about what the united nations does. >> the united nations and civic education in general. defense it is a public high school. >> i go to langley high school. talked a lot in your speech about how the cycle of one administration -- the next administration, what do you think the best way is a congressman is to end the cycle -- legislation against climate change. >> this perspective is for democrats to take back the house and senate, and 2018, or in 2020. what ruth bader ginsburg said recently, the symbol of america shouldn't be the eagle, it should be the pendulum. this gentleman talked about his time in geneva, but the one i treasure most is the commitment to shared power, with ks and thes, they have -- the only country in the world that doesn't have a head of state is a 7 person federal counsel and there were five political parties from the right, people's party, to the left, social democrats, now everything is done by consensus. i can't personally square this anecdote but i heard when paul ryan was speaker neither he nor nancy pelosi had ever had a 1-on-1 conversation in all the years they served together. what you have is absence of shared power. i'm in charge, therefore straight partyline vote, one problem with the affordable care act which i'm committed to, not a single republican voted for it. anything culturally to move to an idea of shared power we will be better off. the fair representation act getting away from a single-member district, if you get bored, it changes the way to elect members of congress, instead of running for extremes in the primaries to the center of the general election. and working across party lines. >> i lived part of the time in your district and the other half in colorado. i want to ask you about a balancing act. our budget, the other is sustainable development. how do you balance the two of those. >> we never talk about that up here. most of the tea party folks elected in 2010, two centerpieces of their argument was we hated obamacare and they were desperately worried about this. that was something to worry about and yet the budget house republicans presented, i forget how many trillion they added to the debt in the next we 10 years and wasn't any better. without doing a whole premiere on the federal budget, it wasn't what we spend on development. 70%, medicare, medicaid, social security, 70% will be 100% in our lifetimes. it was 2032. and the other 15% was everything else. and the state department and epa, education, energy, on and on, difficult to balance the budget, doesn't make enough difference. and around the entitlement, medicare and medicaid. that doesn't conflict to 0.7 in terms of commitment. >> it would be a lot easier to do it. >> a different political question, is it easier to have the idea that people come forward, a major step forward, everyone was afraid to vote for it, the short-term political implications. >> i am from -- talking about climate action, waste is a non-decreasing issue. i am concerned about plastic we currently use. and to tackle the threat of climate change we have to change our lifecycle, how can we have a sample like plastic target something like that. >> first thing is look at the california example. california band plastic bags. there have been congressional push backs prohibiting other states from doing the same thing. looking where you can do it with state laws or local regulations and congressional laws and when there are ways to move efficiency forward, we should do it. one of my favorite examples is steve chu, nobel prize-winning secretary of energy, the top 15, talked about desktop modems and this is 2009 and they all through the key. i don't remember the exact -- it was equivalent to one year to move to make up the number. it was enough to power and automobile fleet for a year in the united states and over the years you have seen a huge change in desktop modems, even the appearance of desktop modems as part of that so anywhere we look for big or small savings we should. and interesting piece, lindsey graham had written a couple years ago in the fight over the carbon tax that said -- >> watch the rest of this event at c-span.org. we will take you like to the national press club where president lapse of the largest farm and ranch associations are coming together to talk about