transcript of john "atlanticist" kerry's remarks in india

the guy is one major creep.

Remarks on the U.S.-India Strategic Partnership
Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
New Delhi, India

June 23, 2013
 
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AMBASSADOR POWELL: (In Hindi) Good evening. A very big thank you to all of you for joining us tonight for this very special occasion. It's my pleasure to welcome Secretary
Kerry back to India, and to recognize his 28 years of service as a
senator, in which he played a very important role in promoting our
U.S.-India bilateral relationship, including heading up a Congressional
trade mission at the time our economic relations were starting to bloom, as well as an important voice both here in India and in the United
States on behalf of the Civil Nuclear Agreement.
 
It is now my pleasure to welcome Secretary of State John F. Kerry. Thank you, sir. (Applause.)
 
SECRETARY KERRY: Good evening, everybody. I apologize for being a moment late. (In Hindi) And I'm happy to be here with everybody. Thank you. Ambassador Powell,
thank you very much for a generous introduction. And most importantly,
thank you for your leadership of our mission here, and for your
commitment to strengthening the relationship between our two great
nations.
 
It is a pleasure for me to be back. The Ambassador mentioned my
previous trips here. It's a great pleasure for me to be back here in
Delhi, and to be surrounded by the special energy of this city, and to
be reintroduced to the great architecture, the natural beauty, and to
see familiar places and friends. I was just able to meet with my friend, Dr. Pachauri, Nobel Laureate, and we thank him for his extraordinary
work. And thank you all for a warm welcome here.
 
On behalf of the United States, let me begin by expressing my
condolences. I was reading the newspapers as we were coming in here, and I express my condolences for the tragedy that saddens us all, the
heartbreaking loss of lives and of homes, the extraordinary act of these floods, of the deluge that stormed through the very beautiful Himalayan foothills in the state of Uttarakhand. And I want you all to know that
our thoughts and prayers are very much with the families that are
mourning and especially to those who still also have people missing. And the United States, through USAID, has provided an initial $150,000, not the hugest sum in the world, but it is a beginning in terms of help,
and we will continue to provide help. And NGOs are helping families in
remote areas that are affected by this disaster. And I promise you we
stand ready to provide whatever additional assistance we can, or that
your government decides that it needs.
 
Perhaps in some ways, it struck me reading the reports, that perhaps
Mother Nature, in her own way, is telling us to heed some warnings, yet
again. If you look at the United States, we see massive floods and fires and tornadoes. It's a different time, and we'll talk a little bit about that later.
 
Throughout time, poets, philosophers, and travelers of all types have come through here, and they have all have marveled at the diversity of
your land, of your languages, your people and their talents. And when
the great American writer Mark Twain visited here at the end of the 19th century, he called India the mother of history, the grandmother of
legend, and the great-grandmother of tradition. But I think you and I
know that the real magic of India lies as much in the promising future,
in the excitement about the future, as it does in any rich heritage.
 
I think the magic is found in the sense that I have every time I have returned to India. Every time I come here, I feel like I'm setting foot in a different country, certainly different from the one I was in
before. Today's India is very different from the one I last visited five years ago, and that was different than that I came to right in the
aftermath of the 26/11 attack when I went to Mumbai. That was an India
that was vastly different than the India of 10 years ago, and far
different from the one that I saw that Nancy Powell referred to a moment ago, when I came here to Delhi and Mumbai and Bangalore nearly 20 years ago on what I believe was the United States Senate's first
Congressional formal trade delegation. And I came here in the early
1990s with a group of government leaders and Indian American businessmen very shortly after then-Finance Minister Singh set in motion historic
economic reforms that would again change the trajectory of this dynamic
country.
And it was about that time, I think, that India began to look very
differently at its own place and its own evaluation of its future. And
it began to gain a prominence in South Asia and the Asia-Pacific region
and the world. And that was when it began to adopt this notion of Look
East, a Look East policy that would reshape the lens through which all
of you would look at your own neighborhood.
 
Today, my friends, I believe that just as we are living in a changing world, so we cannot, and we must not, forget that we are living on,
quite literally, a changing planet. To respond in a way that does
justice to science and to facts, what we need actually is a policy that
looks forward. To build on our common values and common interests and to seize the common possibilities that lie ahead of us, to do justice to
our responsibility for history, for life itself, the world's largest
democracy and the world's oldest democracy must do more together,
uniting not as a threat to anyone, not as a counterweight to some region or to other countries, but unite as partners building a strong, smart
future in a critical age.
 
Now, one of India and America's strongest shared traditions is our
love and our skill, our affection, for innovation. Indian Americans make up just one percent of our population in the United States, but they
create eight percent of all the technology and engineering start-ups.
Our two countries share a common DNA that compels us to look towards the horizon and think about the next generation. And if we're going to
fulfill our responsibility to those who follow us, which is, I think, a
fundamental moral responsibility for everybody, then we have to tap into that tradition of ingenuity and initiative. And we have to work now,
quickly, urgently, to write a history that is worthy of the future. It's in our power. The question is, will we exercise it?
 
In no uncertain terms, that is why the partnership between India and
the United States is in fact more important than ever. And I don't just
mean how our governments work together. That's not what I'm saying. I
mean how we, all of us, harness the energy of our entrepreneurs, our
scientists, our students, our citizens, and we join together to build
our nations, and at the same time meet the great challenges of our time. As the Hindi proverb asks, "Ek aur ek gyarah hote hei." Did I get that right? (Applause.) "One and one make 11," just for my friends over here. (Laughter.)
 
I am convinced that together, we are uniquely positioned and uniquely equipped to take on the toughest challenges of our time, challenges
that regard opportunity, security, and don't cringe when I say this, but it's real: even survival. As we look forward to the dimensions that
will actually define our relationship, it's a relationship that
President Obama has rightly said will define the next century. Those
three challenges that I just talked about actually each present a
question: What shape will the future of our economies take? What shape
will the future of our security take? And in what condition will we
leave the health of the fragile planet that we share?
 
The health of our planet, let me deal with that first, because the
irreversible climate change that is speeding toward us, crying out for a global solution, is really the place to begin this conversation this
evening. I have raised this concern in my travels as Secretary of State
in every stop I have made, in the far reaches of the Arctic Circle, in
sub-Sahara Africa, in Beijing, in Tokyo. For years, as Patch, as we call him fondly, Dr. Pachauri knows, I have been working on this in the
United States, with others, where for over 20 years we all know we
haven't been able to do all that we want to do, for a number of
different reasons. As you know, and as he said so eloquently so many
times, President Obama is absolutely committed to ambitious change in
order to meet this challenge, to work with our partners around the
world, to help the most vulnerable, and to move toward a global compact, as he said, and as he said last week in Berlin, before it is too late.
 
From the hearings that I took part in with Al Gore back in 1987, the
first hearings ever in the United States Senate on the subject of
climate change, through the Rio Earth Summit that I attended, through
Copenhagen, Kyoto, and many debates in between, I have watched in dismay while responsible people act irresponsibly, ignoring science and fact.
This is an issue that is personal to the many people who've worked on
it, like Dr. Pachauri, people who have invested time and reputation in
order to try to get ahead of the curve.
 
I know that India is well aware of the grave threat that this global
crisis poses. Yours is already one of the most severely affected
nations. And unfortunately, the worst consequences of the climate crisis will confront people who are the least able to be able to cope with
them. And I emphasize the imperative for us is to act forcefully and
cooperatively on climate change, not because it's about ideology, but
because it is about science. And here in India, the home of so much of
the history of science, we must recognize that today the science of
climate change is screaming at us for action.
 
Just last month, the concentration of carbon dioxide in our
atmosphere passed a significant and frightening threshold, 400 parts of
greenhouse gases per million, a level that has never before been
experienced by man in terms of carbon. We are the first human beings
ever to live in these conditions. And guess what? We got there faster
than any scientist predicted that we would.
 
Just last week, the World Bank reported that within the next
generation that same warming atmosphere could actually lead to
widespread water and food shortages, historic heat waves, prolonged
droughts, more intense flooding. And India, I regret to tell you, is a
candidate, a prime target, for all four. India helps feed the world,
producing much of its wheat. But extreme heat could actually cut in half yields of the most productive areas, wreaking havoc on global food
prices.
 
The bottom line is, my friends, we don't have time to waste. We have
an urgent need to connect the dots here. When the desert is creeping
into East Africa, and ever more scarce resources push farmers and
herders into deadly conflict, where people are already, in parts of the
world, fighting over water, then this is a matter of shared security for all of us. When we face major threats from extreme weather events of
the kind that were predicted by climate science, including in my
country, we all have to act. When the Himalayan glaciers are receding,
threatening the very supply of water to almost a billion people, we all
need to do better.
 
Now, I'll say right up front I do understand, and I fully sympathize
with the notion that India's paramount commitment to development and
eradicating poverty is essential. I understand that. And nothing that I
advocate, nothing that we advocate, those of us who believe we can
respond to this challenge, would shortchange that one iota. But we have
to recognize that a collective failure to meet our collective climate
challenge would inhibit all countries' dreams of growth and development. All countries have a different and unique history and national
circumstance. And heading off this crisis is going to depend on working
together, and on each of us doing our part.
 
Here's the good news. And there is good news. The good news is that
if we do this right, it's not going to hurt our economies; it actually
grows them. It won't deny our children opportunity; it will actually
create new ones. The new energy market can be the biggest market ever
seen on earth. It's a $6 trillion market with 4 billion users. And its
fastest growing segment by far is clean energy. Compare that, for a
moment. In the 1990s, when a lot of people grew a lot of wealth, that
came from a $1 trillion market with only 1 billion users, and that was
the high-tech computer revolution. This market is six times bigger and
hundred thousand times more important.
 
Today, the population of India is soaring, and electricity demand is
rising along with that increasing population. But the number of Indians
who lack access to electricity is roughly the same as the entire
population of the United States. Combating climate change and reducing
energy poverty are actually two interconnected challenges that cannot be separated. Access to energy is the essential ingredient of economic
development. You can't create jobs in the dark.
 
So this is not just about air and water and weather. This is about
jobs. It's about economy. It's about growth. And as we look forward,
India and the United States, with our traditions of innovation and our
tradition of technology creation, we are particularly well-positioned
together to ready ourselves and roll up our sleeves and take advantage
of this opportunity. And if anyone can succeed at this, it is us. Why?
Because the entrepreneurial spirit of India, just like that of the
United States, is one that thrives on new opportunities. Indian
immigrants to America worked and saved over a lifetime in order to climb up the economic ladder, not so their children could just start all over again, but so they could stand on a platform of opportunity.
Staring us in the face today is one of the greatest economic
opportunities of all time. It's called clean energy. And I emphasize the dynamic, forward-looking India of today is not going to find its energy mix in the 19th century or the 20th century solutions. It won't find it in the coal mines. India's destiny requires finding a formula in the 21st century that will power it into the 22nd. I believe that, working together, India and the United States can make
this leap, and it would be to our benefit and to the whole world's.
 
We're already taking new, cooperative steps together all the time. I
want to thank India for hosting the Clean Energy Ministerial here in
Delhi – in New Delhi in April. And with Energy Secretary Moniz, who
joins me here for this dialogue we will have in the next day and a half, we are committed to working with all nations towards a clean-energy
economy. The clean energy partnership that President Obama and Prime
Minister Singh launched in 2009 doesn't just speak to the strength of
our bilateral relationship. It's actually proof positive that among our
businesses and our universities and NGOs, we actually can mobilize
billions in public and private resources to deploy energy that lights
streets and cities and indeed lights the way towards the future.
 
This week USAID – and our head of USAID Raj Shah is here for this
dialogue – they're launching a loan guarantee program to support a
private equity firm in Mumbai that will help mobilize at least $100
million in private sector financing for clean energy in India. We're
also announcing a new effort to significantly enhance the efficiency of
India's air conditioners, which is a rapidly growing source of
greenhouse gases.
 
Together, though, I'll tell you, no question

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sent from samsung galaxy note, so please excuse brevity