ウィスパリング同時通訳研究会コミュのObama speaks at COP26 climate talks

Barack Obama: (00:28)
Thank you so much. Thank you. Hello, Glasgow.
(00:41)
Thank you very much. Thank you. Please. Well, it is wonderful to be back in the UK. It is, let’s face it, wonderful to be traveling anywhere these days. Thank you, Sheila, for that outstanding introduction and for all the work that you are doing in a part of the world that is feeling the effects of climate change right now. Thank you for making what sometimes can seem a bunch of abstract numbers painfully immediately real so we’re very grateful for her.
(01:19)
I am a private citizen now so trips like this feel a little bit different than they used to. I don’t get invited to the big group photo. Traffic is a thing again. Music doesn’t play when I walk into the room. On the positive side, I can give a speech like this without wearing a tie and not create a scandal back home. I hope. But even though I’m not required to attend summits like this anymore, old habits die hard. And when the issue at hand is the health of our planet and the world our children and our grandchildren will inherit, then you will have a hard time keeping me away. That’s why I’m here today to talk about what’s happened in the six years since I spoke to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris and to talk about the steps we need to take if we want to keep doing big things. Because when it comes to climate, time really is running out.
(02:40)
You heard the same message from world leaders last week, and now that they’ve left, here’s what we can report. Meaningful progress has been made since Paris. And the agreements made here in Glasgow, thanks to so many of you, including my friend John Kerry here, who is tireless and his team. Thanks to your efforts here in Glasgow, we see the promise of further progress.
(03:23)
What is also true is that collectively and individually we are still falling short. We have not done nearly enough to address this crisis. We are going to have to do more. Whether that happens or not to a large degree is going to depend on you. Not just those of you in this room, but anybody who’s watching or reading a transcript of what I say here today. That was true six years ago as well.
(04:03)
And on Paris, our goal was to turn progress into an enduring framework that would give the world confidence in a low carbon future, an agreement where countries would update their emissions targets on a regular basis, an agreement that would help developing nations get the resources they need to skip the dirty phase of development and help those nations that are most vulnerable to climate change get the resources they need to adapt, an agreement that would give businesses and investors the certainty that the global economy is on firm path towards a clean and sustainable future.
(04:46)
In other words, our hope was to create an agreement they gave our planet a fighting chance. That was our ambition. By some measures, the agreement has been a success. For the first time leaders of nearly 200 nations, large and small, developed and developing, made a commitment to work together to confront a threat to the people of all nations. That seemed proof that for all the divisions in our world when a crisis threatens all of us, we can come together to address it.
(05:27)
At the time, we also believed that if enough national governments showed they were serious about climate, then other institutions, particularly in the private sector, would start raising their sights as well. Over the last six years, that is what’s happened. Today more than one-fifth of the world’s largest companies have set net zero emissions targets. Not just because it’s the right thing to do for the environment, but in many cases because it makes sense for their bottom line. More than 700 cities in more than 50 countries have pledged to cut their emissions in half by the end of the decade and reach net zero by 2050. About a third of the global banking sector has agreed to align their work with the Paris Agreement.
(06:26)
That’s meaningful. Now, back in the United States of course, some of our progress stalled when my successor decided to unilaterally pull out of the Paris Agreement in his first year in office. I wasn’t real happy about that. And yet the determination of our state and local governments, along with the regulations and investment that my administration had already put in place, allowed our country to keep moving forward despite hostility from the White House. The $90 billion investment that we made in 2009 helped to jumpstart the clean energy industry in the United States and markets adapted and so did consumers. Even when the Trump administration rolled back emission requirements for automakers, along with regulatory changes and efficiency standards, many businesses chose to stay the course. They kept reducing emissions. They continued the transition to electric vehicles and energy-saving appliances. The ball had been rolling and it didn’t stop.
(07:41)
Meanwhile, science and technology continue to advance. Today the price of solar and wind energy has dropped to the point where in some places clean energy is cheaper than fossil fuels. Around the world, scientists and entrepreneurs are integrating abundant renewable energy, more powerful batteries, breakthroughs in fields like synthetic biology to invent a better future that is healthier and more affordable. That’s all good news for the planet and it is also good news for people looking for a job.
(08:21)
In the US alone, more than 3 million people now work in clean energy related jobs. That is more than the number of people currently employed by the entire fossil fuel industry. Despite four years of active hostility toward climate science coming from the very top of our federal government, the American people managed to still meet our original commitment under the Paris Agreement. Not only that, but the rest of the world stayed in the deal. Now with President Biden and his administration rejoining the agreement, the US government is once again engaged and prepared to take a leadership role. Everybody who’s been watching John Kerry run around here knows that we take that role seriously.
(09:19)
As the world’s second largest emitter of greenhouse gases, the US has to lead. We have enormous responsibilities and obviously we still have a lot of work to do. But last week, Congress passed President Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure bill that will, among other things, create jobs manufacturing solar panels and wind turbines and batteries and electric vehicles and build out the first ever national network of charging stations so families can travel across the US in electric vehicles. I’m confident that a version of President Biden’s Build Back Better bill will pass through Congress in the coming next few weeks. Here’s what it will mean when that bill does pass. That legislation will devote over half a trillion dollars to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by over a billion metric tons by the end of the decade, at least 10 times more than any legislation previously passed by Congress. Along the way, it will reduce consumer energy costs. It will invest in a clean energy economy. It will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, and it will set the United States on course to meet its new climate targets, achieving a 50 to 52% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions below 2005 levels by 2030. The US is back, and in moving more boldly, the US is not alone.
(11:07)
Earlier this year, the UK government, our hosts, announced they plan to cut emissions by almost 80% by 2035. This summer, the European Union put themselves on a path to carbon neutrality by 2050. Korea passed a Carbon Neutrality Act in September that requires the government to cut greenhouse gas emissions 35% or more by 2030. The Canadian government has laid out a path to carbon neutrality by 2050 with milestones to hit along the way. Paris showed the world that progress is possible, created a framework, important work was done there, and important work has been done here. That is the good news.
(12:04)
Now for the bad news. We are nowhere near where we need to be yet. For starters, despite the progress that Paris represented, most countries have failed to meet the action plans that they set six years ago. The consequences of not moving fast enough are becoming more apparent all the time. Last month, a study found that 85% of the global population has experienced weather events that were more severe because of climate change, stronger storms, longer heat waves, more intense flooding, crippling droughts. Parts of the world are becoming more dangerous to live in, triggering new migration patterns and worsening conflict around the globe. It’s one of the reasons why the US Pentagon and other agencies have said that climate change poses a national security threat for the US and for everyone else. But not only did we not hit all of the targets that were pledged in Paris, but remember Paris was always supposed to be a beginning, not an endpoint of our joint effort to control climate change. Back in 2015, we knew that even if the commitments made as a part of the Paris Agreement were fully met, we would still fall short of our goal of keeping global temperature increases below 1.5 degrees Celsius. And that’s why Paris was designed to be a framework for countries to constantly ratchet up their ambitions as they got more resources and as technology reduced the cost of transitioning to a clean energy economy.
(13:57)
So we come now here to Glasgow. And just was as true with the Paris Agreement, there is good news and bad news about what has happened here this past week. The good news, in large part, because of the efforts of the people in this room, the hours of work that you spent with weak coffee and bad food, feeling sleepy. Because of you, countries around the world are recognizing this is a decisive decade to avoid a climate disaster and are setting some really important goals for 2030.
(14:46)
More than a hundred countries this past week have committed to reduce methane emissions by 30% by 2030. As all of you know, curbing methane emissions is currently the single fastest and most effective way to limit warming. More than 100 countries have also promised to stop and reverse deforestation by the end of 2030. Businesses from around the world, name brands, some of the biggest businesses on this planet have agreed to help create a market for the technologies we need to transition to clean energy. Here in Glasgow, nations have also committed to help poorer countries move away from fossil fuels and deal with the effects of climate change.
(15:38)
President Biden announced that the US will be quadrupling its annual climate finance pledge over the next few years, to $11 billion, including $3 billion dedicated to helping vulnerable countries adapt to the impacts of climate change and the US along with 20 other countries agreed to stop publicly financing international fossil fuel development with limited exceptions.
(16:07)
So these are significant accomplishments. They are hard won commitments. You should be proud of yourselves, and we need to celebrate those commitments. Even as we demand that the signatories to these commitments actually follow through. We have to track it. They’re not self executing. They’re going to require effort, but let’s assume that we actually deliver. That’s significant. But once again, we also have to acknowledge that this progress is partial. Most nations have failed to be as ambitious as they need to be. The escalation, the ratcheting up of ambition that we anticipated in Paris six years ago has not been uniformly realized. I have to confess. It was particularly discouraging to see the leaders of two of the world’s largest emitters, China and Russia, declined to even attend the proceedings. And their national plans so far reflect what appears to be a dangerous lack of urgency, a willingness to maintain the status quo on the part of those governments. And that’s a shame. We need advanced economies like the US and Europe leading on this issue, but you know the facts, we also need China and India leading on this issue. We need Russia leading on this issue just as we need Indonesia, South Africa, and Brazil leading on this issue. We can’t afford anybody on the sidelines.
(17:55)
I recognize we’re living in a moment when international cooperation has waned. A moment of greater geopolitical tension and stress in part because of the pandemic, in part because of the rise of nationalism and tribal impulses around the world. And yes, in part, because of a lack of leadership on America’s part for four years on a host of multilateral issues. I understand that it’s harder to get international cooperation when there are more global tensions, but there is one thing that should transcend our day to day politics and normal geopolitics. And that is climate change.
(18:45)
It’s not just that we can’t afford to go backward. We can’t afford to stay where we are. The world has to step up and it has to step up now. So how is that going to happen? How do we close the gap between what’s necessary for our survival and what seems politically possible right now? I confess I don’t have all the answers, as I’m sure is true for all of you out there. Those of you who are steeped in this work, who are far more expert than me. There are times where I feel discouraged. There are times where the future see somewhat bleak. There are times where I am doubtful that humanity can get its act together before it’s too late and images of dystopia start creeping into my dreams. And yet whenever I feel such despondency, I remind myself that cynicism is the recourse of cowards. We can’t afford hopelessness. Instead, we are going to have to muster the will and the passion and the activism of citizens, pushing governments, companies, and everyone else to meet this challenge. That’s what allowed the US to do its part over the last few years to meet our climate goals. Even when we didn’t have much leadership on it. It wasn’t just elected officials or CEOs doing the right thing. It was ordinary Americans making their voices heard, making it clear we need to solve this problem, regardless of the obstacles. People who organized and educated others in their communities, people who put pressure on businesses and governments to do better. People who turn their passion into votes.
https://ameblo.jp/shinobinoshu/entry-12709309703.html