Transcripts For CSPAN Economic Costs Of Climate Change 20140927

Coming up, next on cspan treasury secretary jack lew talking about the economic effects of Climate Change followed by president obamas recent visit to the u. N. Where he addressed the General Assembly and led a Security Council meeting on foreign terrorist fighters. Good afternoon. On behalf of the hamilton project thank you for joining us this afternoon for a public discussion of the Economic Costs of Climate Change. It is our privilege today to host u. S. Treasury secretary jacob lew who will give remarks on Climate Change and followed by a roundtable discussion between secretary lew and former treasury robert l suching bin and professor of economics at chicago Michael Green stone, before i turn it over to secretary ruben i would like to give a brief introduction to the project, and this is at the brook ings institution is named after Alexander Hamilton the first secretary who laid the foundation for the modern American Economy so its fitting we welcome two u. S. Treasury second secretaries. This is to prevent evidencebased policies to work to secure Economic Growth, shared prosperity and economic security. Our goal is to foster innovative, nonpartisan ideas and ultimately to introduce new and effective policy options into the national conversation. We at the project aquarius knowledge that a defining history is succeeding generations of americans have enjoyed standards of living higher than the generations that came before. Looking around us today we see that america is failing to make critical investments in areas that would contribute to our nations Economic Growth and security. Within this vision we recognize Climate Change as posing real and present challenges to our nation and indeed our globe economic future. Climate change is fundamentally about risks to safety and academy and we seed serious policy conversations about what actions to take to address those risks. Though is what we are focused on here this afternoon. Again, thank you for joining us. I now invite secretary ruben to introduce our futured guest. [applause] thank you, melissa and let me apologize for starting a little bit late. I had to fly from laguardia and if there is a doubt in the mind of the desperate need for infrastructure take that flight and separate question on how to pay for it but that is aside for a moment. The subject of the topic is Climate Change and two comments and then ask jack and lew and Michael Green stone to join me. One is i have gotten pretty involved in this and the reason ive gotten pretty involved are twofold, one, as i learn more about it i began to realize you not only have the most likely scenarios which are pretty serious and in many cases severe over time but you also have the real possibility unfortunately and maybe a fairly high probability that what ultimately happens are consequences that are vast multiples of the base case and effects instead of just being i shouldnt say of just being severe but in addition to being severe in the long run become catting catastrophic and we can expand on that in your conversation. Secondly, i said to a friend of mine the other day who is a wellknown business man that i developed this intense concern about this and he said well you know there are a lot of pressing issues and i think could are right but we can deal with this decades down the road and i said no and the reason no and many of you may know this a k rate of Greenhouse Gasses in the atmosphere is hundreds of years and what we do today is going to affect us for hundreds of years. Greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere are cumulative, they are irreversible and as a consequence this is an issue that cannot wait and has to be dealt with now and it was observed to me the other day and he is right about it, if you look over the last ten years and see the projections scientists have made they are bringing forward the times that are severe and catastrophic effects occur so this is a sense of urgency and an issue that we have to deal with now and with that context let me invite to the podium secretary of treasurer lew and Michael Green stone and that is you, michael, and Michael Green stone. Let me make a brief, i guess not. [applause] im going to uninvite michael and i will invite jack. Jack as you know is secretary of the treasury and distinguished and i will not go in to hamilton project and not in the resume because its in your material but i will say one thing when jack and the Clinton Administration and head of omb he was a pleasure to deal with and substantive as you probably know and also very sensitive with politics and issues he deals with and knows washington and knows how to work with cabinet members dealing with issues and its not often you see someone say nice about the head of omb or rice which is even worse so with that i introduce the distinguished secretary of the treasury, jack lew. [applause] thanks, bob for that introduction and your leadership on combatting Climate Change and thank you to the hamilton project for hosting this event. This is an issue of great significance to our economy and the nations future. I want to talk today about the economic implications of a changing climate. But before i begin i would like to say just a few words about the u. S. Economy. The u. S. Economy emerged from the financial crisis that had a devastating recession going to the brink of a great depression, through effective policy responses and recouncil resiliance and gdp increased in the Second Quarter and had more jobs in 54 months and the longest growth in history. While more work remains confidence in the future is strong at home and internationally and what i saw over the last few days at the g 20 finance ministers meeting and in addition to take Decisive Action to grow Global Economy and create jobs we discussed level the Playing Field on tax policy so that we would stop the erosion of tax base and going to the bottom of International Tax policy. Later today i will have more to say about our on going efforts for a loophole in the tax codes and unfair practices which corporations acquire foreign businesses and switch citizenship outside of the United States to avoid paying u. S. Taxes. In addition to leadership on a host of Global Economic issues the United States used the g 20 as a forum to drive progress on Climate Change policy and the need for action is clear, the world can choose to ignore the challenge today and be forced to take more drastic action further down to road at greater cost or sensible and modest and gradual changes now and in the process create jobs, reduce business and Household Expenses and drive technology and new industries. This choice should also be clear. As an economic matter the cost of inaction or delay is far greater than the cost of action. Cost associated with extreme weather events like rising sea level, drought, heat waves and wildfi wildfires and floods and severe storms demonstrate economic exposure and the advisors estimates if warming above preindustrial levels increases 3 degrees instead of 2 there could be a decrease in global out put annually. The cost of cli mitt change is not limited to one sector of the economy and threatens productivity and transportation infrastructure and power grids and drives up the incidents of healthcare problems. We are facing historic levels of extreme weather from a range of conditions, some parts of the country have flooding and others face severe droughts and the agriculture regions are threatening losing 5070 of crop yields and livestock productivity is threatened as well. No where is the Economic Cost of Climate Change more clear than in the area of infrastructure which is fundamental to our economys productivity and competitiveness. The fact is our water and sewer systems and power plants and grids and roads and airports were not designed or built for the extreme climate conditions we are facing now and expect to face in coming decades. Super storm sandy in 2012 closed every tunnel and most bridges leading into new york city while a large part of the subway system below 34th street including all 7 tunnels under the east river was flooded by storm surges. Increased healthcare costs associated with pollution and extreme heat are documented and high temperatures threaten the health and safety of construction workers, farmers and others who workout doors and putting Industries Like housing and agricultural at risk and lead to heat rerelated illness and similar negative consequences for the health and safety of americans across the county. On the other hand much less said about the impact of Climate Change on our nations fiscal situation. When the federal government has to step in and do things like provide Disaster Relief and protection from wildfires, healthcare, taxpayers pay the cost. Already the National Flood Insurance Program has had to borrowry 24 billion because of pay outs from hereins katrina, rita, wilma and sandy which occurred over the past nine years and if this continues to rise it will create budgetary pressures to force tradeoffs and larger deficits and higher taxes and these tradeoffs would make it more challenge to invest in growth and meet the needs of an aging population and meet defense. R such rubin says if you care about deficits and tax rates and government investing from National Security to job creation you should care about coping with climaterelated damage. In short we must do all we can to limit this burden and to manage the fiscal risk. President obama understands what is at stake and after years of talk in washington about facing up to the challenge of a changing climate he has taken action reducing Carbon Pollution, increasing Energy Efficiency and investing in natural gas, solar and wind power. I know that some of you combatting Climate Change is a choice between investing in our future and growing our economy in the near term but that is a false choice. Making the right investments will make our economy stronger today, create tens of thousands of new jobs and position the United States to lead the world in technologies and the industries of the future. And we have already seen this work. Our new fuel economy standards will double the distance our cars will go on a gallon of gas by the middle of the next decade and we have doubled the amount of Renewable Energy we produce. This means our cars, trucks and Renewable Technology will compete effectively in a world looking for cost and lower emissions. The fact of the matter is over the past few years solar installations increased by 500 and a home and business goes solar in the United States. At the same time when the president s Better Building Initiative the americas commercial buildings is improving, making buildings more Energy Efficient creates jobs and lowers cost and reduces pollution. So far this Initiative Led to 300 million in Energy Savings for organizations and businesses. To be sure, changing how we power our country is good economic policy. Today the Fastest Growing is renewables and commit for a fifth of generation globally and renewables produce as much electricity worldwide as gas and more than twice of that for nuclear. In the coming years and expanding world will depend more and more electricity and renewables are the Fastest Growing source for the increased demand so the more we do at home to encourage low Carbon Energy generation the better positions and workers will be to take advantage of the new business opportunities. To build on what we accomplished is part of the administrations Climate Action plan, the president announced new rules this summer for existing power plants. These rules represent the most significant policy to arrest Climate Change the United States has taken to date. And they will help us cut Carbon Pollution and increase clean energy production. Much needs to be done it has the commitment of the meeting the challenge of Climate Change head on and tomorrow the president will join more than 120 heads of state in new york to mobilize Global Action to address Climate Change because this is a global problem that requires collective action, Global Action is imperative and its a good investment in global Economic Growth. First making these changes is cost effective. Look at the new power plant rule that i just mentioned. This policy will reduce greenhouse emissions by 30 relative to 2005 levels. And meeting these standards will cost a fraction of the benefits associated with increased efficiency of coal power plants and renewable natural gas. Producing more clean energy and reducing the dirty energy is expected to be worth between 5593 billion dollars in 2030. Second, if we fail to make changes now it will be much more costly to deal with the problem later. Some options may be foreclosed entirely. The right approach Going Forward is to use Market Forces that balance the cost of reducing emissions with what the latest science tells us we need to do to keep temperature increases below dangerous levels. The alternative allowing Greenhouse Gas emissions to go to levels will require expensive and difficult action later. Recently released report the council of economic advisors found that for each decade of delay the cost of hitting a climate target goes up on average by approximately 40 . We must adopt a Risk Management approach to Climate Change. We must do what we can to substantially lower the risk of the most catastrophic climate impacts and means reducing emissions. As former secretary of the treasury hank paulson wrote there is a time for weighing evidence and a time for acting and if there is one thing i learned its to act before problems become too big to manage. The fact that secretary rubin and paulson are taken leadership positions in making the case to address Climate Change under score the economic urgency of action. Let me close with two points. The first is that we cannot do this alone. We must work with the rest of the world to address this challenge. We must work with other industrialized economies so that everyone is cutting Carbon Pollution in a sustainable way. G 20 last week discussed the importance of this issue and agreed to continue its work to study ways to effectively mobilize climate finance and must work with developing countries many of which are the Fastest Growing carbon admiters so as they grow they move to cleaner energy production. Thats why treasury has made the case to finance Clean Energy Programs and substantially reduce support in the Multi Lateral Development Banks for new coal projects and its helping to level the Playing Field and supporting Power Generation worldwide. We are actively working to secure the agreement of other countries and the Multi Lateral Development Banks to adopt similar policies as soon as possible. We are also strong supporters of the Green Climate fund, a Multi Lateral fund created to help developing countries to limit or reduce greenhouse emissions and adapt to the impact of Climate Change. Second, we must continue to seek the most efficient market oriented ways to reduce Carbon Pollution, congressional action based on market based approaches is the most effective way to do it in transition to a cleaner economy. With that let me say Climate Change is one of the most important challenges of our time, what we do in the next few months and years to address this challenge will determine our nations future and if we take the right steps we will be the next generation with a stronger, better, stronger country, a better economy and a brighter future, thank you and i look forward to the discussion. [applause] jack, thank you very much. Let me introduce Michael Green stone and michael was the director of the hamilton project at the same time he was the professor at mit and he is now Milton Freedman professor at the university of chicago and head of some institute, what is that . [laughter] thank you, bob. [laughter] and i thought that was a good introduction. [laughter] let us start with sort of two related questions. Jack, i had more than a year talking about Climate Change and everybody says to me that i run in the political or Business World its a problem and lets talk about something else. Do you get a greater sense of urgency . People who acknowledge its a problem and they will make all kinds of wonderful speeches and one this week in new york, and some this morning and, in fact, i gave one myself which i rather liked. But do you get a sense that people finally gotten to the point where they recognize its real and once we get finished with that i want to ask you one other thing and ask michael to elaborate on the realness of this. I think i would say there is two pieces of evidence i can give you that it is being taken very seriously. One, is the action we are taking in the administration. Obama had been terrific. It is very substantial policy we put into effect. It is i think going to have a very serious impact both on power plants and on motor vehicles. And it is real policy. Frankly i think the work that you and hank paulson and Michael Bloomberg and others have done on Risky Business brought together the Business Community and people who are looking at it from a kind of Public Private perspective in a way that puts it higher on the radar for ongoing policy debate. And the question of whether or not legislation can be enacted is separate from whether or not the public is focused on it and whether or not we can take action to deal with it. Meetings like the meetings in new york this week are very important because the commitments we make internationally matter and the commitments that leaders make to take home and that is true in the United States and true around the world. What do you say to the i know the argument that indians make and i guess the chinese and many others is you created this problem, now we are growing so we are adding more than you are but you have to work and compensate us in some way or another or in some way or another make us good for doing what you want us to do given you created the problem, what is our answer . Maybe i misstated it shortly but that is sort of the gist of it. I think one of the reasons that we are so much supportive of International Climate fund instruments and direct bilateral support is there are a lot of countries that will need help to take the measures that are both in their interest and global interest. I think for the largest economies in the developing world for an economy like indias and china there is more they can do and more they need to do. I think they dont fit into one ea easy, single pattern. China i think is embracing the challenge of Climate Change and pollution in a different way than it did even a few years ago. There is a domestic demand because of the problems of smog and asthma and other health issues. It is an issue of internal debate, not Just International debate. I think we have to lead by taking action where we take burdens on ourselves and certainly our power plant rules reflect an important step in that direction. So i think there is not going to be a one size fits all answer of how we deal with every country internationally but there is no doubt the Fastest Growing, largest economies are going to be a very significant factor in addressing global emissions because that is where the e m emissions of the future will come from. Dont they say, my impression, you want us to do something but we expect to have you funded to some extent since you created the problem and now we are trying to get what you have already gotten which is a more developed state . Look, they are correct that they are at a different stage of document than we are at and need to add generating capacity but creates an opportunity for them we didnt have at a similar point of development, we did not have renewable options when the United States was building its first generation of power plant. We have to go back and deal with a lot of existing facilities. If Going Forward we all deal with the challenge of putting new generating capacity in place that meets high standards and we have to make sure our existing power plants to better. We are entering the International Discussion with good bona fide but its a hard discussion and we also have more Natural Gas Resources than a lot of other countries do so its not a completely equal situation even in terms of Going Forward. I know that if countries like china dont address this issue, in a few years it wont matter what we say, they will have domestic problems that are just beyond the current imagination so they will have to deal with it and setting ambitious challenge is the way to do it. He is from the university of the institute of chicago, right, michael why dont you give us a little bit of a sense of the magnitude of the possible risk, not just the base line although the base line is important but what might lie beyond that, and what troubles you most about this . I think what troubles me most is although there is great scientific certainty, there is a content among scientist what is happening is related to human activity. There is a lot of uncertainty about the extent of the changes being unleashed by the Greenhouse Gas emissions. So one key is to get very, very wonky and in my view it turns on what they like to call perimeter, which is how much temperature will change in exchange for doubling the co 2 in the atmosphere. And its a really wide range. They put kind of the middle two thirds of the probability somewhere between 38 degrees. If it were 3 degrees fahrenheit that would be okay i think it would change the way we live but it would pose hardships but if we really ended up at the high end, i think that is where life as we understand it in the United States and a lot of other countries becomes a lot more complicated. You could see huge parts of the United States be roughly uninhappenable outside during the summer. You would see large crop declines, tremendous demands for new energy and that is to say nothing of, you know, the very painful discussion that we could have, which parts of the United States are we going to build da ma mark dams to keep and what to let go and this drives a lot of where the concern is. Do you want to add to that . I think you have. I tried to cover it in my introduction. I think that the if the debate is how bad its going to be but we know its going to be bad that is enough of a case to act and there is no uncertainty and debate about exactly how bad it is should not be a reason to act. One thing there is not enough appreciation of, sorry to interrupt, bob, this is pay b k back. I apologize. One thing that is a line people have and near consensus among scientists and one thing people dont fully appreciate is there is consensus of what to do with it and ranges all the way to Milton Freeman to fill in your wing economist or maybe the new york times. There is a clear consensus about what to do and that is when you are engaged in an activity that is harming other people, that activity should be we should not allow and shouldnt have a society where its okay for me to go dump garbage in former secretary rubins front yard. As you look beyond that, mike, i heard somebody the other day actually a wellknown person and i will not use his name but a wellknown figure in technology he thinks there is a high probability and im saying what he said that technology will develop at some point that will pull emissions out of the atmosphere and that we can kind of try to bridge our way to that. On the other hand i asked other people that and they said that is a heck of a risk to take. I think the private sector will play an enormous role in fixing this but its conditional of them having the incentive to do it and a market price for Carbon Emissions and im not a business man but without it you just dont see Companies Engaging in expensive investment. What struck me, michael, even with it and the incentives, you are taking a risk on something that nobody figured out how to do it and if it doesnt happen we get in a world we have been talking about. When you speak to the indians and im told and i dont know if this is right and they are less receptive Going Forward than the chinese, what is the response to the kind of scenarios we have been discussing . I dont understand how somebody cant say we will all be engulfed by this. I think they are a bit further behind. I dont think it is as much of a domestic issue in india than china but i think its a matter of time to wait until you cant breathe in indian cities is probably waiting too long. So its a question of working on rules that dont interfere with a country like india to grow and part of that is going to come down to how do you finance the investments in the future. To the extent that we have technology that is available to meet the electricity needs of a growing economy and affordable cost, it will help a lot. They are not going to be able to have no more electricity like china will not be able to have avoid growth in electricity. So the challenge is going to be to meet that load with new technologies. That is where i think we can work together. But i think it helps when there is a domestic pressure for it. I see more of that in china than india and explains some of the difference. You know, on the question that michael is raising on Market Forces, we earlier in the Administration Made a proposal on a cap and trade kind of approach, it got through part of congress, not through all of congress, you know, it would be very good discussion to get back into with congress on how to have Market Forces work to help shape this to a better solution. What i think we cant do is wait until Congress Acts to take the steps we can because what we are doing while its incremental is very significant in terms of changing what u. S. Emissions will be over the next decade. Given that our political system seems to be somewhat less than perfectly functional to say the least, if you take a look at what you have done which is as i said before i think president obama is heroic Going Forward on the actions if you take that what percent and this is a rough guess kind of a question, what percentage of the total response we will have to have and does that constitute . Im better at the economics than i am at the science. I know on the auto side, in doubling fuel economy, kind of speaks for itself. I mean, im seeing it in gasoline tax receipts already. We are using less gasoline than we were expecting to and that is good for emissions. Power plant rules will dramatically reduce emissions and im not sure what percentage of the problem is and michael may have that. I think the way you responded so let me clarify the question in my mind if you take the cafe standard changes and you take the coal plant changes, is that close to is that close to sufficient to address the u. S. Piece of this problem . Its sufficient to keep us on track towards meeting the commitments we have made in the International Negotiations on Climate Policy. We will have to do more to get to the next level. So it certainly accomplishes a great deal. I dont think we can stop where we are. We are going to have to keep putting more policies into place. But it builds a foundation where there was a lot of skepticism that we could meet the commitments that we made at the last round of climate negotiations and because of the actions we have taken we are on track. So that is, you know, this is not a problem that we are going to solve in one action. And i think what we have to do is take the steps that we can and clear and concrete and if we were able to have a debate on the broader policy that would require legislation, i think we could do more. But using the Administrative Authority we have, meeting the International Commitments we have made i think is a pretty substantial accomplishment and not resting on our loerls and the president goes to the International Community saying we are doing our part and there were a lot of skeptics just a couple years ago that we would be in a position to do that. I wonder if i can step back in time and go back to previous iterations of Greenhouse Gas treaty efforts. Every single time the United States has had to show up and basically say hey, guys, you guys should do something and if you do it we will go back and we will confer for a little while and get back to you. And that was a tough position that existed in 2009 as well. I think secretary lew is exactly right, the commitment that was made in 2009 by the administration now with the new rules will be met. It is 17 reduction by 2020, relative to 2005. The longer term commitment of 83 reduction by 2050 will require more effort but for the first time the university can go to International Negotiations and so we have done something and i think the noises that one hears outs of china about a potential nationwide cap and trade for carbon in a communist country which is not here but in a communist country its okay, starting in 2016 that i think that is partially a reflection of the efforts that the obama has made. I wont dwell on this but im curious, if you look out over the decades as to what we have to do, percentage we have to do what do we accomplish . Not exact note, its more like 20 or 15 or 80 . The way i think about it is the problem has been for decades that the effective price on carbon so that is the penalty for emitting co 2 in the atmosphere was zero basically around the world. You now have all these bright spots and power plant rules and state of california and northeast states of the United States, you have china doing things. And its a huge step to get the price above zero. Now we get the effective price at a higher level to achieve the level of reductions that are necessary. But its an enormous step and if i could add one thing, this is happening at the exact same time that its the golden age of fossil fuels with respect to fracking so its really an enormous accomplishment i think to make progress of co 2 at the same time this is happening. What will happen in paris next year . A lot of bilateral discussions between now and paris. We are going to work very hard to get an agreement with both the developed and developing countries to set ambitious standards. I dont think going to paris without progress in some bilateral discussions will be as useful so even in november when the president is in china this will be one of the topics that he and the president discuss and it will be on the agenda when we meet with india. I cant put a number out there. I mean we want the goal to be as ambitious as realistic and push beyond realistic and the challenge is going to be substantial because everyone is worried about maintaining Economic Growth in their own country. So we are going to have to be in a position where we can demonstrate that dealing with Climate Change is compatible with Economic Growth. If its a choice between Economic Growth and Climate Policy it will be a more difficult hurdle in paris. When you frame the question and that is exactly right but when you frame the question do people look at and do you or the countries look at the question as a tradeoff between growth now and Climate Change now or look at it with a longer term perspective and if we dont deal with it we will create havoc for our country. That is exactly the challenge. I think we are experiencing now that it doesnt have to be a choice. That is i think perfectly apparent in our cafe rules and our fuel economy rules. I mean by take agree lot of the weight out of u. S. Pickup trucks we will sell more u. S. Pickup trucks, its creating more jobs in the United States. Its completely consistent with growing jobs right now. At some level that cant be true in every product, everywhere but overall being more efficient and lead to more jobs over time. The fact we are recovering and growing at different rates makes the challenge also more complicated. The need for shortterm growth is an independent challenge of dealing with Climate Change in a lot of the parts of the world. That is what i was driving at, a question of short term versus longterm and difficult to get political systems to focus on the longterm. The challenges and the longterm goal is inconsistent with the shortterm objective. We have been very much and i spent the weekend this australia making the case again, making the argument that we need to worry about increasing demand and a good number of parts of the Global Economy. I actually think that is consistent with trying to make progress on Climate Change. Doing a little bit better on shortterm growth will expand the likelihood of an openness to dealing with a longterm issues. I dont think we can wait until everyone is feeling well in the short term all over the world to deal with Climate Change. Otherwise we will have waited too long. So this is going to be a case of making the argument to do as much as we can as fast as we can and in Different Countries that will play out in a different way. I think that for a country that is looking at being an exporter of technology in the future they should want to be at the cutting edge of this, not the last adopters. They should want to be competing with us in solar and wind and should want to be able to reduce their demand for fuel, which is both a Strategic Risk for a lot of countries and an economic risk. So i think we can make the case to overcome the shortterm issues but i think realistically the fact that there are a lot of parts of the world that are not experiencing the robust growth they would like makes it more challenging. I should know the answer to this jack but i dont, in the administrations program and the budget, are there resources being devoted to Incentivizing Research . We have increased research both in the department of energy and we have used tax credits to create incentives for renewables and we have some more proposed than have been enacted but we have seen a lot of them already put into effect. You know, an interesting conversation at the g 20 over the weekend was what kind of expenditures should countries prioritize if they are interested in longterm growth. Everyone agreed it was research and development and education. There wasnt a voice at the table that didnt say this is not how we create the greatest economic potential for our future and this is double when countries put it in an area where they reduce their need for both dirty and expensive fuel. Michael, describe a little bit, if you would, dynamics with the ice sheet, with methane gas and what could be catastrophic impacts. Yeah, so i think my High School Science teacher will be slightly appalled you are asking me to explain that. But as i understand it, you know, a lot of what is going to happen turns on this thing they call the climate sensitivity perimeter and the temperature increase that we get depending on what that proves to be, if its higher than we expect it could lead the ice sheets to melt more rapidly than we would expect and that will cause increase in sea level, it could also cause the arctic perma frost to melt which would have massive releases of methane and have a reenforcing effect at the rate at which the climate is changing. So you know those are really the draw we end up getting for the climate sensitivity perimeter a lot is at stake with that. In the moves after super storm sandy there was kind of heightened awareness of how the impossible may not be so impossible. I mean, the amount of new york city that was under water, if you made it out before super storm sandy people would have said you are exaggerating but we experienced it. But its not any of us are hoping for another natural disaster, but the pace of major storms, major floods, major droughts in the last decade has increased in an undesirable way. So it doesnt even have to get to these next level of extreme developments which are highly credible, if not certain, to know we have to deal with them. Let me ask you, we have time for another question, let me ask you this, jay, i have a notion but i dont know if the notion is right or not that there just as i said before, you have done a terrific job and the president has but there isnt a sense of urgency that permeates the political system. Now, if we had a parallel gdp that took into account externs and if in the fiscal projections as director of omb used to make you had a separate set of projections that took into account potential climate effects and if we had Disclosure Requirements with respect to business with regard to the effects of Climate Change could have on them would that increase awareness and perhaps help motivate action . Well, each of them in a different way would play a role. Let me start with a piece i had the most experience with, the budget piece, by its nature budget projections are backward looking and going through a decade of weather experiences there is more and more and being built into the projections and see it in the size of a Disaster Relief fund which has grown dramatically over the last decade and im not sure it encompass every risk out there but its kind of catching up. Gdp, as you know better than i, is a complicated model that is imperfect but does bring in direct and indirect effects with very high degree of utility. The projection that i referred to the council of economic advisors did that looks at the impact of, you know, three versus a two degree celcius reflects the direct impact of climate through the gdp model. Im not enough of an economist may be able to figure out how to do it directly but i think its already being reflected in a way that makes the case and to some extent its a question of recognizing that and dealing with it as opposed to the lack of transparency. On the disclosure side, you know, the basic standard of discloser is materiality. And i think that the more investors make clear they consider Climate Risks material the more firms will have to under current rules and current law make these disclosures. And our experience with special subject specific requirements at the sec has not been as successful as the general materiality standards. So while i will actually discuss with chairman of the sec this idea and get a sense of their reaction to a separate standard, i think the challenge first and foremost is for investors to say they need to know more about the risks and then firms will have to make disclosures under current law. Yeah, i mean that is absolutely right. Maybe im being unduly concerned but it just doesnt seem to me a sense of the urgency in the world i live in. I dont disagree with the sense of urgency. I do think that the work that you and others did on Risky Business raised it to a period of time to a level where it was on the top of peoples minds. I think we have to keep making its not a lack of analysis or information. No. So its a question of repetition of at the risk of sounding like a pessimist one has to say this is serious and we have to deal with it until its dealt with. Politically, i am not sure that you want to wait until the public stands up and demands action. I agree with that. It will be too late when people feel it that personally so its a measure of leadership to get to the solution before its out of control. Which you and the president have done, yes, michael. I want to join in the conversation about how do you get people engaged on this question. An