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It's easy to forget that last night,

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one billion people went to sleep
without access to electricity.

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One billion people.

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Two and a half billion people
did not have access to clean cooking fuels

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or clean heating fuels.

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Those are the problems
in the developing world.

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And it's easy for us not to be empathetic

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with those people
who seem so distanced from us.

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But even in our own world,
the developed world,

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we see the tension of stagnant economies

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impacting the lives of people around us.

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We see it in whole pieces of the economy,

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where the people involved
have lost hope about the future

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and despair about the present.

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We see that in the Brexit vote.

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We see that in the Sanders/Trump
campaigns in my own country.

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But even in countries as recently
turning the corner

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towards being in the developed world,

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in China,

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we see the difficulty
that President Xi has

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as he begins to un-employ so many people
in his coal and mining industries

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who see no future for themselves.

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As we as a society
figure out how to manage

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the problems of the developed world

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and the problems of the developing world,

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we have to look at how we move forward

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and manage the environmental impact
of those decisions.

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We've been working on this problem
for 25 years, since Rio,

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the Kyoto Protocols.

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Our most recent move is the Paris treaty,

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and the resulting climate agreements

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that are being ratified
by nations around the world.

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I think we can be very hopeful

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that those agreements,
which are bottom-up agreements,

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where nations have said
what they think they can do,

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are genuine and forthcoming
for the vast majority of the parties.

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The unfortunate thing

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is that now, as we look
at the independent analyses

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of what those climate treaties
are liable to yield,

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the magnitude of the problem
before us becomes clear.

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This is the United States
Energy Information Agency's assessment

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of what will happen if the countries
implement the climate commitments

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that they've made in Paris

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between now and 2040.

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It shows basically CO2 emissions
around the world

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over the next 30 years.

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There are three things that you need
to look at and appreciate.

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One, CO2 emissions are expected
to continue to grow

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for the next 30 years.

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In order to control climate,

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CO2 emissions have to literally go to zero

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because it's the cumulative emissions
that drive heating on the planet.

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This should tell you that we are losing
the race to fossil fuels.

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The second thing you should notice

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is that the bulk of the growth
comes from the developing countries,

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from China, from India,
from the rest of the world,

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which includes South Africa
and Indonesia and Brazil,

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as most of these countries
move their people

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into the lower range of lifestyles

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that we literally take for granted
in the developed world.

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The final thing that you should notice

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is that each year,

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about 10 gigatons of carbon are getting
added to the planet's atmosphere,

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and then diffusing into the ocean
and into the land.

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That's on top of the 550 gigatons
that are in place today.

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At the end of 30 years,

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we will have put 850 gigatons
of carbon into the air,

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and that probably goes a long way

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towards locking in a 2-4 degree C increase
in global mean surface temperatures,

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locking in ocean acidification

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and locking in sea level rise.

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Now, this is a projection made by men

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by the actions of society,

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and it's ours to change, not to accept.

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But the magnitude of the problem
is something we need to appreciate.

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Different nations make
different energy choices.

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It's a function
of their natural resources.

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It's a function of their climate.

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It's a function of the development path
that they've followed as a society.

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It's a function of where
on the surface of the planet they are.

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Are they where it's dark
a lot of the time,

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or are they at the mid-latitudes?

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Many, many, many things
go into the choices of countries,

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and they each make a different choice.

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The overwhelming thing
that we need to appreciate

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is the choice that China has made.

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China has made the choice,

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and will make the choice, to run on coal.

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The United States has an alternative.

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It can run on natural gas

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as a result of the inventions
of fracking and shale gas,

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which we have here.

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They provide an alternative.

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The OECD Europe has a choice.

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It has renewables that it can afford
to deploy in Germany

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because it's rich enough
to afford to do it.

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The French and the British
show interest in nuclear power.

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Eastern Europe, still very heavily
committed to natural gas and to coal,

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and with natural gas
that comes from Russia,

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with all of its entanglements.

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China has many fewer choices

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and a much harder row to hoe.

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If you look at China, and you ask yourself

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why has coal been important to it,

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you have to remember what China's done.

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China brought people to power,
not power to people.

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It didn't do rural electrification.

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It urbanized.

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It urbanized by taking low-cost labor
and low-cost energy,

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creating export industries

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that could fund a tremendous
amount of growth.

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If we look at China's path,

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all of us know that prosperity in China
has dramatically increased.

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In 1980, 80 percent of China's population

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lived below the extreme poverty level,

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below the level of having
$1.90 per person per day.

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By the year 2000, only 20 percent
of China's population

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lived below the extreme poverty level --

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a remarkable feat,

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admittedly, with some costs
in civil liberties

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that would be tough to accept
in the Western world.

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But the impact of all that wealth

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allowed people to get
massively better nutrition.

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It allowed water pipes to be placed.

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It allowed sewage pipes to be placed,

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dramatic decrease in diarrheal diseases,

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at the cost of some outdoor air pollution.

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But in 1980, and even today,

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the number one killer in China
is indoor air pollution,

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because people do not have access
to clean cooking and heating fuels.

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In fact, in 2040,

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it's still estimated
that 200 million people in China

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will not have access
to clean cooking fuels.

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They have a remarkable path to follow.

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India also needs to meet the needs
of its own people,

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and it's going to do that by burning coal.

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When we look at the EIA's projections
of coal burning in India,

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India will supply nearly four times
as much of its energy from coal

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as it will from renewables.

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It's not because they don't know
the alternatives;

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it's because rich countries
can do what they choose,

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poor countries do what they must.

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So what can we do to stop
coal's emissions in time?

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What can we do that changes
this forecast that's in front of us?

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Because it's a forecast that we can change
if we have the will to do it.

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First of all, we have to think
about the magnitude of the problem.

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Between now and 2040,

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800 to 1,600 new coal plants
are going to be built around the world.

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This week, between one and three
one-gigawatt coal plants

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are being turned on around the world.

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That's happening regardless
of what we want,

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because the people
that rule their countries,

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assessing the interests of their citizens,

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have decided it's in the interest
of their citizens to do that.

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And that's going to happen
unless they have a better alternative.

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And every 100 of those plants will use up

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between one percent and three percent

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of the Earth's climate budget.

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So every day that you go home
thinking that you should do something

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about global warming,

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at the end of that week, remember:

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somebody fired up a coal plant
that's going to run for 50 years

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and take away your ability to change it.

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What we've forgotten is something
that Vinod Khosla used to talk about,

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a man of Indian ethnicity
but an American venture capitalist.

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And he said, back in the early 2000s,

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that if you needed to get
China and India off of fossil fuels,

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you had to create a technology
that passed the "Chindia test,"

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"Chindia" being the appending
of the two words.

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It had to be first of all viable,

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meaning that technically, they could
implement it in their country,

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and that it would be accepted
by the people in the country.

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Two, it had to be a technology
that was scalable,

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that it could deliver the same benefits

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on the same timetable as fossil fuels,

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so that they can enjoy the kind of life,
again, that we take for granted.

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And third, it had to be cost-effective

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without subsidy or without mandate.

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It had to stand on its own two feet;

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it could not be maintained
for that many people

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if in fact, those countries
had to go begging

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or had some foreign country say,
"I won't trade with you,"

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in order to get
the technology shift to occur.

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If you look at the Chindia test,

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we simply have not come up
with alternatives that meet that test.

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That's what the EIA forecast tells us.

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China's building 800 gigawatts of coal,

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400 gigawatts of hydro,

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about 200 gigawatts of nuclear,

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and on an energy-equivalent basis,
adjusting for intermittency,

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about 100 gigawatts of renewables.

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800 gigawatts of coal.

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They're doing that, knowing the costs
better than any other country,

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knowing the need better
than any other country.

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But that's what they're aiming for in 2040

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unless we give them a better choice.

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To give them a better choice,

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it's going to have to meet
the Chindia test.

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If you look at all the alternatives
that are out there,

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there are really two
that come near to meeting it.

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First is this area of new nuclear
that I'll talk about in just a second.

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It's a new generation of nuclear plants
that are on the drawing boards

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around the world,

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and the people who are
developing these say

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we can get them
in position to demo by 2025

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and to scale by 2030,
if you will just let us.

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The second alternative
that could be there in time

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is utility-scale solar
backed up with natural gas,

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which we can use today,

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versus the batteries
which are still under development.

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So what's holding new nuclear back?

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Outdated regulations
and yesterday's mindsets.

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We have not used our latest
scientific thinking on radiological health

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to think how we communicate
with the public

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and govern the testing
of new nuclear reactors.

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We have new scientific knowledge
that we need to use

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in order to improve the way
we regulate nuclear industry.

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The second thing is we've got a mindset

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that it takes 25 years
and 2 to 5 billion dollars

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to develop a nuclear power plant.

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That comes from the historical,
military mindset

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of the places nuclear power came from.

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These new nuclear ventures are saying

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that they can deliver power
for 5 cents a kilowatt hour;

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they can deliver it
for 100 gigawatts a year;

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they can demo it by 2025;

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and they can deliver it in scale by 2030,

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if only we give them a chance.

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Right now, we're basically
waiting for a miracle.

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What we need is a choice.

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If they can't make it safe,
if they can't make it cheap,

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it should not be deployed.

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But what I want you to do
is not carry an idea forward,

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but write your leaders,

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write the head of the NGOs you support,

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and tell them to give you the choice,

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not the past.

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Thank you very much.

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(Applause)