I'm John Holdren, President Obama's science

advisor and the Director of the White House Office

of Science and Technology Policy.

It's my honor to be able to welcome you all to the

White House and to launch this extraordinary event.

We're here, of course, to talk about the release

of the Third National Assessment

of Climate Change Impacts on the United States.

It exists.

This is the 20-page overview.

This is the 140-page highlights.

The 840-page whole document

is live on www.globalchange.gov and folks are invited

to go there but not while today's

speakers are talking.

The assessment that we're launching today

is distinguished by laying out with unprecedented

comprehensiveness, disaggregation detail

and clarity how the climate is changing across

the United States, disaggregated by eight geographic regions,

and also by various crucial

sectors of the economy.

Agriculture, fisheries, the oceans,

energy, and so on.

It basically is letting Americans know how climate

is changing where they work and live,

what impacts that is having on things they value,

and how this picture is expected to evolve going

forward and of course a very substantial emphasis

on what can be done about it.

We're providing what John Podesta

this morning earlier called "actionable science."

This is the theme.

The President has also emphasized information

that people can use to take appropriate action

to reduce their vulnerability to climate change and

to participate in the actions that reduce the emissions

that are driving climate change around the world.

I think that the findings of this extraordinary

report, about which we'll be saying

considerably more, are really the loudest alarm bell

to date signaling the need for urgent action

so that we can combat the threats and the risk

we face from global climate change in this country.

As I think you all know, President Obama

has long recognized the urgency of this challenge

and last June in a speech at Georgetown University

on a sweltering hot day, appropriately enough,

the President launched his Climate Action Plan.

Three-part plan cutting carbon pollution

in America, preparing our communities for changes

in climate that already are on-going, and leading

international efforts to address the challenge.

Now, almost a year later, a lot has happened

in executing on the commitments made

in the Climate Action Plan.

The President has directed the Environmental

Protection Agency and the Department

of Transportation to develop fuel economy

standards for heavy-duty vehicles.

Department of Interior has

announced its permitting of the 50th Renewable Energy Related

Project on federal lands during this administration.

The Department of Energy has issued

multiple new energy efficiency standards.

Department of Agriculture has announced

seven new climate hubs to help farmers and ranchers

adapt their operations to a changing climate.

The administration launched

in this room and not very long ago a Climate Data Initiative

bringing together extensive government

open data and design competitions

with strong commitments from the private and philanthropic

sectors in order to develop data-driven

planning and resilience tools for communities

and I should say that Climate Data Initiative

and the results of this extraordinary

study we're launching today are coming together.

All of the information that the study has

developed will be available

on the web again in user-friendly,

accessible forms to provide people with the

information they will need to reduce their vulnerability.

Of course, as you all know,

the President has instructed the Environmental Protection

Agency to develop standards both

for new power plants, which have already been

put out there, and soon there will be standards proposed

for discussion on existing power plants

and their emissions of heat-trapping gases.

So this is a lot of progress.

We also announced just a couple of months

ago a new strategy to reduce methane emissions

that involve characterizing and quantifying

the sources of methane emissions, committing to new

steps to cut the emissions of that

potent greenhouse gas, and outlining a set

of actions going forward to improve the measurements

so we can tell exactly how well we're doing.

That, I would say, is what progress is supposed

to look like and today's events around

this extraordinary assessment are another big step.

As I think probably everybody in the room

knows, a critical piece

of the President's Climate Action Plan is ensuring that

we continue our steady pace to strengthen

the science that informs and underpins the actions that

we take to address the threats from climate change and ensuring

that as we do that, we pursue the insights

and the information that are most immediately relevant and

useful to the people who need that information.

We're talking about the folks who, in some sense,

are on the front lines of climate change.

The coastal property owners, the farmers,

the fishermen, the city planners,

the water resource managers, and others whose livelihoods,

whose day-to-day decisions, and whose

longer-term planning needs to be informed

by the best data available.

Knowledge about what is happening today

in climate change, what's likely to come down the road,

and what can be done to reduce vulnerability.

And this assessment that we're releasing today,

as you might imagine from its extraordinary length --

839-pages, I think, on the web --

is a virtual encyclopedia of that essential information.

The report was four-plus years in the making.

It was produced under the auspices

of the U.S. Global Change Research Program.

13 federal agencies and departments

involved in that.

Leadership came from NOAA and OSTP.

The heavy lifting

by a 60-person federal advisory committee.

Writing team included some 300 individuals.

I wouldn't even care to count the number

of reviewers in probably one of the most extensive

and transparent multi-stage review processes

in the history of government reports.

And that effort, that extraordinary effort

which included experts from government at all levels,

from academia, from business, from non-profits

has really produced this exceptionally detailed

disaggregated accounting of what climate change

is already doing in every geographic region

of the United States and the most effective

sectors of our economy.

The single most important bottom line that shines

through all these hundreds of pages

is that climate change is not a distant threat.

It is something that is happening now, it is

affecting the American people

now in important ways.

Summers, on the whole, are longer

and hotter with longer periods of extreme heat.

Wildfires in the west start earlier

in the spring and continue later in the fall.

Rain in many parts of the country is coming

down in deluges and heavier downpours.

People are experiencing changes

in the length and severity of seasonal allergies and climate

disruptions to agriculture and water resources

have been growing.

And, of course, again, key insight of this report:

it's not the same everywhere.

Climate change is not uniform.

It is having different impacts in different

parts of the country and that's why it's so important

that this study based on advancing science over

the past five years since the last one came

out has been able to disaggregate these

on-going and expected impacts regionally.

When President Obama launched his Climate

Action Plan, he made clear that the information

in this new climate assessment would

be used and it will be used to inform the efforts

at the federal, state, and local levels

to increase preparedness for and resilience against

the impacts of changes in climate that

can no longer be avoided.

And I think it's very important to say that

this report is not just a bad news story about

all the impacts that are happening.

It's a good news story about

the many opportunities to take cost-effective

actions to reduce the damages.

I want to acknowledge a number of folks,

including the stakeholders in this room, who have gathered

to hear about this and who will be crucial actors

going out and promoting, propagating,

and implementing the findings of this report.

We are grateful for all of your engagement,

but I do want to thank four key individuals without whom

this report would never have come to fruition.

Kathy Sullivan the Administrator of NOAA

and Under Secretary of Commerce whom you'll hear

from later in the program for NOAA's

key partnership in bringing this assessment to fruition,

and I should mention as well her predecessor

Jane Lubchenco who regrets that she couldn't

be here but I spoke with her last evening and she handed

the reins over to Kathy Sullivan from

Jane's earlier involvement from NOAA in this extraordinary

effort and again, without NOA's partnership support,

needless to say also money,

this study would not have been completed.

Jerry Mellilo the Chair of the National

Climate Assessment Development Advisory Committee

affectionately called the NCADAC fac.

Jerry's leadership in this endeavor ensured rigor,

scientific integrity at every step of the way.

You'll hear from Jerry in a moment as well.

Cassie Jacobs who was the first executive director

of the assessment whose vision and dedication

really made this the most transparent national

climate assessment ever and who kept

the trains running on time for more than two years.

Cassie was a great contributor and then

Cassie's successor Fabian Loree

who seamlessly picked

up the ball and saw this report over the finish line

with dedication, focus, and competence.

I think to these folks and to the entire National

Climate Assessment team, the whole NCADAC fac,

the 300 authors, the even more numerous reviewers.

I think we owe them a big vote of thanks

and I want to lead that.

(applause)

Dr. John P. Holdren: And to the rest

of you who are here today

are partners at organizations

and institutions standing ready to disseminate

and communicate the findings of this report

and its message that we need to take action and

we can take action, I ask each of you here to absorb

the energy and enthusiasm that we're generating today,

carry it back, share it with

your constituencies, share it with your communities.

This is, in a sense, a new beginning of this effort

to reach out all across the country

and incentivize and organize the kinds

of actions we need.

Tell folks to visit globalchange.gov

to get informed about what climate is doing

in the regions where they live and work.

Ask them to share that information further

and invite them to share stories

about what they're doing, what their communities

are doing by using the hashtag #ActOnClimate.

Now, I will wrap up, strap on my Master of Ceremonies

hat, and proceed to the introduction

of the next speaker who is none other than Dr. Jerry Mellilo.

Jerry, I'm surprised to say given

the enormous amount of work he had to put in to help bring

this study over the finish line,

actually has a day job.