Hard Choices
Page 66
There are strong forces that oppose workers being organized. We have this in my own country. You go back to the 19th and the early 20th century when labor unions were just getting started, there were goons, there were thugs, there were killings, there were riots, there were terrible conditions. We passed laws at the beginning of the 20th century against child labor, against too many hours for people to work, but that took time. It took time to develop a sense of political will to address those issues. So you are beginning that, and it’s a very important struggle. . . . You are doing very important work. Do not be discouraged or intimidated. You deserve to have the support of your government and your society.
Then I explained some of the efforts we were making around the world to stand up for labor rights:
We have worked from Colombia to Cambodia with the owners of factories and other enterprises to help them understand how they can continue to make a very good profit while treating their workers right. . . . It’s a part of becoming a middle-class country. Workers deserve to have their labor respected and fairly paid for. Factory owners deserve to have what they pay for, which is an honest day’s work for the wages that they pay. So there is a way to accommodate those interests, and we’ve seen it, and we can continue to work with you to try to achieve it.
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One area where economics and geopolitics come together most potently—and where U.S. leadership is most needed—is energy. Many of the international challenges I dealt with over my four years directly or indirectly sprang from the world’s insatiable hunger for energy and the shifting dynamics created by new sources and supplies coming online. Consider how often energy played a role in the events discussed in this book: the bitter dispute over oil between Sudan and South Sudan; competing claims in the South and East China Seas that were as much about control of resources under the seafloor as commerce on the water’s surface; the extensive effort to sanction Iran’s oil exports; and, of course, the international effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions and address the challenge of climate change.
Energy has always been an important factor in international affairs, but a number of developments have lent it new significance in recent years: growing economies in China, India, and other emerging markets have generated huge new demand; technological innovations have opened up previously inaccessible sources of oil and natural gas and made renewables like wind and solar cost-effective, creating new energy players to compete with traditional petro-powers like Russia and Saudi Arabia; and the urgency of combatting climate change has provided an incentive to develop clean alternatives to fossil fuels and improve efficiency.
The scramble for new energy resources had the potential to lead to more conflict or more cooperation around the world. I thought that, with the right strategy and tools, the United States could help steer away from the former and toward the latter. To help us do that effectively, I created a bureau at the State Department dedicated to energy diplomacy, and asked Ambassador Carlos Pascual to run it. He and his team worked closely with the Department of Energy, which had invaluable technical expertise but less of a global reach. Much of our energy diplomacy was focused on five broad challenges.
First, we tried to help resolve disputes between countries that either laid claim to the same resources or had to cooperate to utilize them. For example, recall that South Sudan has extensive oil reserves while its northern neighbor Sudan does not. But Sudan does have refining and shipping facilities, which the South lacks. That means the two countries, despite ongoing hostility, need to work together.
Second, we worked to discourage the use of energy supplies by one nation to dominate or intimidate another. Russia’s bullying of Ukraine and other European countries with natural-gas price gouging and supply cutoffs is a good example.
Third, we implemented sanctions targeting Iran’s oil industry and worked with partners around the world to significantly reduce their imports of Iranian crude oil and bring new supplies online elsewhere.
Fourth, we promoted clean energy sources like solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, and natural gas (which isn’t perfect but is cleaner than coal) that could help us slow the effects of climate change.
Fifth, we worked to prevent or mitigate the so-called resource curse by promoting transparency and accountability in extractive industries, and working with partner governments to invest resource income responsibly and avoid corruption. No country has suffered more from the resource curse than Nigeria. When I visited in 2009 and 2012, I stressed the urgency of Nigerians tackling corruption and investing revenues to improve millions of lives, not swell personal fortunes. Nigeria could be a G-20 member and an influential global voice if it made the hard choice to overcome the curse.
While we were pursuing all this work abroad, there were also exciting developments at home. American innovation was at the forefront of unlocking new energy supplies, whether it was hard-to-reach oil and gas or cutting-edge renewables. In 2013, the United States reportedly surpassed both Saudi Arabia and Russia to lead the world in oil and gas production. And electricity generation from wind and solar more than doubled between 2009 and 2013.
The boom in domestic energy production, especially in natural gas, created major economic and strategic opportunities for our country.
Expanded energy production created tens of thousands of new jobs, from oil rigs in North Dakota to wind turbine factories in South Carolina. Cheap and plentiful natural gas is helping drive down costs for energy-intensive manufacturers and giving the United States a big competitive advantage over places like Japan and Europe, where energy prices remain much higher. Researchers project that all the ripple effects from our domestic energy revolution could create up to 1.7 million permanent jobs by 2020 and add between 2 and 4 percent to our annual gross domestic product. The shift to natural gas is also helping lower carbon emissions, because it’s cleaner than coal. Greater domestic production is reducing our dependence on foreign oil, easing a major strategic burden, and freeing up supplies elsewhere to help our European allies lessen their dependence on Russia.
There are legitimate climate change concerns about the new extraction practices and their impact on local water, soil, and air supplies. Methane leaks in the production and transportation of natural gas are particularly worrisome. So it’s crucial that we put in place smart regulations and enforce them, including not drilling when the risks are too high.
If we approach this challenge responsibly and make the right investments in infrastructure, technology, and environmental protection, America can be the clean energy superpower for the 21st century. That means creating a positive environment for private-sector innovation and risk-taking, with targeted tax incentives, a commitment to research and development, and policies that encourage rather than undercut the transition to clean, renewable sources of energy. And it means investing in the infrastructure of the future, including next-generation power plants to produce electricity more cleanly, smarter grids to deliver it more effectively, and greener buildings to use it more efficiently. China and others are already racing forward with big bets on renewables. We cannot afford to cede leadership in this area, especially since American innovation holds the key to the next generation of advances, and our capacity to employ them at home and in our hemisphere is almost limitless. Our economic recovery, our efforts against climate change, and our strategic position in the world all will improve if we can build a bridge to a clean energy economy.
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When grappling with some of these big global trends in energy and economics, it can be easy to forget how much they affect the daily lives of individuals and families around the world. One example that really brought this home for me was the simple but overlooked issue of cookstoves. It combined concerns about energy, the environment, economics, and public health at a local level. And it demonstrated how a creative, 21st-century approach to development and diplomacy could solve problems and improve lives in unexpected ways.
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nbsp; If you’ve ever built a campfire or tried to cook outdoors, you likely know what it feels like when the wind changes direction and black smoke fills your lungs. It can bring tears to your eyes. Now imagine if, instead of being a rare outdoor activity, this was something you experienced daily, inside your own home. That’s what happens to 3 billion people around the world who gather every day around open fires or old and inefficient stoves in small kitchens and poorly ventilated houses. Women labor over these hearths for hours, often with their babies strapped to their back, and they spend hours more gathering wood for fuel. The food they prepare is different on every continent, but the air they breathe is the same: a toxic mix of chemicals released by burning wood or other solid fuel that can reach two hundred times the amount the EPA considers safe. As the women cook, smoke fills their lungs, and the toxins begin poisoning them and their children. The black carbon, methane, and other “super pollutants” released in this smoke also contribute to climate change.
The results of daily exposure are devastating. The World Health Organization released data in March 2014 showing that household air pollution was responsible for 4.3 million premature deaths in 2012, more than double the number of deaths from malaria and tuberculosis combined. That makes this dirty smoke one of the worst health risks in the developing world. Although people have cooked over open fires and dirty stoves for all of human history, we now know that it is slowly killing millions of people.
I asked Kris Balderston, my Special Representative for Global Partnerships, to lead an effort to tackle this under-the-radar but deeply troubling and consequential challenge. And in September 2010, at the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative, I launched the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves with nineteen founding partners from governments, business, international institutions, academia, and philanthropy. The Alliance decided to pursue a market-based approach to persuade companies to build clean, efficient, and affordable stoves and fuels. We set an ambitious goal: 100 million homes adopting new clean stoves and fuels by 2020. We knew how difficult this would be, from the technical challenge of designing cheap, safe, clean, and durable stoves to the logistical challenge of distributing them all over the world and the social challenge of convincing consumers to actually embrace them. But we hoped that technological breakthroughs and growing private-sector engagement would allow us to succeed. On behalf of the U.S. government, I announced a pledge of $50 million to get the effort going.
I was delighted by the speed and scope of the progress we made around the world. More than 8 million clean cookstoves were distributed in 2012, more than double the number in 2011 and ahead of projections toward the goal of 100 million. By the end of 2013 the Alliance had grown to include more than eight hundred partners, and the U.S. government had boosted its commitment to $125 million.
Since leaving the State Department, I have continued my work with the Alliance as an Honorary Chair. There are projects in Bangladesh, China, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda, with efforts beginning in India and Guatemala as well. The Alliance now supports thirteen testing centers across the world and has spearheaded new global standards for cookstoves, giving manufacturers, distributors, and buyers guidelines for cleanliness, safety, and efficiency standards. This is a crucial step in building a viable market that will deliver clean stoves to consumers who will actually use them.
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In difficult economic times, there is an inherent tension between our desire to lift other people around the world out of poverty and into the middle class and our need to protect our own hard-pressed middle class. If global economics were a zero-sum game, then the rise of other markets and the growth of other countries’ middle classes would always come at our own expense. But it doesn’t have to be. I believe our own prosperity depends on having partners to trade with and that our fortunes are inextricably linked to those of the rest of the world. And I am convinced that, as long as the competition is fair, the more people around the world who leave poverty and join the middle class, the better it will be for America.
This belief is rooted in my own experiences growing up in a middle-class American family. After World War II my dad, Hugh Rodham, opened a small drapery fabric business. He worked long hours and sometimes employed day laborers. He often enlisted my mother, my brothers, and me to help with the silkscreen printing. My parents believed in self-reliance and hard work, and they made sure we kids learned the value of a dollar and appreciated the dignity of a job well done.
I had my first paying job, other than babysitting, when I was thirteen. I worked for the Park Ridge Park District three mornings a week supervising a small park a few miles from my house. Since Dad left for work early in our only car, I had to walk to work, pulling a wagon filled with balls, bats, jump ropes, and other supplies back and forth. From that year on, I always had summer and holiday jobs. They helped pay my college and law school costs. I was grateful for the sacrifices my parents made to give us opportunities they never had, and Bill and I worked hard to pass on to Chelsea many of these same values, including a strong work ethic. We felt this was particularly important because she was growing up in such unusual circumstances, first in a Governor’s Mansion and then in the White House. If my parents were alive today, they’d be incredibly proud of what a strong, principled, and hardworking woman their granddaughter has become. I know I am.
The world has changed a lot since I was growing up, but the American middle class remains the greatest economic engine in history and the heart of the American Dream. Its success is rooted in the basic bargain that if you work hard and play by the rules, you will prosper; that if you innovate, if you create and build, there is no limit on what you can achieve. The middle class has always been defined as much if not more by the values and aspirations we share as by the goods we purchase.
My time as Secretary of State coincided with another great movement of people into the middle class, but this time it was happening in other countries, as hundreds of millions climbed out of poverty for the first time. The projections are staggering. The global middle class is expected to double in size by 2035, to as many as 5 billion. Two-thirds of all Chinese, more than 40 percent of all Indians, and half the population of Brazil are all expected to make it into the middle class. For the first time in history most people on earth are projected to be middle class rather than poor by 2022.
This explosive growth raises questions about our planet’s capacity to sustain the level of consumption we’ve come to identify with middle-class life, especially when it comes to automobiles, energy, and water. Climate change, scarce resources, and local pollution will force us to make dramatic changes in patterns of production and consumption. But if we do it well the changes will create new jobs, new businesses, and a better quality of life. That means the rise of a global middle class will be good for the world. It will also be good for Americans. As wages and incomes rise elsewhere, there’ll be more people able to buy our goods and services and less incentive for companies to outsource our jobs. After years of stagnant incomes and declining social and economic mobility, we need it.
Middle-class people around the world are also more likely to share our values. People everywhere typically want the same things out of life: good health, a decent job, a safe community, and the chance to provide education and opportunities to their children. They care about dignity, equality of opportunity, and due process before a fair judicial system. When people manage to climb into the middle class, and the immediate needs of survival are less pressing, they also tend to demand accountable governance, efficient services, better education, better health care, a clean environment, and peace. And most of them find the siren song of political extremism less appealing. The global middle class is a natural constituency for America. It’s in our interest to see it grow to include more people. We should do everything we can to expand it at home and around the world.
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Haiti: Disaster and
Development
Four days after the earthquake in Haiti, the only working runway at the airport in Port-au-Prince was a jumble of activity. As I walked down the stairs of our U.S. Coast Guard C-130 cargo plane, I saw pallets of supplies sitting untouched on the tarmac. Planes with more emergency relief circled overhead, waiting their turn to land. The terminal itself was dark and abandoned, glass from its shattered windows strewn over the ground. Traumatized families had taken refuge on the airport grounds. Few Haitians wanted to be indoors after the earthquake, especially as aftershocks continued, and there weren’t nearly enough safe structures left in the country to provide shelter for the more than 1 million people who lost their homes.
The 7.0-magnitude earthquake that devastated Haiti on January 12, 2010 killed more than 230,000 people in a country of 10 million and injured at least 300,000 more. Haiti was already the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Now it faced a staggering humanitarian disaster. The need for both immediate relief and long-term reconstruction in Haiti would test our aid capabilities and underscore the importance of pioneering a new approach to international development for the 21st century.
By my side that day in Haiti was Cheryl Mills, my indefatigable Counselor and Chief of Staff, and Dr. Raj Shah, the new head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, who had been sworn in only nine days earlier. Cheryl had been spearheading a review of our Haiti policy for the past year, and when the earthquake struck, she moved quickly to organize a massive response across the U.S. government. The State Department set up a twenty-four-hour-a-day crisis task force in the Ops Center to stay on top of the flood of information, requests for help, and offers of assistance. Consular officers worked around the clock to track down the whereabouts of an estimated forty-five thousand American citizens in Haiti and responded to nearly 500,000 inquiries from concerned friends and loved ones.