    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book II)]
    [October 19, 1993]
    [Pages 1773-1775]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the White House Conference on Climate Change
    October 19, 1993

        Ladies and gentlemen, first let me thank you all for being here and
    thank the Vice President, the Cabinet, our Science Adviser, Katie
    McGinty, and others who worked so hard on this policy. If I might begin
    by just observing, I was looking at the clouds hoping we didn't have too
    much of a climate change this morning before the event could unfold.
        This is an issue which has been of great concern to me for a long
    time. When I decided to seek this office back in 1991, I did it after
    having spent more than a decade as a Governor deeply frustrated by what
    seemed to me too often to be inevitable, persistent, aggravating
    conflicts between the impulse to promote economic opportunity for the
    people that I represented and the clear obligation, the moral
    obligation, on all of us to try to preserve this planet that we all
    share. And anyone with eyes to see could look down the road and
    recognize that, even with imperfect scientific knowledge, at some point
    the impulse to give people something to do would have to be reconciled
    with the obligation to preserve the planet we all share and that if
    there were ways through the use of technology and partnerships and
    ingenuity to actually enhance economic opportunities while preserving
    the planet, how much better off we would all be.
        That is what we have sought to do in this administration. The Vice
    President outlined the number of things that we have tried to do to move
    the environmental agenda forward and at the same time move our economy
    forward. I

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    remember so well the sort of shocking but bracing and reinforcing
    feeling I had the first time I began to go to New Hampshire, which is
    what you have to do in this country if you want to ultimately become
    President, to find that people just living their own lives in what was
    in a very economically depressed State also believed that we could find
    a way and that we had to find a way to pursue our economic objectives
    and fulfill our moral responsibilities to have an aggressive and
    responsible program about the environment.
        That cannot be done unless we change our attitude about what we put
    into our atmosphere and how we respect the air we breathe. That requires
    us to meet head-on the serious threat of global warming. I made a
    commitment to do that on Earth Day this year, to make a commitment to an
    approach that would draw on the most innovative people we could find in
    this country, whether they were in business, labor, government, or the
    environmental movement, to turn this challenge into an opportunity. And
    that's what this report seeks to do. It seeks to give the American
    people the ability to compete and win in the global economy while
    meeting our most deep and profound environmental challenges.
        We have begun the task of linking our economy to the environment
    today in what I believe is a truly extraordinary fashion. And I think if
    all of you read the plan in its exquisite and sometimes mind-bending
    detail, you will see that it is a very aggressive and very specific
    first step; I would argue, the most aggressive and the most specific
    first step that any nation on this planet has taken in the face of
    perhaps the biggest environmental threat to this planet.
        The task is accomplished primarily by harnessing private market
    forces, by leveraging modest Government expenditures to create a much
    larger set of private sector investments, and by establishing new
    public-private partnerships to bring out our best research and our best
    technologies. This plan takes the environmental debate where it should
    have been years ago, beyond a confrontation over ideology to a
    conversation about ideas, beyond polemics to real progress.
        On Earth Day I made a commitment to reduce our emissions of
    greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by the year 2000. And I asked for a
    blueprint on how to achieve this goal. In concert with all other
    nations, we simply must halt global warming. It is a threat to our
    health, to our ecology, and to our economy. I know that the precise
    magnitude and patterns of climate change cannot be fully predicted. But
    global warming clearly is a growing, long-term threat with profound
    consequences. And make no mistake about it, it will take decades to
    reverse. But the first step is before us today. And because most of our
    recommendations do not require legislation, something which will
    doubtless please the Congress with all the burdens they have already on
    their plate, we can take action on our plan beginning today.
        This plan is the result, as the Vice President has said, of genuine
    collaboration based on solid scientific and economic analysis, including
    funding to back up each and every proposal it contains. Like the
    announcement of our clean car initiative last month, this approach to
    global warming encourages public-private cooperation across a spectrum
    of economic, technological, and environmental questions. There are 50
    separate initiatives in this plan, touching every sector of our economy
    because the problem, frankly, affects every sector of the economy. There
    are measures to improve energy efficiencies in commercial buildings and
    to make better household appliances. There are new agreements with
    public utilities to reduce greenhouse gases and new public-private
    ventures to increase the efficiency of industrial motors.
        The plan will make it possible for all Americans to purchase
    appliances unlike any we own today. When your furnace dies or your
    washer breaks, you'll be able to go to a local store and buy a new
    appliance much more efficient than any you can buy today, and one that
    will save money in its operation. The energy savings we achieve will
    lower the cost of doing business in America and make us more competitive
    on the world market and more prosperous here at home. And the
    investments generated by this plan will create jobs in the sectors that
    make, install, and use energy efficient and pollution-cutting
    technologies.
        Finally, to meet the challenge of global warming, as I have said
    with regard to cutting the deficit and reforming health care and in so
    many other areas, we frankly must all take some more personal
    responsibility. We will all benefit environmental and economically from
    the actions we are proposing today, and it will take all of us to make
    this plan work. So I say to all the American people: If your utility
    offers you help

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    in conserving energy in your own home, seize it. If you own a business
    and the EPA offers you a chance to join the Green Lights program, do it.
    If you run a factory and the Department of Energy offers you a plan to
    help install an efficient motor system, use it. You will save money, and
    you will help your country and your fellow citizens.
        This plan isn't designed for an archive. It's designed for action,
    for rapid implementation, constant monitoring, and for adjustments as
    necessary to meet our goals. It's part of a long-range strategy that
    includes the establishment of a team here in the White House to identify
    and implement those policies which will continue the trend of reduced
    emissions.
        The action plan reestablishes the United States as a world leader in
    protecting the global climate. I urge other industrial countries to move
    rapidly to produce plans as detailed, as realistic, and as achievable as
    ours. This initiative gives us a chance, a very, very good chance to
    reduce greenhouse gases, grow our economy, and create a new high-skill,
    high-wage job base in America.
        We take pride here in this country in the love we have for our land,
    in our leadership among nations, in our ability to set new goals and
    solve new challenges. Today we have given life to those values again.
    And through them, we will help to build a healthier environment and a
    stronger economy for decades to come. We also will help to meet our
    moral obligation to ourselves, our neighbors around the world, and most
    important, to our children.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 12:27 p.m. on the South Lawn at the White
    House. In his remarks, he referred to John H. Gibbons, Assistant to the
    President for Science and Technology.