    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book I)]
    [June 26, 1997]
    [Pages 826-828]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the United Nations Special Session on Environment and
    Development in New York City
    June 26, 1997

        Thank you very much. Mr. President, Mr. Secretary-General, ladies
    and gentlemen: Five years ago in Rio, the nations of the world joined
    together around a simple but revolutionary

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    proposition, that today's progress must not come at tomorrow's expense.
        In our era, the environment has moved to the top of the
    international agenda because how well a nation honors it will have an
    impact, for good or ill, not only on the people of that nation but all
    across the globe. Preserving the resources we share is crucial not only
    for the quality of our individual environments and health but also to
    maintain stability and peace within nations and among them. As the
    father of conservation in our Nation, John Muir, said, ``When we try to
    pick anything out by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in
    the universe.''
        In the years since Rio, there has been real progress in some areas.
    Nations have banned the dumping of radioactive wastes in the ocean and
    reduced marine pollution from sources on land. We're working to protect
    the precious coral reefs, to conserve threatened fish, to stop the
    advance of deserts. At the Cairo Conference on Population and
    Development, we reaffirmed the crucial importance of cooperative family
    planning efforts to long-term sustainable development.
        Here in America, we have worked to clean up a record number of our
    toxic dumps, and we intend to clean 500 more over the next 4 years. We
    passed new laws to better protect our water, created new national parks
    and monuments, and worked to harmonize our efforts for environmental
    protection, economic growth, and social improvement, aided by a
    distinguished Council on Sustainable Development.
        Yesterday I announced the most far-reaching efforts to improve air
    quality in our Nation in 20 years, cutting smog levels dramatically and,
    for the first time ever, setting standards to lower the levels of the
    fine particles in the atmosphere that form soot. In America, the
    incidence of childhood asthma has been increasing rapidly. It is now the
    single biggest reason our children are hospitalized. These measures will
    help to change that, to improve health of people of all ages, and to
    prevent as many as 15,000 premature deaths a year. Still, we here have
    much more to do, especially in reducing America's contribution to global
    climate change.
        The science is clear and compelling: We humans are changing the
    global climate. Concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are
    at their highest levels in more than 200,000 years, and climbing
    sharply. If the trend is not changed, scientists expect the seas to rise
    2 feet or more over the next century. In America, that means 9,000
    square miles of Florida, Louisiana, and other coastal areas will be
    flooded. In Asia, 17 percent of Bangladesh, land on which 6 million
    people now live, will be lost. Island chains such as the Maldives will
    disappear from the map, unless we reverse the predictions.
        Climate changes will disrupt agriculture, cause severe droughts and
    floods and the spread of infectious diseases, which will be a big enough
    problem for us under the best of circumstances in the 21st century.
    There could be 50 million or more cases of malaria a year. We can expect
    more deaths from heat stress. Just 2 years ago, here in the United
    States in the city of Chicago, we saw the tragedy of more than 400 of
    our citizens dying during a severe heat wave.
        No nation can escape this danger. None can evade its responsibility
    to confront it. And we must all do our part, industrial nations that
    emit the largest quantities of greenhouse gases today and developing
    nations whose greenhouse gas emissions are growing rapidly. I applaud
    the European Union for its strong focus on this issue and the World Bank
    for setting environmental standards for projects it will finance in the
    developing world.
        Here in the United States, we must do better. With 4 percent of the
    world's population, we already produce more than 20 percent of its
    greenhouse gases. Frankly, our record since Rio is not sufficient. We
    have been blessed with high rates of growth and millions of new jobs
    over the last few years, but that has led to an increase in greenhouse
    gas emissions in spite of the adoption of new conservation practices. So
    we must do better, and we will.
        The air quality action I took on yesterday is a positive first step,
    but more must follow. In order to reduce greenhouse gases and grow the
    economy, we must invest more in the technologies of the future. I am
    directing my Cabinet to work to develop them. Government, universities,
    business, and labor must work together. All these efforts must be
    sustained over years, indeed, over decades. As Vice President Gore said
    Monday, ``Sustainable development requires sustained commitment.'' With
    that commitment, we can succeed.
        We must create new technologies and develop new strategies like
    emissions trading that will both curtail pollution and support continued

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    economic growth. We owe that in the developed world to ourselves and,
    equally, to those in the developing nations. Many of the technologies
    that will help us to meet the new air quality standards can also help us
    to address climate change. This is a challenge we must undertake
    immediately and one in which I personally plan to play a critical role.
        In the United States, in order to do our part, we have to first
    convince the American people and the Congress that the climate change
    problem is real and imminent. I will convene a White House Conference on
    Climate Change later this year to lay the scientific facts before our
    people, to understand that we must act, and to lay the economic facts
    there so that they understand the benefits and the costs. With the best
    ideas and strategies and new technologies and increased productivity and
    energy efficiency, we can turn the challenge to our advantage.
        We will work with our people, and we will bring to the Kyoto
    Conference a strong American commitment to realistic and binding limits
    that will significantly reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases.
        I want to mention three other initiatives briefly that we are taking
    to deal with climate change and to advance sustainable development here
    and beyond our borders.
        First, to help developing nations reduce greenhouse gas emissions,
    the United States will provide $1 billion in assistance over the next 5
    years to support energy efficiency, develop alternative energy sources,
    and improve resource management to promote growth that does not have an
    adverse effect on the climate.
        Second, we will do more to encourage private investment to meet
    environmental standards. The Overseas Private Investment Corporation
    will now require that its projects adhere to new and strengthened
    environmental guidelines, just as our Export-Import Bank already does
    and as I hope our allies and friends soon will. Common guidelines for
    responsible investment clearly would lead to more sustainable growth in
    developing nations.
        Third, we must increase our use of new technologies, even as we move
    to develop more new technologies. Already, we are working with our auto
    industry to produce cars by early in the next century that are 3 times
    as fuel-efficient as today's vehicles. Now we will work with businesses
    and communities to use the Sun's energy to reduce our reliance on fossil
    fuels by installing solar panels on one million more roofs around our
    Nation by 2010. Capturing the Sun's warmth can help us to turn down the
    Earth's temperature.
        Distinguished leaders, in all of our cultures we have been taught
    from time immemorial that, as Scripture says, ``One generation passes
    away and another comes, but the Earth abides forever.'' We must
    strengthen our stewardship of the environment to make that true and to
    ensure that when this generation passes, the young man who just spoke
    before me and all of those of his generation will inherit a rich and
    abundant Earth.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 6:30 p.m. in the United Nations General
    Assembly. In his remarks, he referred to General Assembly President
    Razali Ismail and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.