    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book II)]
    [October 22, 1997]
    [Pages 1408-1412]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the National Geographic Society
    October 22, 1997

        Thank you very much, Mr. Murphy, Mr. Vice President, all of you who
    are here. I thank especially the Members of Congress who are here, the
    leaders of labor and business who are here, all the members of the
    administration, and especially the White House staff members that the
    Vice President mentioned and the Secretary of Energy, the Administrator
    of EPA, and the others who have helped us to come to this moment.
        On the way in here, we were met by the leaders of the National
    Geographic, and I complimented them on their recent two-part series on
    the Roman Empire. It's a fascinating story of how the Empire rose, how
    it sustained itself for hundreds of years, why it fell, and speculations
    on what, if any, relevance it might have to the United States and,
    indeed, the West. And one of the gentlemen said, ``Well, you know, we
    got a lot of interesting comments on that, including a letter
    referencing a statue we had of the bust of Emperor Vespasian. And one of
    our readers said, `Why in the world did you put a statue of Gene Hackman
    in a piece on the Roman Empire?' '' [Laughter]
        And I say that basically to say, in some senses, the more things
    change, the more they remain the same. [Laughter] For what sustains any
    civilization, and now what will sustain all of our civilizations, is the
    constant effort at renewal, the ability to avoid denial, and to proceed
    into the future in a way that is realistic and humane but resolute.
        Six years ago tomorrow, not long after I started running for
    President, I went back to my alma mater at Georgetown and began a series
    of three speeches outlining my vision for America in the 21st century:
    How we could keep the American dream alive for all of our people; how we
    could maintain America's leadership for peace and freedom and
    prosperity; and how we could come together, across the lines that divide
    us, as one America.
        And together, we've made a lot of progress in the last nearly 5
    years now that the Vice President and I have been privileged to work at
    this task. At the threshold of a new century, our economy is thriving,
    our social fabric is mending, we've helped to lead the world toward
    greater peace and cooperation.
        I think this has happened, in no small measure, in part, because we
    had a different philosophy about the role of Government. Today, it is
    smaller and more focused and more oriented toward giving people the
    tools and the conditions they need to solve their own problems and
    toward working in partnership with our citizens. More important, I
    believe it's happened because we made tough choices but not false
    choices.
        On the economy, we made the choice to balance the budget and to
    invest in our people

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    and our future. On crime, we made the choice to be tough and smart about
    prevention and changing the conditions in which crime occurs. On
    welfare, we made the choice to require work but also to support the
    children of people who have been on welfare. On families, we made the
    choice to help parents find more and better jobs and to have the
    necessary time and resources for their children. And on the environment,
    we made the choice to clean our air, water, and land, to improve our
    food supply and to grow the economy.
        This kind of commonsense approach, rooted in our most basic values
    and our enduring optimism about the capacity of free people to meet the
    challenges of every age, must be brought to bear on the work that
    remains to pave the way for our people and for the world toward a new
    century and a new millennium.
        Today, we have a clear responsibility and a golden opportunity to
    conquer one of the most important challenges of the 21st century, the
    challenge of climate change, with an environmentally sound and
    economically strong strategy to achieve meaningful reductions in
    greenhouse gases in the United States and throughout the industrialized
    and the developing world. It is a strategy that, if properly
    implemented, will create a wealth of new opportunities for entrepreneurs
    at home, uphold our leadership abroad, and harness the power of free
    markets to free our planet from an unacceptable risk. This strategy is
    consistent with our commitment to reject false choices. America can
    stand up for our national interest and stand up for the common interests
    of the international community. America can build on prosperity today
    and ensure a healthy planet for our children tomorrow.
        In so many ways the problem of climate change reflects the new
    realities of the new century. Many previous threats could be met within
    our own borders, but global warming requires an international solution.
    Many previous threats came from single enemies, but global warming
    derives from millions of sources. Many previous threats posed clear and
    present danger; global warming is far more subtle, warning us not with
    roaring tanks or burning rivers but with invisible gases, slow changes
    in our surroundings, increasingly severe climatic disruptions that,
    thank God, have not yet hit home for most Americans. But make no
    mistake, the problem is real. And if we do not change our course now,
    the consequences sooner or later will be destructive for America and for
    the world.
        The vast majority of the world's climate scientists have concluded
    that if the countries of the world do not work together to cut the
    emission of greenhouse gases, then temperatures will rise and will
    disrupt the climate. In fact, most scientists say the process has
    already begun. Disruptive weather events are increasing. Disease-bearing
    insects are moving to areas that used to be too cold for them. Average
    temperatures are rising. Glacial formations are receding.
        Scientists don't yet know what the precise consequences will be. But
    we do know enough now to know that the industrial age has dramatically
    increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, where they take a century
    or more to dissipate, and that the process must be slowed, then stopped,
    then reduced if we want to continue our economic progress and preserve
    the quality of life in the United States and throughout our planet. We
    know what we have to do.
        Greenhouse gas emissions are caused mostly by the inefficient
    burning of coal or oil for energy. Roughly a third of these emissions
    come from industry, a third from transportation, a third from
    residential and commercial buildings. In each case, the conversion of
    fuel to energy use is extremely inefficient and could be made much
    cleaner with existing technologies or those already on the horizon, in
    ways that will not weaken the economy but in fact will add to our
    strength in new businesses and new jobs. If we do this properly, we will
    not jeopardize our prosperity, we will increase it.
        With that principle in mind, I'm announcing the instruction I'm
    giving to our negotiators as they pursue a realistic and effective
    international climate change treaty. And I'm announcing a far-reaching
    proposal that provides flexible market-based and cost-effective ways to
    achieve meaningful reductions here in America. I want to emphasize that
    we cannot wait until the treaty is negotiated and ratified to act. The
    United States has less than 5 percent of the world's people, enjoys 22
    percent of the world's wealth, but emits more than 25 percent of the
    world's greenhouse gases. We must begin now to take out our insurance
    policy on the future.
        In the international climate negotiations, the United States will
    pursue a comprehensive framework that includes three elements, which,
    taken together, will enable us to build a strong and robust global
    agreement. First, the United

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    States proposes at Kyoto that we commit to the binding and realistic
    target of returning to emissions of 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012.
    And we should not stop there. We should commit to reduce emissions below
    1990 levels in the 5-year period thereafter, and we must work toward
    further reductions in the years ahead.
        The industrialized nations tried to reduce emissions to 1990 levels
    once before with a voluntary approach, but regrettably, most of us,
    including especially the United States, fell short. We must find new
    resolve to achieve these reductions, and to do that we simply must
    commit to binding limits.
        Second, we will embrace flexible mechanisms for meeting these
    limits. We propose an innovative joint implementation system that allows
    a firm in one country to invest in a project that reduces emissions in
    another country and receive credit for those reductions at home. And we
    propose an international system of emissions trading. These innovations
    will cut worldwide pollution, keep costs low, and help developing
    countries protect their environment, too, without sacrificing their
    economic growth.
        Third, both industrialized and developing countries must participate
    in meeting the challenge of climate change. The industrialized world
    must lead, but developing countries also must be engaged. The United
    States will not assume binding obligations unless key developing nations
    meaningfully participate in this effort.
        As President Carlos Menem stated forcefully last week when I visited
    him in Argentina, a global problem such as climate change requires a
    global answer. If the entire industrialized world reduces emissions over
    the next several decades but emissions from the developing world
    continue to grow at their current pace, concentrations of greenhouse
    gasses in the atmosphere will continue to climb. Developing countries
    have an opportunity to chart a different energy future consistent with
    their growth potential and their legitimate economic aspirations. What
    Argentina, with dramatic projected economic growth, recognizes is true
    for other countries as well: We can and we must work together on this
    problem in a way that benefits us all.
        Here at home, we must move forward by unleashing the full power of
    free markets and technological innovations to meet the challenge of
    climate change. I propose a sweeping plan to provide incentives and lift
    roadblocks to help our companies and our citizens find new and creative
    ways of reducing greenhouse gas emissions:
        First, we must enact tax cuts and make research and development
    investments worth up to $5 billion over the next 5 years, targeted
    incentives to encourage energy efficiency and the use of cleaner energy
    sources.
        Second, we must urge companies to take early actions to reduce
    emissions by ensuring that they receive appropriate credit for showing
    the way.
        Third, we must create a market system for reducing emissions
    wherever they can be achieved most inexpensively, here or abroad, a
    system that will draw on our successful experience with acid rain permit
    trading.
        Fourth, we must reinvent how the Federal Government, the Nation's
    largest energy consumer, buys and uses energy. Through new technology,
    renewable energy resources, innovative partnerships with private firms,
    and assessments of greenhouse gas emissions from major Federal projects,
    the Federal Government will play an important role in helping our Nation
    to meet its goal. Today, as a downpayment on our million solar roof
    initiative, I commit the Federal Government to have 20,000 systems on
    Federal buildings by 2010.
        Fifth, we must unleash competition in the electricity industry, to
    remove outdated regulations and save Americans billions of dollars. We
    must do it in a way that leads to even greater progress in cleaning our
    air and delivers a significant downpayment in reducing greenhouse gas
    emissions. Today, two-thirds of the energy used to provide electricity
    is squandered in waste heat. We can do much, much better.
        Sixth, we must continue to encourage key industry sectors to prepare
    their own greenhouse gas reduction plans. And we must, along with State
    and local government, remove the barriers to the most energy efficient
    usage possible. There are ways the Federal Government can help industry
    to achieve meaningful reductions voluntarily, and we will redouble our
    efforts to do so.
        This plan is sensible and sound. Since it's a long-term problem
    requiring a long-term solution, it will be phased in over time. But we
    want to get moving now. We will start with our package of strong market
    incentives, tax cuts, and cooperative efforts with industry. We

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    want to stimulate early action and encourage leadership. And as we
    reduce our emissions over the next decade with these efforts, we will
    perform regular reviews to see what works best for the environment, the
    economy, and our national security. After we have accumulated a decade
    of experience, a decade of data, a decade of technological innovation,
    we will launch a broad emissions trading initiative to ensure that we
    hit our binding targets. At that time, if there are dislocations caused
    by the changing patterns of energy use in America, we have a moral
    obligation to respond to those to help the workers and the enterprises
    affected, no less than we do today by any change in our economy which
    affects people through no fault of their own.
        This plan plays to our strengths: innovation, creativity,
    entrepreneurship. Our companies already are showing the way by
    developing tremendous environmental technologies and implementing
    commonsense conservation solutions.
        Just yesterday Secretary Pena announced a dramatic breakthrough in
    fuel cell technology, funded by the Department of Energy research, a
    breakthrough that will clear the way toward developing cars that are
    twice as efficient as today's models and reduce pollution by 90 percent.
    The breakthrough was made possible by our pathbreaking partnership with
    the auto industry to create a new generation of vehicles. A different
    design, producing similar results, has been developed by a project
    funded by the Defense Advanced Research Products Agency and the Commerce
    Department's National Institute of Science and Technology.
         The Energy Department discovery is amazing in what it does. Today,
    gasoline is used very inefficiently in internal combustion engines;
    about 80 percent of its energy capacity is lost. The DOE project
    announced yesterday by A.D. Little and Company uses 84 percent of the
    gasoline directly going into the fuel cell. That's increased efficiency
    of more than 4 times traditional engine usage.
        And I might add, from the point of view of all the people that are
    involved in the present system, continuing to use gasoline means that
    you don't have to change any of the distribution systems that are out
    there. It's a very important but by no means the only discovery that's
    been made that points the way toward the future we have to embrace.
        I also want to emphasize, however, that most of the technologies
    available for meeting this goal through market mechanisms are already
    out there; we simply have to take advantage of them. For example, in the
    town of West Branch, Iowa, a science teacher named Hector Ibarra
    challenged his sixth graders to apply their classroom experiments to
    making their school more energy efficient. The class got a $14,000 loan
    from a local bank and put in place easily available solutions. The
    students cut the energy use in their school by 70 percent. Their savings
    were so impressive that the bank decided to upgrade its own energy
    efficiency. [Laughter] Following the lead of these sixth graders--
    [laughter]--other major companies in America have shown similar results.
    You have only to look at the proven results achieved by companies like
    Southwire, Dow Chemical, DuPont, Kraft, Interface Carpetmakers, and any
    number of others in every sector of our economy to see what can be done.
        Our industries have produced a large group of efficient new
    refrigerators, computers, washer/dryers, and other appliances that use
    far less energy, save money, and cut pollution. The revolution in
    lighting alone is truly amazing. One compact fluorescent lamp, used by
    one person over its lifetime, can save nearly a ton of carbon dioxide
    emissions from the atmosphere and save the consumer money.
        If over the next 15 years everyone were to buy only those energy-
    efficient products marked in stores with EPA's distinctive ``Energy
    Star'' label, we could shrink our energy bills by a total of about $100
    billion over the next 15 years and dramatically cut greenhouse gas
    emissions.
        Despite these win-win innovations and commitments that are emerging
    literally every day, I know full well that some will criticize our
    targets and timetables as too ambitious. And of course, others will say
    we haven't gone far enough. But before the debate begins in earnest,
    let's remember that over the past generation we've produced tremendous
    environmental progress, including in the area of energy efficiency, at
    far less expense than anyone could have imagined. And in the process,
    whole new industries have been built.
        In the past three decades, while our economy has grown, we have
    raised, not lowered, the standards for the water our children drink.
    While our factories have been expanding, we

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    have required them to clean up their toxic waste. While we've had record
    numbers of new homes, our refrigerators save more energy and more money
    for our consumers.
        In 1970, when smog was choking our cities, the Federal Government
    proposed new standards for tailpipe emissions. Many environmental
    leaders claimed the standards would do little to head off catastrophe.
    Industry experts predicted the cost of compliance would devastate the
    industry. It turned out both sides were wrong. Both underestimated the
    ingenuity of the American people. Auto makers comply with today's much
    stricter emissions standards for far less than half the cost predicted,
    and new cars emit on average only 5 percent of the pollutants of the
    cars built in 1970.
        We've seen this pattern over and over and over again. We saw it when
    we joined together in the seventies to restrict the use of the
    carcinogen vinyl chloride. Some in the plastics industry predicted
    massive bankruptcies, but chemists discovered more cost-effective
    substitutes and the industry thrived. We saw this when we phased out
    lead in gasoline. And we see it in our acid rain trading program, now 40
    percent ahead of schedule, at costs less than 50 percent of even the
    most optimistic cost projections. We see it as the chlorofluorocarbons
    are being taken out of the atmosphere at virtually no cost in ways that
    apparently are beginning finally to show some thickening of the ozone
    layer again.
        The lesson here is simple: Environmental initiatives, if sensibly
    designed, flexibly implemented, cost less than expected and provide
    unforeseen economic opportunities. So while we recognize that the
    challenge we take on today is larger than any environmental mission we
    have accepted in the past, climate change can bring us together around
    what America does best: We innovate; we compete; we find solutions to
    problems; and we do it in a way that promotes entrepreneurship and
    strengthens the American economy.
        If we do it right, protecting the climate will yield not costs but
    profits, not burdens but benefits, not sacrifice but a higher standard
    of living. There is a huge body of business evidence now showing that
    energy savings gives better service at lower cost with higher profits.
    We have to tear down barriers to successful markets, and we have to
    create incentives to enter them. I call on American business to lead the
    way, but I call upon government at every level, Federal, State, and
    local, to give business the tools they need to get the job done and also
    to set an example in all our operations.
        And let us remember that the challenge we face today is not simply
    about targets and timetables. It's about our most fundamental values and
    our deepest obligations.
        Later today, I'm going to have the honor of meeting with Ecumenical
    Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of 300 million Orthodox
    Christians, a man who has always stressed the deep obligations inherent
    in God's gift to the natural world. He reminds us that the first part of
    the word ``ecology'' derives from the Greek word for house. In his
    words, in order to change the behavior toward the house we all share, we
    must rediscover spiritual linkages that may have been lost and reassert
    human values. Of course, he is right. It is our solemn obligation to
    move forward with courage and foresight to pass our home on to our
    children and future generations.
        I hope you believe with me that this is just another challenge in
    America's long history, one that we can meet in the way we have met all
    past challenges. I hope that you believe with me that the evidence is
    clear that we can do it in a way that grows the economy, not with denial
    but with a firm and glad embrace of yet another challenge of renewal. We
    should be glad that we are alive today to embrace this challenge, and we
    should do it secure in the knowledge that our children and grandchildren
    will thank us for the endeavor.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 2:57 p.m. in the Gilbert Grosvenor
    Auditorium. In his remarks, he referred to Reg Murphy, president and
    chief executive officer, National Geographic Society.