[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book II)]
[July 24, 1997]
[Pages 993-995]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks During a Discussion on Climate Change
July 24, 1997

    The President. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, first let me thank 
you for being here--members of the administration and concerned members 
of the public, the scientists, and other experts that are here.
    I would also like to say a special word of thanks to the Vice 
President. In one of our earliest meetings together--we meet once a week 
and have lunch--he went over the whole history of greenhouse gas 
emissions and climatic change. And I became convinced first that he was 
convinced that something was wrong. [Laughter] Then I became convinced 
something was wrong. And it's been a great help to me and I believe to 
the people of the United States to have him in the position that he's 
in, not only with the convictions that he has but with the knowledge 
that he has. And I'm very grateful to him for what he has done to help 
me come to grips with this issue.
    To me, we have to see this whole issue of climate change in terms of 
our deepest obligations to future generations. I have spent most of my 
time in the last 4\1/2\ years trying to prepare the American people for 
a new century and a new millennium. It is also very important that we 
protect the Earth for that new millennium, to make sure that people will 
be able to take advantage of all the things we are trying to do, the 
opportunities we are trying to create, the problems we are trying to 
solve.
    It is obvious that we cannot fulfill our responsibilities to future 
generations unless we deal responsibly with the challenge of climate 
change. Whenever the security of our country has been threatened, we 
have led the world to a better resolution. That is what is at stake 
here. And the scientists have come here to explain why.
    As the Vice President said, the overwhelming balance of evidence and 
scientific opinion is that it is no longer a theory but now a fact that 
global warming is for real. The world scientists believe that if we 
don't cut our emissions of greenhouse gases, we will disrupt the global 
climate. In fact, there is ample evidence that human activities are 
already disrupting the global climate and that if we stay on our current 
course, the average global temperatures may rise 2 to 6 degrees 
Fahrenheit during the next century. To put that in some context, the 
difference in average temperature between the last ice age, which was 
10,000 to 12,000 years ago--10,000 to 12,000 years ago--and today, is 
about 9 degrees Fahrenheit. So we could have two-thirds of that change 
in 100 years unless we do something.

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    If we fail to act, scientists expect that our seas will rise 1 to 3 
feet, and thousands of square miles here in the United States, in 
Florida, Louisiana, and other coastal areas will be flooded. Infectious 
diseases will spread to new regions. Severe heat waves will claim lives. 
Agriculture will suffer. Severe droughts and floods will be more common. 
These are the things that are reasonably predictable.
    In the face of this, the United States must confront a challenge 
that in some ways is the most difficult of all democracy's challenges to 
face. That is, we have evidence, we see the train coming, but most 
ordinary Americans in their day-to-day lives can't hear the whistle 
blowing. Unless they have lived in a place where they have experienced 
severe and unusual and completely atypical weather disruptions in the 
last 5 years or so, the degree of the challenge is inconsistent with the 
actual perceived experience of most ordinary Americans. And this is 
true, indeed, throughout the world. And that presents us our challenge.
    A democracy is premised on the proposition that if the American 
people, or any people in any democracy, know what the facts are and 
believe them, way more than half the time they will do the right thing. 
And so what we are doing today is beginning a process in which we ask 
the American people to listen to the evidence, to measure it against 
their own experience, but not to discount the weight of scientific 
authority if their own experience does not yet confirm what the 
overwhelming percentage of scientists believe to be fact today. This is 
a great exercise and a great test for our democracy.
    I do want to say that I am convinced that when the nations of the 
world meet in Kyoto, Japan, in December on this issue, the United States 
has got to be committed to realistic and binding limits on our emissions 
of greenhouse gases. Between now and then, we have to work with the 
American people to get them to share that commitment. We have to 
emphasize flexible market-based approaches. We have to embrace research 
and development efforts in technology that will help us to improve the 
economy--improve the environment while permitting our economy to grow. 
We have to ask all nations, both industrial and developing, to 
participate in this process.
    But if we do this together, we can defuse this threat. And we can 
make the 21st century what it ought to be, not only for our children but 
for all the children of the world. I believe the science demands that we 
face this challenge now. I'm positive that we owe it to our children. 
And I hope that we can find the wisdom and the skill to do democracy's 
work in the next few months, to build the consensus necessary to 
actually make action, as opposed to rhetoric, possible. And for all of 
you for your commitment to that, I thank you.
    And now I'd like to ask Dr. Rowland to be the first of our 
distinguished scientists to lead off.
    Doctor.

[At this point, the discussion proceeded.]

    The President. Let me again thank you all for your patience and your 
interest. I think we should give our panelists and scientists another 
hand. [Applause] I wish every American could hear what we've heard 
today. But thanks to our friends in the media, a good number of them 
will hear at least a portion of what we have heard today. And this is 
the beginning of a consistent long-term effort that we all have to make 
to involve the people of this country in this decision. And I thank you 
all for the points you've made because in different ways each of them 
will resonate with citizens of this country in a way that I believe will 
give us the support we need to take the action that has to be taken.
    In the weeks and months ahead, the Vice President, the Cabinet, 
other members of the administration, and I will be out in the country 
discussing this. We'll be working with the American people. We'll be 
talking about solutions as well as problems. The truth is, it's like 
anything else--the quicker you get--another answer Dr. Holdren might 
have given is that the quicker you get after this, the less extreme the 
remedy you have to embrace to have a measurable effect to avoid an 
undesirable outcome. And the longer you wait, the more disruptive the 
ultimate resolution will be. So that's another thing that I'd like to 
emphasize.

Death of William J. Brennan, Jr.

    Before we close, I hope you will permit me to make a brief 
statement. Just before I came in here to this meeting, I learned that 
today, and not very long ago, retired Supreme Court Justice William 
Brennan passed away. He was a remarkable human being, one of the finest 
and most influential jurists in our Nation's history. He served on the 
Supreme Court for 34

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years. He was perhaps during that period the staunchest, most effective 
defender of individual freedom against Government intrusion. His 
devotion to the Bill of Rights inspired millions of Americans and 
countless young law students, including myself. And one of the great 
honors I have had as President was to be able to award him the 
Presidential Medal of Freedom in my first year in office.
    He once said the role of the Constitution is the protection of the 
dignity of every human being and the recognition that every individual 
has fundamental rights which Government cannot deny. He spent a lifetime 
upholding those rights, and he authored some of the most enduring 
constitutional decisions of this century, including Baker v. Carr, on 
one person, one vote; The New York Times v. Sullivan, which brought the 
free speech doctrine into the latter half of the 20th century. The force 
of his ideas, the strength of his leadership and his character have 
safeguarded freedom and widened the circle of quality for every single 
one of us.
    We will miss him greatly. And I know you join me in sending our best 
wishes and our prayers to his family and friends, and our gratitude for 
his life.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 1:57 p.m. in the East Room at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to discussion participants F. 
Sherwood Rowland, professor, University of California at Irvine, and 
John Holdren, professor, Harvard University. The proclamation on the 
death of William J. Brennan, Jr., is listed in Appendix D at the end of 
this volume.