    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
    [September 15, 1999]
    [Pages 1537-1540]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks on Antarctica and Climate Change, in Christchurch, New Zealand
    September 15, 1999

        Thank you very much. Good afternoon. Prime Minister
    Shipley, Burton
    and Anna and Ben; and
    Sir Edmund Hillary and Lady Hillary; Ambassadors Beeman and
    Bolger, and their wives; to Mayor Moore: Dr. Erb, Dr. Benton, Mr. Mace, Dr.
    Colwell; to all of those who have made our
    visit here so memorable: Let me begin on behalf of my family and my
    party by thanking the officials and the people of New Zealand for giving
    us 5 absolutely glorious days in one of the most beautiful places on
    Earth. We are very grateful.

    Hurricane Floyd

        I hope you will all indulge me just one moment. This is my only
    chance to speak not only to you but to the people of the United States
    today. And since we're here to talk about the weather, you should know
    that my country is facing one of the most serious hurricanes ever to
    threaten the United States, if the predictions of its force and scope
    hold true.
        This morning I signed an emergency declaration for the States of
    Florida and Georgia to provide for assistance for emergency protective
    and preventive measures. I have been in close contact with our Vice
    President, Al Gore, and our Director of
    Emergency Management, James Lee Witt. They
    are working around the clock to prepare for the storm. I ask all of you
    here to remember my fellow Americans, and after we finish the state
    dinner tonight, I am going to fly home, and we will make the best job of
    it we can.

    Antarctica and Climate Change

        Let me say I am particularly honored to be here with Sir Edmund
    Hillary, referred to in our family as my
    second favorite Hillary. [Laughter] I read that, when Sir Edmund turned
    50, he resolved to do three things: to build a house on the cliffs above
    the Tasman Sea; to become a better skier; to do a grand traverse up the
    peaks of Mt. Cook. I'm wondering what he resolved to do when he turned
    80. I hear the All Blacks may have a new fullback. [Laughter] I wish you
    a happy 80th birthday, sir, and I wish all of us might lead lives half
    so full and productive as yours.
        I come here to this beautiful city and to this place to deepen a
    partnership between the United States and New Zealand that is already
    long and strong. In this century, young Americans and New Zealanders
    have fought again and again side by side to turn back tyranny and to
    defend democracy. We have worked together on peacekeeping missions. We
    have stood together for expanded opportunity for our people through
    trade. We even let you borrow the America's Cup from time to time.
    [Laughter] We hope to reverse our generosity shortly. [Laughter] We are
    grateful for your friendship, and we thank you for it.

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        This magnificent center stands as a symbol of what we can accomplish
    when we work together, and I would argue is a symbol of what will be
    most important about our cooperation in the 21st century.
        You heard Sir Edmund talk about his trip
    across Antarctica. When he started it, some people called it the last
    great journey on Earth. As I was reading about it, I understand that he
    actually overheard one farmer ask another, ``That there Antarctica, how
    many sheep do they run to the acre?'' [Laughter]
        But America believed in his mission and
    has long been fascinated with Antarctica. Way back in 1820, Nathaniel
    Brown Palmer was one of the first people to sight it. A few years later,
    an American exploring expedition mapped more than 1,500 miles of the
    Antarctic coast, ending a centuries-old debate over whether a big land
    mass, in fact, existed around the South Pole.
        Forty years ago, inspired in part by Sir Edmund's expedition, the United States convened a meeting in
    Washington to preserve the Antarctic forever as a haven for peace and
    scientific cooperation. Today, we can all be proud that not a single
    provision of the Antarctic Treaty has ever been violated. Forty-three
    nations, representing two-thirds of the world's population, adhere to
    the treaty. And the Antarctic is what it should be, a treasure held in
    trust for every person on the planet.
        We are working together to preserve the pristine waters surrounding
    the continent, and fighting illegal fishing that threatens to destroy
    species in the southern ocean.
        For the United States and New Zealand, our commitments to Antarctica
    are based right here in Christchurch. Nearly 7 out of 10 United States
    expeditions to the Antarctic are staged from here. And let me say, the
    only disappointment I have about this trip is that I didn't stage an
    expedition from here. [Laughter] So I want you to know, I expect that
    you will let me come back one more time, so I can fulfill my lifelong
    desire to go to Antarctica.
        I think, of all the work being done here, perhaps the most important
    to us and to the young people here, particularly, over the next 20 years
    will be the work that tells us about the nature of climate change and
    what it is doing to the ice cap here, to the water levels around the
    world, and to the way of life that we want for our children and our
    grandchildren.
        The overwhelming consensus of world scientific opinion is that
    greenhouse gases from human activity are raising the Earth's temperature
    in a rapid and unsustainable way. The 5 warmest years since the 15th
    century have all been in the 1990's; 1998 was the warmest year ever
    recorded, eclipsing the record set just the year before, in 1997.
        Unless we change course, most scientists believe the seas will rise
    so high they will swallow whole islands and coastal areas. Storms, like
    hurricanes and droughts, both will intensify. Diseases like malaria will
    be borne by mosquitoes to higher and higher altitudes, and across
    borders, threatening more lives, a phenomenon we already see today in
    Africa.
        A few years ago, hikers discovered a 5,000-year-old man in the
    Italian Alps. You might think someone would have noticed him before.
    They didn't because the ice hadn't melted where he was before--in 5,000
    years. If the same thing were to happen to the west Antarctic ice sheet,
    God forbid--it's a remote threat now, but it could occur one day; and if
    it did, sea levels worldwide would rise by as much as 20 feet. If that
    happens, not even Augie Auer will be able to save
    us from the weather. [Laughter] Now, I want you to laugh about it
    because I figure when people laugh, they listen. But this is a very
    serious thing.
        In 1992, the nations of the world began to address this challenge at
    the Earth Summit in Rio. Five years later, 150 nations made more
    progress toward that goal in Kyoto, Japan. But we still have so much
    more to do. America and New Zealand, in no small measure because of our
    understanding, which the Prime Minister so eloquently articulated a few
    moments ago, because of our understanding of the significance of
    Antarctica and the work we have done here to make this a refuge of
    scientific inquiry, have special responsibilities in this area.
        Of course, we have a big responsibility because America produces
    more greenhouse gases than any other country in the world. I have
    offered an aggressive program to reduce that production in every area.
    We are also mindful that emissions are growing in the developing world
    even more rapidly than in the developed world, and we have a
    responsibility there.
        But I wanted to say today--and if you don't remember anything else I
    say, I hope you will remember this--the largest obstacle to meeting the
    challenge of climate change is not the huge

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    array of wealthy vested interests and the tens of thousands of ordinary
    people around the world who work in the oil and the coal industries, the
    burning of which produce these greenhouse gases. The largest obstacle is
    the continued clinging of people in wealthy countries and developing
    countries to a big idea that is no longer true, the idea that the only
    way a country can become wealthy and remain wealthy is to have the
    patterns of energy use that brought us the industrial age. In other
    words, if you're not burning more oil and coal this year than you were
    last year, you're not getting richer; you're not creating more jobs;
    you're not lifting more children out of poverty. That is no longer true.
        We now know that technologies that permit breathtaking advances in
    energy conservation and the use of alternative forms of energy make it
    possible to grow the economy faster while healing the environment and
    that--thank God--it is no longer necessary to burn up the atmosphere to
    create economic opportunity.
        We have somehow got to convince a critical mass of decisionmakers
    and ordinary citizens in every nation of the world that that is true. It
    will help to concentrate their attention if the people who know about
    Antarctica can illustrate, year-in and year-out, in graphic terms, the
    consequences of ignoring climate change and global warming.
        We are committed to doing more at home and to do more to help
    developing nations bring on these technologies, so they can improve
    living standards and improve the environment. We can do this. We can do
    it in the same way that progress is being made in dealing with the ozone
    layer. Consider that example, something again which we know more about,
    thanks to the work of scientists here.
        Because of chemicals we produced and released into the atmosphere
    over the past 50 years, every spring a hole appears in the ozone layer
    above Antarctica. You already heard, and you know more about it than any
    country in the world, about the unhealthy levels of ultraviolet
    radiation which pass through. Now, every Kiwi school child who has
    participated in Block Day knows what it means, why you have to have
    sunscreen and a hat.
        But in 1987, the international community came together in Montreal
    and agreed to stop the use of chemicals that deplete the ozone layer.
    Experts tell us if we keep going, the ozone hole will shrink, and by the
    middle of the next century, the ozone hole could actually close, so
    that, miracle of miracles, we would have a problem created by people,
    solved by people and their development. This is the sort of thing we
    have to do with climate change, and the stakes are even higher.
        The Antarctic is a great cooling tower for our planet, a great
    learning tower for our planet's scientists. What happens to it will
    determine weather all over the globe and will determine the patterns of
    life of the children here in this audience and certainly of their
    children and grandchildren. It is a bridge to our future and a window on
    our past.
        Right now, the ice is 2 miles thick and goes back more than 400,000
    years. By studying the patterns of the past, scientists will be able to
    tell us what will likely happen in the future and how we are changing
    the future from the past based on what we are doing.
        So much of what we know today from global climate patterns comes
    also from satellite images. But scientists have never had detailed
    images of key parts of the Antarctic to work with until today. So I
    wanted to come here with one small contribution to the marvelous work
    that all of our people are doing here. Today America is releasing once
    classified satellite images of the Antarctic's unique dry valleys. The
    pictures provide two sets of images taken 10 years apart and provides
    some of the most detailed and important information we've ever had on
    these ecological treasures. Last month Vice President Gore did the same thing for the Arctic. Both these releases
    will help scientists understand changes taking place at the poles and
    help us take another step toward meeting the challenge of a warming
    planet.
        This is a special challenge for our young people. We have used the
    Internet, through an initiative called the Globe program, to teach
    students in more than 50 countries that a grasp of science and ecology
    is the first step toward a cleaner world. I am pleased that, working
    with Prime Minister Shipley, we are also
    going to establish a new Globe program for children right here in New
    Zealand.
        When Sir Edmund Hillary made his trek, the Antarctic was the last
    new place humanity looked before turning its attention to the stars. In
    less than 4 months, all humanity will be looking forward to the promise
    of a new century and a new millennium. When the dawn breaks

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    on January 1st, the international timeline tells us that New Zealand
    literally will lead the world into a new age.
        Let us vow, in this place of first light, to act in the spirit of
    the Antarctic Treaty, to conquer the new challenges that face us in the
    new millennium. Let us work with the determination of Sir Edmund Hillary
    to strengthen our partnership, to keep our air and water clean and our
    future alive for our children. We owe it to the children of New Zealand,
    the children of the United States, and the children of the world. And we
    can do it.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 1:38 p.m. in the courtyard at the
    International Antarctic Centre. In his remarks, he referred to Prime
    Minister Jennifer Shipley, her husband, Burton, and their children, Anna
    and Ben; Sir Edmund Hillary, polar explorer and first man to climb Mount
    Everest, and his wife, June; U.S. Ambassador to New Zealand Josiah H.
    Beeman, and his wife Susan; New Zealand Ambassador to the U.S. James B.
    Bolger, and his wife, Joan; Mayor Gary Moore of Christchurch; Karl A.
    Erb, Director, Office of Polar Programs, and Rita R. Colwell, Director,
    National Science Foundation; Richard Benton, General Manager, Visitor
    Centre, International Antarctic Centre; Christopher Mace, Chairman,
    Antarctic New Zealand; and New Zealand weather forecaster Augie Auer.