    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
    [March 22, 2000]
    [Pages 519-521]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks in Agra at the Signing Ceremony for the Indo-United States
    Joint Statement on Energy and the Environment
    March 22, 2000

        Thank you very much, Foreign Minister Singh, Chief Minister Gupta,
    Mayor Maurya, District Commissioner
    Chowdhury, and, especially, Professor
    Mishra. We admire you so much for your
    efforts to save the Ganges. We admire you because for you it is a matter
    of science and faith.
        I want to thank all of you for welcoming me and my daughter and my
    wife's mother, many Members of the United States Congress, the Secretary
    of State, the Secretary of
    Commerce, distinguished members of our
    administration, and our Ambassador here
    today. I want to thank all the environmental leaders from India who have
    come here today.
        One month from this day, we will celebrate across the world the 30th
    anniversary of Earth Day, a day set aside each year to honor our natural
    environment and to reaffirm our responsibility to protect it. In a
    unique way, in India the Earth has been celebrated for more than 30
    centuries. This, after all, is a nation named for a river, a place where
    the Earth and its waters are worshipped as divine.
        With good reason, the people of India have spent centuries worrying
    far less about what we might do to nature and far more about what nature
    can do to us through floods, hurricanes, droughts, and other calamities.
    But as the experience of the beautiful Taj Mahal proves and as the
    struggle to save the Ganges proves, we can no longer ignore man's impact
    on the environment.
        Pollution has managed to do what 350 years of wars, invasions, and
    natural disasters have failed to do. It has begun to mar the magnificent
    walls of the Taj Mahal. Since 1982, protection of the monument has been
    a major priority, and the fight has yielded significant advances. But
    still, a constant effort is required to save the Taj Mahal from human
    environmental degradation, what some scientists call marble cancer. I
    can't help wondering that if a stone can get cancer, what kind of damage
    can this pollution do to children?
        It took the United States a long time to face up to these serious
    environmental questions. Not so many years ago, one of our rivers was so
    polluted, it actually caught on fire. Bad air has made breathing very
    difficult in many of our cities. Acid rain from our cars and our
    factories made it unhealthy to eat the fish from many of our lakes and
    rivers. Over the last generation we have worked very hard to restore our
    natural treasures and to find a way to grow our economy in a way that is
    in harmony with the environment.
        We know that India's remarkable growth has put that same kind of
    pressure on your environment. And the costs of growth are rising every
    year, even along with your prosperity.
        We also know that more and more, the environmental problems of the
    United States or India or any other nation are not just national
    problems. They are global ones. More than any time in history, the
    environmental challenges we face go beyond national borders, and so must
    our solutions. We must work together to protect the environment. That is
    the importance of the agreement Mr. Singh and
    Secretary Albright have signed today.
        There are few areas where that cooperation is needed more than on
    the issues of climate change and clean energy. Here in Agra, you have
    taken important strides since the early 1980's to protect the Taj Mahal
    by using cleaner energy and improving the quality of the air. In
    particular, I commend the work of M.C. Mehta for
    working to establish a pollution-free zone around your national
    treasure. This is local action with global consequences.
        The overwhelming consensus of the world's scientific community is
    that greenhouse gases

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    from human activity are raising the Earth's temperatures in a rapid and
    unsustainable way. The 6 warmest years since the 15th century--200 years
    before the Taj Mahal was built--the 6 warmest years in all that time
    were all recorded in the 1990's.
        Unless we change course, most scientists believe that the warming of
    the climate will bring us more storms and more droughts; that diseases
    like malaria will be borne by mosquitoes across more borders and at
    higher and higher altitudes, threatening more and more lives; that crop
    patterns will be severely disrupted, affecting food supplies; and the
    sea level will rise so high that entire island nations will be
    threatened and coastal areas around the world will be flooded.
        Now, of course if that hit, it is the developing nations that will
    be hurt the most. And India, because of its geography, is one of the
    most vulnerable.
        Today your Government is taking an historic step to move us further
    in the right direction toward both clean energy and reducing climate
    change. I applaud the leadership of Prime Minister Vajpayee for affirming today that India will embrace
    specific national goals for energy efficiency and renewable energy. In
    so doing, India is exercising leadership for the entire world. It will
    clean the air; it will reduce greenhouse gas pollution and global
    warming; and it will be good for your economy.
        As the world's leading producer of greenhouse gases today, the
    United States and the rest of the developed world have a special
    responsibility. With this historic agreement, our two nations will work
    hand-in-hand to help turn India's environmental goals into a reality
    that also supports your economic growth. There are a number of ways in
    which the U.S. will support these efforts.
        First, through the U.S. Agency for International Development, whose
    administrator is here today, we are
    committing $45 million to promote more efficient energy production and
    use in India and $50 million to promote clean energy throughout South
    Asia. Our Departments of Energy and Environmental Protection will resume
    their programs of technical assistance to India to develop cleaner air
    and cleaner water. We will make available $200 million for clean energy
    projects through the Import-Export Bank. And we will take special steps
    to work with private enterprise to address these challenges. I thank the
    United States Energy Association and the Confederation of Indian
    Industry for agreeing to work as partners to meet these goals.
        All told, we believe this historic agreement will help to reduce air
    pollution, to diminish health risks, to fight global warming, to protect
    and preserve the natural beauty of India.
        And while we work to cooperate between our nations, we must also
    remember our obligation to realize the promise of the landmark Kyoto
    Protocol on Climate Change. For if we act wisely, this agreement can
    help both the developed and the developing nations to harness the power
    of the market to build a clean energy future. We must complete the work
    begun in Kyoto so that the United States and other nations can ratify
    the protocol and it can enter into force.
        Now, let me say that there are some people who don't believe
    anything can be done about global warming because they don't believe the
    economy can grow unless energy is used in the same way it has been used
    for 100 years in the industrialized countries. They do not believe that
    India can grow wealthy unless you put more greenhouse gases into the
    atmosphere by burning more oil and coal, in the same way the United
    States and Europe and Japan did. And in the industrial age that might
    have been true, but that is no longer true.
        Many members of our delegation today rode over here in electric
    buses that you use here to keep from promoting air pollution. In no time
    at all we will have electric vehicles or vehicles that use fuel from
    farm products or from simple grasses that will not pollute the
    atmosphere. In no time at all we will be using solar power wherever it
    is feasible. We will be building buildings with materials that keep heat
    and cold out and are far more efficient.
        We can, in short, do something today that could not be done 50 years
    ago. We can promote more economic growth in India by using less energy
    and keeping the environment cleaner. In other words, the economic
    conditions today are precisely the reverse of what they were 50 years
    ago.
        The United States will never ask India or any other developing
    nation to give up its economic growth in order to reduce pollution. But
    we do ask you to give us a chance to work with your scientists to prove
    that you can achieve even greater economic growth and make the
    environment even cleaner.

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        I must say that we even have some people in the United States who
    believe the Kyoto Protocol is some sort of plot to wreck our economy and
    who unfortunately, some of them, have a good deal of influence. They
    continue to deny that global warming is real.
        All I know is, the overwhelming consensus of scientists and the
    evident lessons of the weather patterns of the last few years all say
    the climate is warming at an unsustainable rate. We know it takes at
    least 50 years to turn it around. Why would we take a risk in not doing
    it when we know we have the technology today, with alternative energy
    sources and conservation, to chart a different future? I hope that in my
    country and yours and throughout the world, we will have the sort of
    partnership to which we have committed ourselves on this day.
        Finally, let me just say that we don't have to choose--we don't have
    to choose--between economic opportunity and environmental protection.
    But we do have to choose between a future of sustainable development for
    all of our children, with clean water and sanitary conditions and energy
    efficiency and clean air, and a future in which we give it up simply
    because we refuse to take the necessary decisions to preserve them.
        On this Earth Day this year and on this historic day today of
    partnership between our two nations, when we stand in the shadow of the
    Taj Mahal, we remember that it is a monument built in love. All the most
    important monuments are built for love. The most important monument
    today we can give our children and our children's children is the
    preservation of the Earth that was given to us. We should give that
    monument in the spirit of love.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 5:55 p.m. at the Taj Khema overlooking the
    Taj Mahal. In his remarks, he referred to Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh
    and Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee of India; Chief Minister Ram
    Prakash Gupta of Uttar Pradesh; Mayor Baby Rani Maurya and Commissioner
    Nita Chowdhury of Agra; Hindu priest Veer Bhadra Mishra, civil
    engineering department head, Banaras Hindu University, and founder,
    Sankat Mochan Foundation; the President's mother-in-law, Dorothy Rodham;
    and M.C. Mehta, co-founder, Indian Council for Enviro-Legal Action.
    Prior to the President's remarks, Foreign Minister Singh and U.S.
    Secretary of State Madeleine Albright signed the joint statement.