[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 43, Number 39 (Monday, October 1, 2007)]
[Pages 1261-1265]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks During a Meeting on Energy Security and Climate Change

September 28, 2007

    Thank you all. Please be seated. Thank you. Good morning. Thank you. 
Welcome to the State Department. I'm honored to address this historic 
meeting on energy security and climate change. And I appreciate you all 
being here.
    Energy security and climate change are two of the great challenges 
of our time. The United States takes these challenges seriously. The 
world's response will help shape the future of the global economy and 
the condition of our environment for future generations. The nations in 
this room have special responsibilities. We represent the world's major 
economies; we are major users of energy; and we have the resources and 
knowledge base to develop clean energy technologies.
    Our guiding principle is clear: We must lead the world to produce 
fewer greenhouse gas emissions, and we must do it in a way that does not 
undermine economic growth or prevent nations from delivering greater 
prosperity for their people. We know this can be done. Last year, 
America grew our economy while also reducing greenhouse gases. Several 
other nations have made similar strides.
    This progress points us in the right direction, but we've got to do 
more. So before this year's G-8 summit, I announced that the United 
States will work with other nations to establish a new international 
approach to energy security and climate change. Today's meeting is an 
important step in this process. With the work we begin today, we can 
agree on a new approach that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, 
strengthen energy security, encourage economic growth and sustainable 
development, and advance negotiations under the United Nations Framework 
Convention on Climate Change.
    I thank the State Department for hosting this event. I appreciate 
members of my Cabinet who have joined us today. I thank Jim Connaughton, 
who is the Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality, for being 
here. I appreciate you being the personal representative of this, and I 
hope you're doing--I hope you think he's doing a fine job. [Laughter]
    I welcome Minister Rachmat, the Minister of Environment of 
Indonesia, who is the chairman of the upcoming U.N. climate meeting in 
December. I welcome Mr. de Boer, who is the Executive Secretary of the 
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. I welcome all the 
Ministers and delegates who are here. We really appreciate you coming. I 
thank the Ambassadors for joining this august group.
    I thank Members of the Congress who have taken time to come by: 
Congressman Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Congressman Bart Gordon of 
Tennessee. I appreciate you taking time to come by and participate in 
these meetings.
    Every day, energy brings countless benefits to our people. Energy 
powers new hospitals and schools, so we can live longer and more 
productive lives. Energy transforms the way we produce food, so we can 
feed our growing populations. Energy enables us to travel and 
communicate across great distances, so we can expand trade and 
prosperity. Energy sustains the world's most advanced economies, which 
makes it possible for us to devote resources to fighting hunger and 
disease and poverty around the globe.
    In this new century, the need for energy will only grow. Much of 
this increased demand will come from the developing world, where nations 
will need more energy to build critical infrastructure and grow their 
economies, improve the lives of their people. Overall, the demand for 
energy is expected to rise by more than 50 percent by 2030.
    This growing demand for energy is a sign of a vibrant, global 
economy. Yet it also possesses--poses serious challenges, and one of 
them, of course, is energy security. Right now much of the world's 
energy comes from oil, and much of the oil comes from unstable regions 
and rogue states. This dependence leaves the global economy vulnerable 
to supply shocks and shortages and manipulation and to extremists and 
terrorists who could cause great disruptions of oil shipments.
    Another challenge is climate change. Our understanding of climate 
change has come a long way. A report issued earlier this year

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by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded both 
that global temperatures are rising and that this is caused largely by 
human activities. When we burn fossil fuels, we release greenhouse gases 
into the atmosphere, and the concentration of greenhouse gases has 
increased substantially.
    For many years, those who worried about climate change and those who 
worried about energy security were on opposite ends of the debate. It 
was said that we faced a choice between protecting the environment and 
producing enough energy. Today, we know better. These challenges share a 
common solution: technology. By developing new low-emission 
technologies, we can meet the growing demand for energy and, at the same 
time, reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. As a result, 
our nations have an opportunity to leave the debates of the past behind 
and reach a consensus on the way forward. And that's our purpose today.
    No one country has all the answers, including mine. The best way to 
tackle this problem is to think creatively and to learn from others' 
experiences and to come together on a way to achieve the objectives we 
share. Together our nations will pave the way for a new international 
approach on greenhouse gas emissions.
    This new approach must involve all the world's largest producers of 
greenhouse gas emissions, including developed and developing nations. We 
will set a long-term goal for reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. 
By setting this goal, we acknowledge there is a problem. And by setting 
this goal, we commit ourselves to doing something about it.
    By next summer, we will convene a meeting of heads of state to 
finalize the goal and other elements of this approach, including a 
strong and transparent system for measuring our progress toward meeting 
the goal we set. This will require concerted effort by all our nations. 
Only by doing the necessary work this year will it be possible to reach 
a global consensus at the U.N. in 2009.
    Each nation will design its own separate strategies for making 
progress toward achieving this long-term goal. These strategies will 
reflect each country's different energy resources, different stages of 
development, and different economic needs.
    There are many policy tools that nations can use, including a 
variety of market mechanisms to create incentives for companies and 
consumers to invest in new low-emission energy sources. We will also 
form working groups with leaders of different sectors of our economies, 
which will discuss ways of sharing technology and best practices.
    Each nation must decide for itself the right mix of tools and 
technologies to achieve results that are measurable and environmentally 
effective. While our strategies may be differentiated, we share a common 
responsibility to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while keeping our 
economies growing.
    The key to this effort will be the advance of clean energy 
technologies. Since I became President, the United States Government has 
invested nearly $18 billion to research, develop, and promote clean and 
efficient energy technologies. The private sector here in our country 
has responded with significant investments, ranging from corporate 
research and development to venture capital. Our investments in research 
and technology are bringing the world closer to a remarkable 
breakthrough, an age of clean energy where we can power our growing 
economies and improve the lives of our people and be responsible 
stewards of the Earth the Almighty trusted to our care.
    The age of clean energy requires transforming the way we produce 
electricity. Electric powerplants that burn coal are the world's leading 
cause of greenhouse gas emissions. The world's supply of coal is secure 
and abundant. And our challenge is to take advantage of it while 
maintaining our commitment to the environment. One promising solution is 
advanced clean coal technology. The future of this technology will allow 
us to trap and store carbon emissions and air pollutants produced by 
burning coal. Since 2001, the United States has invested more than two 
and a half billion dollars to research and develop clean coal. And in 
partnership with other nations and the private sector, we're moving 
closer to an historic achievement: producing energy from the world's 
first zero-emissions coal-fired plant.

[[Page 1263]]

    We also need to take advantage of clean, safe nuclear power. Nuclear 
power is the one existing source of energy that can generate massive 
amounts of electricity without causing any air pollution or greenhouse 
gas emissions. Without the world's 439 nuclear powerplants, there would 
be nearly 2 billion additional tons of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere 
each year. And by expanding the use of nuclear power, we can reduce 
greenhouse gas emissions even more.
    The United States is working to reduce barriers to new nuclear 
powerplants in our country without compromising safety. Just last week, 
a company applied for approval to build the first new nuclear reactor in 
my country since the 1970s.
    As we build new reactors here in the United States, we're also 
working to bring the benefits of nuclear energy to other countries. My 
administration established a new initiative called the Global Nuclear 
Energy Partnership. This partnership will work with nations with 
advanced civilian nuclear energy programs, such as France and Japan and 
China and Russia. Together we will help developing nations obtain 
secure, cost-effective, and proliferation-resistant nuclear power, so 
they can have a reliable source of zero-emissions energy.
    We'll also need to expand our use of two other promising sources of 
zero-emissions energy, and that's wind and solar power. Wind power is 
becoming cost-effective in many parts of America. We've increased wind 
energy production by more than 300 percent. We also launched the Solar 
America Initiative to lower the cost of solar power, so we can make--
help make this technology competitive as well. Taken together, low-
carbon technologies like wind and solar power have the potential to one 
day provide up to 20 percent of America's electricity.
    The age of clean energy also requires transforming the way we fuel 
our cars and trucks. Almost all our vehicles run on gasoline or diesel 
fuel. This means we produce greenhouse gas emissions whenever we get 
behind the wheel. Transportation accounts for about 20 percent of the 
world's greenhouse gas emissions every year. To reduce these emissions, 
we must reduce our dependence on oil. So America is investing in new, 
clean alternatives. We're investing millions of dollars to develop the 
next generation of sustainable biofuels like cellulosic ethanol, which 
means we'll use everything from wood chips to grasses to agricultural 
waste to make ethanol.
    We're offering tax credits to encourage Americans to drive fuel-
efficient hybrid vehicles. We're working to develop next-generation 
plug-in hybrids that will be able to travel nearly 40 miles without 
using a drop of gasoline. And your automobile doesn't have to look like 
a golf cart. [Laughter]
    We're on track to meet our pledge of investing $1.2 billion to 
develop advanced hydrogen-powered vehicles that emit pure water instead 
of exhaust fumes. We're also taking steps to make sure these 
technologies reach the market. We've asked Congress to set a new 
mandatory--I repeat, mandatory--fuel standard that requires 35 billion 
gallons of renewable and other alternative fuels in 2017 and to reform 
fuel economy standards for cars the same way we did for light trucks. 
Together these two steps will help us cut America's consumption of 
gasoline by 20 percent in 10 years. It's an initiative I've called 20-
in-10.
    Ushering in the age of clean energy is an historic undertaking. We 
take it seriously here in the United States. And achieving this vision 
will require major investment in innovation by all our nations. Today, 
the United States and Japan fund most of the research and development 
for clean energy technologies. But meeting the objectives we share and 
the goal we're going to set will require all the nations in this hall to 
increase their clean energy research and development investments.
    We must also work to make these technologies more widely available, 
especially in the developing world. So today I propose that we join 
together to create a new international clean technology fund. This fund 
will be supported by contributions from Governments from around the 
world, and it will help finance clean energy projects in the developing 
world. I've asked Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to coordinate this 
effort, and he plans to begin exploratory discussions with your 
countries over the next several months.

[[Page 1264]]

    At the same time, we also must promote global free trade in energy 
technology. The most immediate and effective action we can take is to 
eliminate tariff and nontariff barriers on clean-energy goods and 
services.
    As we work to transform the way we produce energy, we must also 
address another major factor in climate change, which is deforestation. 
The world's forests help reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the 
atmosphere by storing carbon dioxide. But when our forests disappear, 
the concentration of greenhouse gas levels rise in the atmosphere. 
Scientists estimate that nearly 20 percent of the world's greenhouse gas 
admissions are attributable to deforestation.
    We're partnering with other nations to promote forest conservation 
and management across the world. We welcome new commitments from 
Australia, Brazil, with China and Indonesia. The United States remains 
committed to initiatives such as the Congo Basin Forest Partnership and 
the Asian Forest Partnership. We will continue our efforts through the 
Tropical Forest Conservation Act, which helps developing nations 
redirect debt payments toward forest conservation programs. So far, my 
administration has concluded 12 agreements, concluding up to 50 million 
acres of forest lands. America's efforts also include an $87-million 
initiative to help developing nations stop illegal logging. These 
efforts will help developing nations save their forests and combat a 
major source of greenhouse gas emissions.
    The United States is also taking steps to protect forests in our own 
country. It's one thing to help others; we got to make sure we do a good 
job here at home--and we are. Since 2001, we've provided more than $3 
billion to restore our forests and protect them against catastrophic 
fires as part of the Healthy Forests Initiative. In partnership with our 
farmers and ranchers, we're providing tens of billions of dollars in 
incentives for conservation. We're promoting sustainable public and 
private land management policies. By taking these steps, we've helped 
increase the amount of carbon storage in our forests, and we've helped 
safeguard a national treasure for generations to come.
    What I'm telling you is, is that we've got a strategy; we've got a 
comprehensive approach. And we look forward to working with our Congress 
to make sure that comprehensive approach is effective. And we look 
forward to working with you as a part of this global effort to do our 
duty.
    And we've done this kind of work before. And we have confidence in 
the success of our efforts. Twenty years ago, nations finalized an 
agreement called the Montreal Protocol to phase out substances that were 
depleting the ozone layer. Since then, we have made great strides to 
repair the damage. Just last week, developed and developing nations 
reached consensus on speeding up the recovery of the ozone layer by 
accelerating the phaseout of these harmful substances. This accelerated 
phaseout will bring larger benefits because they'll dramatically reduce 
greenhouse gas emissions.
    We have seen what happens when we come together to work for a common 
cause, and we can do it again. And that's what I'm here to urge you. The 
United States will do our part. We take this issue seriously. And we 
look forward to bringing a spirit of cooperation and commitment to our 
efforts to confront the challenges of energy security and climate 
change. By working together, we will set wise and effective policies. 
That's what I'm interested in, effective policies. I want to get the job 
done. We've identified a problem; let's go solve it together.
    We will harness the power of technology. There is a way forward that 
will enable us to grow our economies and protect the environment, and 
that's called technology. We'll meet our energy needs. We'll be good 
stewards of this environment. Achieving these goals will require a 
sustained effort over many decades; this problem isn't going to be 
solved overnight. Yet years from now, our children are going to look 
back at the choices we make today, at this deciding moment. It will be a 
moment when we choose to expand prosperity instead of accepting 
stagnation. It will be a moment when we turn the tide against greenhouse 
gas emissions, instead of allowing the problem to grow. It will be a 
moment when we rejected the predictions of despair and set a course of a 
more hopeful future.

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    The moment is now, and I appreciate you attending this meeting. And 
we look forward to working with you. May God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 10:09 a.m. at the Department of State.