President Clinton on Global Warming and Climate Change
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 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 claim 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 ’70s 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 industries thrived. We saw this when we phased out lead and 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 give better service at lower cost with higher profit. 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 300,000,000 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. (Applause.)
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