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White House Press Briefing by Dana Perino 9/28/07 (Global Warming Goals & Strategies)
— Friday, September 28, 2007 — MS. PERINO: Wendell. Q On the climate change speech the President gave today, he said once again that goals for greenhouse gas emissions is sufficient; better than mandatory limits. Isn't it inherent in the President's argument that mandatory limits would hurt economies; that the goals would not be as aggressive as the mandatory limits? MS. PERINO: Not necessarily. I think -- yes, the President believes that the mandatory limits that Kyoto would have placed on the United States would have been very harmful. And apparently, so did 98 other senators who voted against Kyoto back in the Clinton administration. Q I believe I'm talking about Kyoto at this point. I'm talking about setting -- MS. PERINO: I'm making a point. Q Okay. MS. PERINO: The President has set a goal in 2001 for the -- I'm sorry, 2002 -- for the United States to reduce greenhouse gas intensity by 18 percent by 2012. That was a goal. And we measure it every year. And we are held to account on that goal. And we, because of lots of different actions in several different sectors across the economy, we are on track to meet that goal. Countries that place -- that have goals strive to meet them. That is the point. But mandatory cuts on carbon emissions, the President believes, would not be the right thing for the economy because, one reason -- the technology does not exist today to be able to do that. On the other hand, if you look at the Montreal Protocol, which reduced CFCs -- it's the substance that helps eat away the ozone layer -- that technology existed. And so when governments were putting money into those technologies, they were seeing an immediate return on investment. The only way right now, today, in order to stop carbon emissions coming out of coal-fired power plants -- of which 54 percent of our energy is derived -- is to turn them off. And that's why the President thinks that we should move forward on several different parallel tracks: alternative energy, new technologies that are cleaner-burning, and also some mandatory measures. We have a renewable fuel standard that we want, 35 billion gallons by -- let's see -- 20-in-10, so it's 2017. So we have lots of different ways that we can move forward. But one of the things the President wanted to do today is to get beyond the fights about Kyoto and to get to the post-Kyoto discussions that the U.N. is going to be having, and bring together all the major economies. Because in Kyoto the developing countries weren't a part of it. Now, what the President did today is have all the major emitting countries, all the major economies come together and decide, how can we establish a goal long-term. And everyone is going to have to report what their midterm goals are, as well. Each state is different, each state has a different fuel mix: some use a lot of coal; some use a lot of wind; some have natural gas. It's going to depend on individual countries. Instead of a cram-down, the President wants to see some bottom-up action. Q You seem to be telling me that mandatory caps would have to be the Kyoto caps; goals would be something else. My question is, isn't it inherent in the idea of setting a goal, rather than mandatory caps, the goal is not going to be as aggressive? Why would the caps have to be -- MS. PERINO: That's not necessarily true. A goal can be just as aggressive. If you look at -- many countries that signed up to Kyoto, they weren't able to meet those targets. Q Let me try one more time. MS. PERINO: Okay. Q If your mandatory cap is not as stringent as Kyoto required -- I mean, you're telling me the technology does not exist to meet the Kyoto caps. I'll agree with that. If you set a cap that is less aggressive, what is the problem with that? MS. PERINO: Let me take a step back. Whether you have a mandatory cap or a goal, there are some countries that didn't meet their mandatory cap anyway. So I think the President's point of establishing a goal that the entire world can get behind is a better approach than having just a few countries, and not including the developing world. Look, the developing world is going to have to not only reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but also figure out a way to keep their economies going. Some of these countries, people live in terrible poverty and they need energy in order to have jobs and heat their homes and light their homes and their schools, and they need to have clean-burning technologies in order to be able to do that. One exciting thing that the President announced today is this international global technology fund, which people could put money into, we could pool resources, pool ideas and ingenuity so we can come up with the new technologies. But then these other countries that are developing, like China, India, Mexico, and South Africa, can take advantage of what they have -- an ability to grow their economy without harming the environment at the same time. Labels: Dana Perino, Global Warming, Kyoto Protocal, President Bush, Press Briefing, White House Press Corps
Posted by White House Press Corps @ 5:30 PM
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