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current energy trajectory—which entails higher National Science and Technology Council, as consumer costs, greater regional pollution, more recommended by PCAST. The working group pronounced climate disruption, and increasing should build on the PCAST report and assess risks to energy security—is closing fast. Thus, the portfolio of programs underway in the Fed- we should act expeditiously on PCAST’s rec- eral agencies and develop a strategic vision, in- ommendations for strengthening capacities for cluding budget recommendations that can be energy technology innovation, promoting tech- considered in agency requests for FY 2001. nologies to limit energy demand and for a clean- Please commend John Holdren, the members er energy supply, and improving management of his panel, and all of PCAST for its fine report of the Federal international energy research and on this important matter. development portfolio. WILLIAM J. CLINTON As a first step, I direct you to form a working group on international energy research, develop- NOTE: This memorandum was released by the Of- ment, demonstration, and deployment under the fice of the Press Secretary on September 15.

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

Thank you very much. Good afternoon. Prime to fly home, and we will make the best job Minister Shipley, Burton and Anna and Ben; of it we can. and Sir Edmund Hillary and Lady Hillary; Am- bassadors Beeman and Bolger, and their wives; to Mayor Moore: Dr. Erb, Dr. Benton, Mr. Antarctica and Climate Change Mace, Dr. Colwell; to all of those who have Let me say I am particularly honored to be made our visit here so memorable: Let me here with Sir Edmund Hillary, referred to in begin on behalf of my family and my party our family as my second favorite Hillary. by thanking the officials and the people of New [Laughter] I read that, when Sir Edmund Zealand for giving us 5 absolutely glorious days turned 50, he resolved to do three things: to in one of the most beautiful places on Earth. build a house on the cliffs above the Tasman We are very grateful. Sea; to become a better skier; to do a grand traverse up the peaks of Mt. Cook. I’m won- Hurricane Floyd dering what he resolved to do when he turned I hope you will all indulge me just one mo- 80. I hear the All Blacks may have a new full- ment. This is my only chance to speak not only back. [Laughter] I wish you a happy 80th birth- to you but to the people of the United States day, sir, and I wish all of us might lead lives today. And since we’re here to talk about the half so full and productive as yours. weather, you should know that my country is I come here to this beautiful city and to this facing one of the most serious hurricanes ever place to deepen a partnership between the to threaten the United States, if the predictions United States and New Zealand that is already of its force and scope hold true. long and strong. In this century, young Ameri- This morning I signed an emergency declara- cans and New Zealanders have fought again and tion for the States of Florida and Georgia to again side by side to turn back tyranny and provide for assistance for emergency protective to defend democracy. We have worked together and preventive measures. I have been in close on peacekeeping missions. We have stood to- contact with our Vice President, Al Gore, and gether for expanded opportunity for our people our Director of Emergency Management, James through trade. We even let you borrow the Lee Witt. They are working around the clock America’s Cup from time to time. [Laughter] to prepare for the storm. I ask all of you here We hope to reverse our generosity shortly. to remember my fellow Americans, and after [Laughter] We are grateful for your friendship, we finish the state dinner tonight, I am going and we thank you for it.

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

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

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on January 1st, the international timeline tells In his remarks, he referred to Prime Minister Jen- us that New Zealand literally will lead the world nifer Shipley, her husband, Burton, and their chil- into a new age. dren, Anna and Ben; Sir Edmund Hillary, polar Let us vow, in this place of first light, to explorer and first man to climb Mount Everest, act in the spirit of the Antarctic Treaty, to con- and his wife, June; U.S. Ambassador to New Zea- quer the new challenges that face us in the land Josiah H. Beeman, and his wife Susan; New new millennium. Let us work with the deter- Zealand Ambassador to the U.S. James B. Bolger, mination of Sir Edmund Hillary to strengthen and his wife, Joan; Mayor Gary Moore of Christ- our partnership, to keep our air and water clean church; Karl A. Erb, Director, Office of Polar Pro- and our future alive for our children. We owe grams, and Rita R. Colwell, Director, National it to the children of New Zealand, the children Science Foundation; Richard Benton, General of the United States, and the children of the world. And we can do it. Manager, Visitor Centre, International Antarctic Thank you very much. Centre; Christopher Mace, Chairman, Antarctic New Zealand; and New Zealand weather fore- NOTE: The President spoke at 1:38 p.m. in the caster Augie Auer. courtyard at the International Antarctic Centre.

The President’s News Conference With Prime Minister Jennifer Shipley of New Zealand in Christchurch September 15, 1999

Prime Minister Shipley. Ladies and gentle- I would also like to take this opportunity men, I’m pleased to report that we have held while we’re here to publicly say how much we very successful talks this afternoon in Christ- appreciate the leadership role that Australia is church. These talks have ranged over many playing at this present time in evacuating the issues, regional issues—urgent regional issues, refugees from East Timor and also for providing international issues, and of course, bilateral such a major contribution to the U.N. force. issues. I view them as extraordinarily satisfactory New Zealand’s Navy and Air Force are al- from New Zealand’s point of view. ready on hand, working with the Australians. I believe President Clinton’s visit to New Zea- The New Zealand Cabinet will hold a special land has been an opportunity for this region meeting tomorrow afternoon to review the latest to make real progress on pressing international developments and also to consider how and issues. This afternoon we were able to discuss when we will deploy our troops to the area, the matter of East Timor, and I was able to if requested by the U.N. I’ve also asked that thank the President for his leadership while in Parliament be called together on Friday, so that this country in helping to mobilize international this important matter can be discussed. support and opinion for restoring order and re- In our discussions with the President, we lieving the humanitarian crisis that exists in were able to consider where our current position on defense force personnel and our defense re- Timor. The plight of the displaced people in lationship was up to. I valued the opportunity Timor has and is at the uppermost part of our for that discussion to take place, and I believe minds at this time. that good progress has been made. New Zealand is making urgent preparations We reviewed the outlook for global trade. I to contribute our defense force capability and think we felt that there was a real satisfaction personnel to the U.N. force in East Timor. We in the achievements that the APEC meeting this appreciated the opportunity this afternoon to re- week were able to make. There has been a view the most recent developments in New clear sign that there is a commitment from the York, and the President was able to give us APEC region to see the launch of a highly suc- his most recent advice. cessful WTO round, and the Auckland challenge

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