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| HEATED DEBATE
October 22, 1997NEWSHOUR TRANSCRIPT |
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President Clinton has announced a plan to bring the levels of greenhouse gases back to 1990 levels by the year 2012. The proposal includes gradual, but mandatory, reductions in carbon dioxide and methane emissions. A background report is followed by a debate with analysts on both sides of the global warming issue.
MARGARET WARNER: Joining us now Katie McGinty chairs the White House Council on Environmental Quality. She helped draft the President's global warming proposal. Bill O'Keefe is executive vice president of the American Petroleum Institute. He's also a board member of the Global Climate Coalition, made up of auto makers, oil and electric companies, and others; and Carl Pope is executive director of the Sierra Club. Carl Pope, what do you think of the President's plan?
A RealAudio version of this segment is available.
NEWSHOUR LINKS:
October 22, 1997:
A background report on President Clinton's proposal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
June 25, 1997:
President Clinton is backing the EPA's push for tougher air quality standards, but critics say they're too costly.
February 18, 1997:
The federal Environmental Protection Agency has proposed new clean air standardsthat have been criticized by some industry, state and local officials.
March 6, 1997:
The fastest rise in temperature for perhaps ten thousand years is having a dramatic effect on the brittle ecosystem of Antarctica.
January 4, 1996
British meteorologists report that the Earth's surface temperature was higher than the average in 1995.
Browse the NewsHour's coverage of science and the environment.
OUTSIDE LINKS
The EPA's Global Warming Site.
Online Documents and Publications from the U.S. Global Change Research Information Office.
Too little too late?
CARL POPE, Sierra Club: Well, I want to begin by agreeing with the President about three key points. We can't afford to wait until we have a treaty to start acting. We need to start buying an insurance policy now. And the technology we need already exists. We simply have to take advantage of it. Where I disagree with the President, although I'm glad he is buying an insurance policy, is I think we need to buy an insurance policy that will actually protect our children. And this one won't. This insurance policy is not strong enough to prevent Dengue Fever and Malaria from invading Texas. It's not strong enough to protect Los Angeles from the effects of more frequent and far larger El Niño's. It won't avert massive flooding in the Midwest. It won't protect New England from drastic storms; the Pacific Northwest from dramatic mud slides. It won't even avert massive sea level rise, which could wipe out much of Southern Florida.
Now, the President and the Vice President both agree that we're going to need the kind of action, the kind of insurance policy that will avert those consequences, that will protect Americans, and they agree with the Sierra Club and with most scientists that the technology exists to do this at a very attractive price. This is cheap insurance. We can and should afford it. We are dismayed and disappointed that the administration has proposed an insurance policy that really won't protect us. If you have a house and you want to insure it, you'd better get the right size policy. This policy just isn't big enough.
MARGARET WARNER: All right. Katie McGinty, an insurance policy that lacks something?
"It's the President's role to find a common interest."
KATIE McGINTY, White House Council on Environmental Quality: Well, let me say that the President has exerted strong leadership here. It, of course, is the appropriate role of advocates on every side of an issue to strongly advocate their point of view. It's the President's role to find not a special interest but the common interest and to draw us together to move towards it. Now, where are we here? The President has put forward a very clear road map of how we can get working today to begin to reduce these emissions and while we're doing it to build new technologies, to have America competing in a whole new marketplace for environmentally sound technologies, a marketplace that's growing all over the world. He's also said in 10 years' time let's bring those emissions down to 1990 levels and then further beyond that the trend has to be down. After we reach 1990 levels, we need to continue to turn those emissions down further still. This is a vision for how this country and the world can move forward.
MARGARET WARNER: All right. But let me just ask, are you saying you don't necessarily disagree with Mr. Pope that this in and of itself is enough, but it's going to continue? What are you saying to his critique that really this doesn't do enough to undercut the effects of global warming?
KATIE McGINTY: Well, I am saying first that what the President has outlined here is a very strong step forward in taking this issue on. But we all have to remember that climate change is also a long-term problem. We all need to be in this for the long haul. We need to achieve a success in Kyoto this year, but importantly, that success has to propel us into the future on this issue. We all need to stay joined in an effort both to reduce the emissions and to capture the economic opportunities that are available, not just today, tomorrow, not just when we reach 1990 levels but for the long haul.
The business point of view: distorted science.
MARGARET WARNER: All right. Bill O'Keefe, from the business side how do you see this?
BILL O'KEEFE, Global Climate Coalition: Well, first, I think that it's unfortunate that the science is so distorted and mis-stated. And without going over that, I would suggest that your viewers get the May 16th issue of Science Magazine and contrast what that says about the state of science and natural variability and manmade attribution to what Carl Pope said.
With respect to the President's program it is confusing and it's unrealistic. It's confusing because the rhetoric of incentives and encouraging private participation does not track with the kind of actions that are going to have to be taken. It's unrealistic because the Energy Information Administration, which is part of DOE, has estimated that for us to get back to the 1990 levels by 2010 would require us to reduce fossil fuel use by 25 to 30 percent. At the White House conference Bill Nordhouse, who is on the Council of Economic Advisers during the Carter administration, and one of the panelists, said that if we try to get back to that level by 2010, we'll be reliving the price shocks of the 1970's. That didn't come from business. That came from one of the economists that developed this economist petition in February. There is simply no available technology that's economical that can be put in place to do it that quickly. The studies have estimated that we would need a very large energy tax. And the President said there is going to be no energy tax. So the devil's in the details about how to do this, grow the economy, while exempting developing nations who today asked for a compensation fund.
Drastic cuts in fossil fuels?
MARGARET WARNER: All right. Let me get first to the point, Ms. McGinty, respond to that. Is it true that fossil fuel use would have to be cut 25 to 30 percent?
KATIE McGINTY: Well, let me just say there are always pessimists among us. It seems that we run into this all the time on environmental issues in particular. It's always the doom's day scenario. It can't work. It'll break the economy. We don't believe that. We've never seen that in this country. When we have taken on environmental challenges, we've done it in a way consistently that has grown our economy. Is the target we're studying out here today ambitious? Absolutely. But is it also the case that there's tremendous inefficiency in our economy today? Yes, that's absolutely the case too.
Leaders in industry testified at the White House conference that today we throw out 2/3 of the energy we generate. That's not space age technology. It's today. Those are--that's waste that we can capture. Those are emissions that we can reduce today. The President believes America can compete. The President believes America can innovate. We can take on this challenge and make of it an opportunity, as we have done consistently in the past.
MARGARET WARNER: All right. Carl Pope, give me your view of this issue, the cost, and what the economy will really have to do to meet these targets.
CARL POPE: Well, I really--I can understand why Mr. O'Keefe said what he did. He is--his industry--the petroleum industry is in the business basically. The ultimate end product is CO2 emissions. But the reality is, for example, if we simply replaced our cold-fired power capacity over the next 20 years with state of the art natural gas-fired capacity, we'd save 16 percent of our total carbon emissions. If we simply got the average fuel efficiency of a car up to 45 miles a gallon--and there's on-the-shelf technology that will do that even without using the developments of the last 12 months--we'd save another 10 percent. We have tremendous opportunities. Our economy generates far fewer dollars per unit of carbon pollution emitted than either Japan or Europe. And the Japanese and the Europeans are committing themselves to more ambitious targets than the one the President has outlined, much more ambitious targets than the ones Mr. O'Keefe would favor.
MARGARET WARNER: All right.
CARL POPE: The Japanese and the Europeans understand that the economic and the environmental future belongs to those who use new technologies, renewables and efficiency. The future does not belong to carbon, much as Mr. O'Keefe might wish it does.
MARGARET WARNER: A response.
BILL O'KEEFE: Well, first with respect to the waste that Ms. McGinty referred to, there was--
MARGARET WARNER: And the President also mentioned that today.
Regulations: a restraint on consumers?
BILL O'KEEFE: There was a CEO at the White House conference who said that if the government would get out of the way and deregulate the electric utility industry, which is already underway, they could do that. It's government impediments that's keeping that from being done. Secondly, people can go out and buy high mileage cars today that get over 50 miles per gallon. They choose not to. The way Mr. Pope would have them do it is by constraining their ability to buy what they want. This is not about being negative and not encouraging action but every independent--and I say every independent economic study has come to the same conclusion that the impact is negative, and it's going to cost jobs. It's going to cost economic growth. There is no need for us to rush to this kind of judgment to respond to a legitimate concern. The fact that there's scientific uncertainty is not a justification for inaction but it's not a justification for reckless action, and that's the course that we're on. The Europeans have a free good, and the Vice President said that at the White House--
MARGARET WARNER: What does that mean, a free good?
BILL O'KEEFE: Germany shut down all the polluting plants in East Germany in unification. It had nothing to do with climate change. The British deregulated their utility industry and removed subsidies, so they have this cushion that they're able to share with other countries whose emissions will go up 47 percent or 30 percent over the next decade. It is a fallacy to say that we're less efficient than the Germans or Japanese. And if we had the time, I could explain why that statement is absolutely incorrect.
MARGARET WARNER: Let me ask you all about an issue that's very much front and center in all the ads everyone's running, and that has to do with the developing countries. And, Mr. Pope, what do you think of the way the President has decided to handle this issue? Two years ago the--all the industrial countries said we'll get the developing countries a pass. He's now saying they have to be included in some way.
CARL POPE: I think they do have to be included in some way, and I support what the President has done there. I think we need to remember that U.S. automobiles alone emit more carbon than the entire nation of India. And if we want to convince India and China, and we badly need to convince them we can't solve this problem without their participation, that the future lies in renewables and conservation and not in burning fossil fuel, we're going to have to lead. And the Indians and the Chinese have both made it clear that they're going to be watching our lead very carefully.
It's very ironic that the organization with which Mr. O'Keefe works has been running ads saying, gee, the problem with the President's proposal is the Chinese aren't going to come along. Meanwhile, the chairman of the board of Exxon has been going to China, and advising the Chinese not to come along. I think it would be much more helpful if all of us could get together and say to the entire world, as the President has, we are in this together, we cannot solve it alone, no one continent can solve it, no one country can solve it. But if we don't solve it, we are all going to be in the soup together. We are all going to be suffering from massive famines that are a result of crop losses. Ask any farmer whether he'd rather buy a slightly more fuel efficient truck, save money at the gas pump to earn back the extra cost at the front end, and have a climate he can count on.
MARGARET WARNER: Okay. Let me get--
CARL POPE: But whether he liked to go through the kinds of climatic disruptions that in 1988 put half of our farmland--
The debate over how to include developing countries.
MARGARET WARNER: Okay, Mr. McGinty, you--explain whether you--how you think you're going to get the developing countries on board here.
KATIE McGINTY: Well, let me say that herein lies both problem and opportunity. The problem is inherent in the nature of climate change. It's a global challenge. And so the President's statement is reflective of that fact. If we're going to make progress on this issue, all of the countries need to be a part of it. How will we convince them to do it? Well, it's not just a problem. It is an opportunity.
Those countries have a choice to make. They can choose to grow their economies in an inefficient and polluting way, or they can choose to be part of this effort and grow their economies in an efficient and clean way. Now, when we have pictures on TV of people in China and Malaysia having to wear surgical masks because their choking on pollution, those are countries that want to choose a cleaner way to grow. The President is offering here a statement of the fact of the challenge we face but making clear that this is an opportunity too for developing countries to choose a much more sound path of progress for their economies.
MARGARET WARNER: And briefly from the perspective of your group would you rather see the developing countries in? You've been critical of that element.
"Poverty is the worst pollutant."
CARL POPE: The developing countries have to participate. There is private capital that will go into those countries with our technology and help them grow. Poverty is the worst pollutant and that is why these countries are having large emissions. If we help their economic growth, they will be more efficient. But a treaty that exempts them--and the U.S. delegation today--announced in Bonn that there would be no new commitments required to developing countries--is inconsistent with the Senate resolution which passed 95 to zero, and it's not going to do anything to control the growth in CO2 emissions over the next couple of decades.
KATIE McGINTY: This is misleading at its best. The President's policy has always been that developing countries will and must be part of this. It continues to be his policy. He could not have enunciated that any clearer today.
MARGARET WARNER: Okay, Ms. McGinty, gentlemen, thank you both--all three of you very much.
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