Speeches and Remarks
The United States: A Leader in Environmental Protection Past, Present, and Future
Ambassador John A. Cloud
Kaunas Technical University, November 27, 2007
Thank you for that kind introduction and thank you to my hosts -- especially to Kaunas Technical University Rector Raimundas Šiaučiūnas and to all those who helped set up this event. I'm very happy to have this opportunity to speak in front of this audience of students, scholars, and scientists. I want to speak to you today about the United States and environmental protection. There is a very important meeting coming up next month in Bali, Indonesia, and now is an important time to discuss these issues.
When I was a kid, like many children I think, I dreamed of being an astronaut, or working at NASA, or being some kind of inventor. I grew up in an era when the United States was racing to put a man on the moon and I remember President Kennedy speaking about this. I have an older brother who is an aerospace engineer. But by the time I began my studies at University and took classes in Physics, I realized I needed to find something that more reflected my talents. This is just my way of saying I have great respect -- maybe even a bit of jealousy -- for scientists.
Obviously I never did become an astronaut, but I am very happy with the job I have now since it is one of the best jobs in the world - representing our country to our great friend and ally Lithuania. One of the great benefits of living in Lithuania, as I think everyone here knows, is the fantastic natural environment of lakes and forests. The greens of summer, the yellows of autumn, and even the whites and grays of winter in Lithuania are vivid and rich. The sweeping landscapes of Lithuania remind me of the forests of New England, where I am from. Indeed, I feel very at home in Lithuania and one reason is the wonderfully preserved natural environment. In America, too, the natural environment is a treasure just as it is in Lithuania and the people and the government of the United States are deeply committed to protecting the environment.
I appreciate that it has become conventional wisdom during the last decade to believe that the United States doesn't care about the environment. As you heard from the Rector's summary of my C.V., I spent some time in Brussels and in Berlin, so I heard this sentiment there. The real story is that the United States has been a leader in environmental protection for more than a century, has been at the forefront of international environmental preservation for decades, and continues to be a leader in domestic and international environmental protection. In fact, an important figure in the U.S. Government's work to protect the environment is from Lithuania. Of course, I mean President Valdas Adamkus. For several years, he headed the Midwest office of the Environmental Protection Agency and he did much to protect our Great Lakes, to clean our rivers, and to improve the air quality in that region of my country.
I want to talk today about our history as a leader in environmental protection, I want to dispel the myth that at present the United States is somehow weak on environmental issues, and I want to demonstrate that the American approach is working. At the end I want to take your questions - and I am not naïve, I realize some of them will be challenging. It is very important to understand that we all have the same goals. Our differences are over the methods to achieve those goals. The current American approach has three inter-related goals: we want to protect the environment, we want to grow the economy, and we want to increase energy security -- and the real goal is to achieve all of these at the same time. We believe that growing economies are much better able to deal with environmental challenges than shrinking ones.
This approach is working much better than is reported. In many ways U.S. government policies are having results that are as good as the results in other countries.
I also want to discuss how the Major Economies Process to reduce greenhouse gasses will contribute to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and will strengthen the upcoming meetings in Bali that will discuss climate change.
Before I get to all of that, let me start with a summary of U.S. environmental history. It is a history full of amazing stories and amazing people, I can only mention a few here, but these people illustrate the idea expressed in a famous statement by anthropologist Margaret Mead, and I quote: "Never doubt that a group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has," end quote. Some of the dedicated people who established and supported the environmental movement in the United States were, in the 19th century, people like Scottish immigrant John Muir, who helped establish Yosemite national park in California and co-founded the Sierra Club; also Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose influential writings still inspire environmentalists today. More recently, chemists at the University of California were the first to understand the impact that Chlorofluorocarbons have on the atmosphere, eventually winning the Nobel Prize and contributing to a worldwide effort to protect the ozone layer. And former Senator and Secretary of State Edmund Muskie was one of the world's first government officials to understand and promote modern environmental protection from the 1950s through the 1980s. And I've already mentioned President Adamkus and the role he played in the United States.
Often these dedicated people were responding to environmental crises -- the filth of 19th century cities, the impact of poorly regulated development on the natural environment, air pollution, acid rain, depletion of the ozone layer, and, most recently, climate change. Americans and the American government have responded and continue to respond to all of these crises through an array of private and government actions that have been innovative and effective.
Let me briefly outline, chronologically, the actual impacts on government policy and on the environment that these people and thousands like them have had over the last two hundred years.
America has had a strong preservationist movement since the mid-19th century. This movement pressed government officials to establish and protect national parks, a practice that began in the United States. Soon other countries followed the U.S. example. Through the 19th and early 20th centuries, the national parks program grew, including President Theodore Roosevelt's support for national parks and monuments and helped to establish firmly the modern practice of conservation of nature.
At the same time that America was protecting its natural heritage, urban environments in the United States -- although very polluted compared to the same cities today -- were quickly becoming the world's cleanest cities. Many European cities, for example, had sewer and water systems earlier than cities in the United States, but by the late 19th century all major American cities had sewer and water systems and they served a far greater percent of the urban population than in Europe. By the end of the 19th century, America had some of the cleanest and most efficient cities in the world in terms of public access to water, heating, and electricity. This rapid response to the crisis of 19th century urban environments was a result of the combination of private industry and a complicated network of government programs at the local, regional, and national levels.
By the mid-20th century, the modern environmental movement was flourishing in the United States. By 1970, the environmental movement had worked to create a widespread public awareness of environmental issues and the United States government responded by establishing the Environmental Protection Agency and passing the Clean Air Act. Although many people assume that environmentalism is a value held only by the Democratic Party, it is worth remarking that the Republican administration of President Richard Nixon took these steps. Throughout America's history, environmental protection has been an issue that all political parties have taken seriously.
Clean air was an important goal of the United States government through the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. The path to cleaner air included phasing out leaded gasoline beginning in 1973 and making significant steps by the early 1980s - at least a decade before many countries in Europe tackled this issue. I must say, as a personal aside, that when I first began visiting Germany in the 1980s, I was surprised to see that leaded gasoline was still on sale though it had been taken off the market in the United States. We also were pioneers in the fight against acid rain, using a market incentive enforcement program. The U.S. acid rain program, in fact, was the model for the EU's greenhouse gas Emissions Trading System. As a result of these efforts, America has arguably the best urban air quality among industrialized nations. If we compare the impact of fine air particles on human health, for example -- the United States has less than 50,000 premature deaths due to fine particulate pollution per year. This is significantly better than even in the EU.
On environmental issues, the United States has been a leader in the international community both by example and in practice. We were one of the driving forces behind the Montreal Protocol in the mid- and late-1980s. The Montreal Protocol was described by Kofi Annan as the most important and successful environmental treaty ever negotiated. The agreement not only produced the eventual elimination of ozone-depleting chemicals but has also in the process resulted in 10 times as much greenhouse gas reduction as the Kyoto Protocol will through 2012.
Frankly speaking -- and I think everyone in this room probably already knows this, but I want to address directly the fact that the United States did not ratify the Kyoto protocol and is therefore portrayed as weak on environmental issues. But I would assert that the approach that the United States has taken to reduce greenhouse gases has done as well or better in cutting greenhouse gas emissions as many countries that have ratified Kyoto. In addition, we still believe that the Kyoto Protocol itself has some serious flaws. Let me begin with the good results we have achieved despite not ratifying the Kyoto Protocol.
My goal here is not to criticize Kyoto or the EU's approach to reducing greenhouse gases. In fact, I think we can all agree that the EU takes climate change seriously and is doing some excellent work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Europe. What you may not be aware of, however, is that since 2000, the United States also has had significant successes. In the most recent reporting period from the UN Framework on Climate Change, 2000-2005, the United States did virtually the same as Europe in controlling our greenhouse gas emissions. U.S. emissions went up less than 1.6 percent in that period while emissions for the EU-27 went up 1.5 percent. Moreover, during this period America had economic growth of 10 percent, compared to Europe's growth of 7 percent. Furthermore, and I think this is the most promising point, in 2006 the U.S. economy grew 2.9 percent while estimates show that CO2 emissions actually decreased by 1.3 percent. In short, the results of U.S. policies are coming very close to the ultimate goal of environmental economics: delinking economic growth from emissions.
I should note, by the way, that Lithuania and the Czech Republic were the only two EU countries that had a decrease in greenhouse gas emissions in the 2000-2005 period. Lithuania can take great pride in this and it happened during a period of rapid economic growth for Lithuania.
So, returning to the message that I mentioned earlier, the United States has three inter-related goals: protecting the environment, growing the economy, and increasing energy security -- all at the same time. This is easy to remember in English: three E's, Environment, Economy, and Energy.
These goals can be reached only with a broad range of policies -- there is no single policy that can achieve all three of these goals at once. One example of an important set of policies to reach these goals is government support for energy diversification. The United States has always been a leader in energy diversification, including most recently the use of ethanol for fuel. We have become the world's largest producer of ethanol largely as a result of policies put into place by the 1990 Clean Air Act and earlier. Next year the first operational ethanol plant with second generation cellulosic ethanol technology will open in the United States. This technology eliminates competition with food demands and makes ethanol an even more environmentally friendly fuel. We also lead the world in research on bio-diesel technology.
We are also committed to creating as clean and green an energy supply as possible. Federal and state incentive programs have contributed to rapid growth in production in wind energy: over the last five years average growth in wind energy has been 24 percent. Hydropower is another renewable energy source and it accounts for ten percent of the United States's total energy supply. New technologies and research from private industry and the U.S. Department of Energy will allow new and existing hydropower plants to be more efficient - increasing output by at least ten percent while reducing environmental impacts.
Transportation fuel policy is an important area of our focus. America now has the world's most aggressive plan for transportation fuel displacement: 20 percent biofuels by the year 2017. Emissions due to transportation is the fastest growing sector of greenhouse gases and the United States is taking the lead in this sector.
Overall, the United States has a realistic and at the same time aggressive plan for fighting climate change. Since 2001, the United States has invested more than 37 billion U.S. dollars (over 85 billion litas) in research, technology, and incentive programs to fight climate change. We are leading the way in terms of timetable and investment in developing strategies for carbon capture and storage. We are also working on biofuels research, in terms of both bio-diesel and ethanol and related products. The United States also has great potential in terms of reforestation to ensure that biofuels are produced in a sustainable manner. Reforestation also provides essential carbon sinks to absorb greenhouse gases and convert them to oxygen as well as reducing soil erosion. We intend to promote reforestation programs both domestically and abroad through the leverage of foreign assistance and potential debt forgiveness. The United States has had domestic reforestation programs for decades, including conversion of farmland and rangeland to forests. More recently the United States has supported reforestation programs through the United Nations and through dozens of bilateral projects. For example, after forest fires in Lebanon last month, the United States donated $100,000 for a local reforestation project in a Lebanese national park.
As Lithuanians well know, increased use of nuclear power -- if done safely and smartly -- is another way to reduce greenhouse gasses. Each year the world's 439 nuclear power plants prevent the release of 2 billion additional tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Nuclear power is the one existing source of energy that can generate massive amounts of electricity without causing air pollution or greenhouse gas emissions.
The United States is working to make the construction of new nuclear power plants easier in America without compromising on safety. Recently, a company filed the first application since the 1970s to build new nuclear reactors in the United States.
We are also encouraging safe and clean nuclear energy internationally. Last year, the United States established an initiative called the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. This partnership works with nations with advanced civilian nuclear energy programs - such as France, Japan, China, and Russia - to help developing nations obtain secure, cost-effective, and proliferation-resistant nuclear power. We have been joined by 15 partners, both developed and developing, in this effort.
The results of these and other policies are very good. Data from the International Energy Agency shows that since 2000, CO2 emissions in the United States increased virtually the same small amount as in the EU 27, less than two percent. President Bush has set a national goal to reduce America's carbon intensity by 18 percent by 2012, and it looks like we will achieve this goal. If we do, we will prevent about the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions as all of the Kyoto countries combined, if they meet their targets.
Let me briefly address the reasons why we chose not to join Kyoto. As President Bush has made clear, the fight against climate change needs to be a global effort. The Kyoto protocol ignores several of the world's largest carbon emitters, including China and India who together make up about one-third of the world's population. Indeed, 80 percent of the world's population lives in countries exempt from the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol also distorts economic decisions and could cause serious economic harm to the U.S. economy and the economy of other countries.
In addition, implementation of the Kyoto Protocol has been ineffective, in part because it is difficult to manage negotiations among almost 200 countries. The ineffectiveness of implementation is clear: most countries are not meeting the goals they committed to with the Kyoto Protocol. The experience of the United States, which I just described, shows that what matters most are countries' individual policies, not whether or not they officially sign and ratify the Kyoto Protocol.
It is also clear that any serious effort to limit greenhouse gasses must include large developing countries such as China and India. To illustrate this point, I ask you to consider the following. China will pass the United States as the largest greenhouse gas emitter this year or next. Within 10 years, China's emissions could be double the U.S. rate. Since 1990, China's greenhouse gas emissions have gone up more than 47% and India's emissions have increased more than 55%. Emissions from China and India will continue to grow because both countries are relying on coal-fired power plants to fuel their economic growth.
Our climate partnerships do engage China and India. Both countries participate in the Major Economies Process. Both are also active in the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, an innovative public-private partnership that facilitates investment in clean technologies and sharing of energy-efficient best practices. I strongly believe that increased economic activity and manufacturing in developing countries is good for the world economy as a whole. But I feel just as strongly that this economic growth should occur as cleanly as possible with proper concern for environmental impact.
Despite the flaws of the Kyoto Protocol, the United States supports the United Nations-led effort to fight greenhouse gases -- politically as well as financially -- and we very much hope that the Bali conference in December will be successful in creating a "roadmap" to help lead us toward agreement on a new global post-2012 framework. Just to remind everyone, the Kyoto protocol expires in 2012, so we need to have a new framework for post-2012. As a way to contribute to the UN process, President Bush initiated the Major Economies Process, bringing together a group of countries that represent 80 percent of the world's economy and 80 percent of its emissions. This group met for the first time in Washington in September.
We feel the Major Economies group presents a realistic opportunity to make serious and effective reductions in greenhouse gases -- and to do so quickly. The theory behind the group is quite simple. If we get 16 countries, and all of the EU through the European Commission, to sit down at a table and talk, we are more likely to reach consensus to take action than if we try to get 180 countries to sit around the table and talk. The Major Economies Process is a results-oriented approach. The 16 Major Economies plus Europe account for more than 80 percent of the world's total greenhouse gas emissions. If members of this group can make progress, the whole world will benefit and it is more likely to happen and to happen more quickly, than coordinating through a group of over 180 countries. As I said, Lithuania is participating in this effort through the European Commission.
In the mid-1980s, the fight against Chlorofluorocarbons (or CFCs) we were in an analogous position to where the fight against greenhouse gases is now -- the Montreal protocol was nearly paralyzed by the difficulties of coordinating more than 150 countries in negotiations. The United States moved forward with a small group of about a dozen major economies and injected focus and prioritization into an otherwise unwieldy process. As I mentioned earlier, former Secretary General Annan called the results the most successful international environmental agreement ever negotiated. And indeed it was effective. The use of CFCs almost immediately decreased to minimal levels and the Montreal protocol has contributed to a significant reduction of greenhouse gases.
If the Major Economies Process is successful, and as I said it includes China and India, it will reinforce to other countries that the fight against greenhouse gases can succeed. The Major Economies group should in every way complement and contribute to -- not compete with -- the UN-led climate change efforts.
However, this process works at the level of the individual country. It takes a more bottom-up, results-oriented approach to climate change. This approach facilitates innovation in policy and practice and we believe it works. It works for the environment, it works for the economy, and it works for energy security. There is an emphasis on technological advances - something everyone in this university should be happy about - so the fight against greenhouse gases can lead to the growth of industries in the sustainable energy sector. This approach is oriented toward the three inter-related goals I mentioned earlier as well.
I want to conclude with reinforcing that final message one more time -- improving the environment, improving the economy, and improving energy security are the three main goals of a modern environmental protection policy. As the American historical experience and the current need for science to provide information about climate change both illustrate, being an environmentalist does not mean being anti-development or anti-progress and it certainly does not mean being anti-technology or anti-science.
Indeed, the most effective environmentalists are innovative and see the broad context of a healthy economy, a concerned public, and a responsive government as essential to protecting the environment. Modern environmentalists rely on science both to understand the extent of environmental problems and to propose solutions technically and in terms of policy. I hope that many of you in this room share this view and will use your scientific expertise -- fortified by a personal commitment to preserve the world's natural heritage -- to contribute to the environmental challenges we face today and that we will continue to face in the future. Thank you for your attention to my presentation today and thank all of you for your efforts regarding understanding and protecting the environment.
Thank you.
