Remarks by President to People of NZ – Antarctic Centre
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(Christchurch, New Zealand)
For Immediate Release September 15, 1999
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT TO THE PEOPLE OF NEW ZEALAND
Antarctic Centre
Christchurch, New Zealand
1:38 P.M. (L)
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Good afternoon. Prime Minister Shipley, to Burton and Anna and Ben; and Sir Edmund
Hillary and Lady Hillary; Ambassadors Beeman and Bolger, and their wives; to Mayor Moore: Dr. Erb, Dr. Benton, Mr. Mace,
Dr. Colwell; to all of those who have made our visit here so memorable.
Let me begin on behalf of my family and my party by thanking the officials and the people of New Zealand for giving us
five absolutely glorious days in one of the most beautiful places on Earth. We are very grateful. (Applause.)
I hope you will all indulge me just one moment. This is my only chance to speak not only to you, but to the people of
the United States today. And since we're here to talk about the weather, you should know that my country is facing one
of the most serious hurricanes ever to threaten the United States if the predictions of its force and scope hold true.
This morning I signed an emergency declaration for the states of Florida and Georgia to provide for assistance for
emergency protective and preventive measures. I have been in close contact with our Vice President, Al Gore, and our
Director of Emergency Management, James Lee Witt. They are working around the clock to prepare for the storm. I ask all
of you here to remember my fellow Americans, and after we finish the state dinner tonight I am going to fly home and we
will make the best job of it we can.
Let me say I am particularly honored to be here with Sir Edmund Hillary, referred to in our family as my second
favorite Hillary. (Laughter.) I read that when Sir Edmund turned 50 he resolved to do three things: to build a house on
the cliffs above the Tasman Sea; to become a better skier; to do a grand traverse up the peaks of Mt. Cook. I'm
wondering what he resolved to do when he turned 80. I hear the All Blacks may have a new fullback. (Laughter.)
I wish you a happy 80th birthday, sir, and I wish all of us might lead lives half so full and productive as yours.
(Applause.)
I come here to this beautiful city and to this place to deepen a partnership between the United States and New Zealand
that is already long and strong. In this century, young Americans and New Zealanders have fought again and again side by
side to turn back tyranny and to defend democracy. We have worked together on peacekeeping missions. We have stood
together for expanded opportunity for our people through trade. We even let you borrow the America's Cup from time to
time. (Laughter.) We hope to reverse our generosity shortly. (Laughter.) We are grateful for your friendship and we
thank you for it.
This magnificent center stands as a symbol of what we can accomplish when we work together, and I would argue is a
symbol of what will be most important about our cooperation in the 21st century.
You heard Sir Edmund talk about his trip across Antartica. We he started it, some people called it the last great
journey on Earth. As I was reading about it, I understand that he actually overheard one farmer ask another, "that there
Antartica, how many sheep do they run to the acre?" (Laughter.)
But America believed in his mission and has long been fascinated with Antarctica. Way back in 1820, Nathaniel Brown
Palmer was one of the first people to sight it. A few years later, an American exploring expedition mapped more than
1,500 miles of the Antarctic coast, ending a centuries-old debate over whether a big land mass, in fact, existed around
the South Pole.
Forty years ago, inspired in part by Sir Edmund's expedition, the United States convened a meeting in Washington to
preserve the Antarctic forever as a haven for peace and scientific cooperation. Today, we can all be proud that not a
single provision of the Antarctic Treaty has ever been violated. Forty-three nations, representing two-thirds of the
world's population, adhere to the treaty. And the Antarctic is what it should be -- a treasure held in trust for every
person on the planet.
We are working together to preserve the pristine waters surrounding the continent, and fighting illegal fishing that
threatens to destroy species in the southern ocean.
For the United States and New Zealand, our commitments to Antarctica are based right here in Christchurch. Nearly 7 out
of 10 United States expeditions to the Antarctic are staged from here. And let me say, the only disappointment I have
about this trip is that I didn't stage an expedition from here. (Laughter.) So I want you to know, I expect that you
will let me come back one more time, so I can fulfill my lifelong desire to go to Antarctica. (Applause.)
I think, of all the work being done here, perhaps the most important to us and to the young people here, particularly,
over the next 20 years will be the work that tells us about the nature of climate change and what it is doing to the ice
cap here, to the water levels around the world, and to the way of life that we want for our children and our
grandchildren.
The overwhelming consensus of world scientific opinion is that greenhouse gases from human activity are raising the
Earth's temperature in a rapid and unsustainable way. The five warmest years since the 15th century have all been in the
1990s; 1998 was the warmest year ever recorded, eclipsing the record set just the year before, in 1997.
Unless we change course, most scientists believe the seas will rise so high they will swallow whole islands and coastal
areas. Storms, like hurricanes, and droughts both will intensify. Diseases like malaria will be borne by mosquitoes the
higher and higher altitudes, and across borders, threatening more lives -- a phenomenon we already see today in Africa.
A few years ago, hikers discovered a 5,000-year old man in the Italian Alps. You might think someone would have noticed
him before. They didn't because the ice hadn't melted where he was before -- in 5,000 years. If the same thing were to
happen to the west Antarctic ice sheet, God forbid -- it's a remote threat now, but it could occur one day -- and if it
did, sea levels worldwide would rise by as much as 20 feet. If that happens, not even Augie Auer will be able to save us
from the weather. (Laughter.) Now, I want you to laugh about it because I figure when people laugh, they listen. But
this is a very serious thing.
In 1992, the nations of the world began to address this challenge at the Earth Summit in Rio. Five years later, 150
nations made more progress toward that goal in Kyoto, Japan. But we still have so much more to do. America and New
Zealand, in no small measure because of our understanding, which the Prime Minister so eloquently articulated a few
moments ago, because of our understanding of the significance of Antarctica and the work we have done here to make this
a refuge of scientific inquiry, have special responsibilities in this area.
Of course, we have a big responsibility because America produces more greenhouse gases than any other country in the
world. I have offered an aggressive program to reduce that production in every area. We are also mindful that emissions
are growing in the developing world even more rapidly than in the developed world, and we have a responsibility there.
But I wanted to say today -- and if you don't remember anything else I say, I hope you will remember this -- the
largest obstacle to meeting the challenge of climate change is not the huge array of wealthy vested interests and the
tens of thousands of ordinary people around the world who work in the oil and the coal industries, the burning of which
produce these greenhouse gases. The largest obstacle is the continued clinging of people in wealthy countries and
developing countries to a big idea that is no longer true -- the idea that the only way a country can become wealthy and
remain wealthy is to have the patterns of energy use that brought us the Industrial Age. In other words, if you're not
burning more oil and coal this year than you were last year, you're not getting richer; you're not creating more jobs;
you're not lifting more children out of poverty. That is no longer true.
We now know that technologies that permit breathtaking advances in energy conservation, and the use of alternative
forms of energy, make it possible to grow the economy faster while healing the environment, and that, thank God, it is
no longer necessary to burn up the atmosphere to create economic opportunity.
We have somehow got to convince a critical mass of decision-makers and ordinary citizens in every nation of the world
that that is true. It will help to concentrate their attention if the people who know about Antarctica can illustrate,
year in and year out, in graphic terms, the consequences of ignoring climate change and global warming.
We are committed to doing more at home and to do more to help developing nations bring on these technologies, so they
can improve living standards and improve the environment. We can do this. We can do it in the same way that progress is
being made in dealing with the ozone layer. Consider that example -- something again which we know more about thanks to
the work of scientists here.
Because of chemicals we produced and released into the atmosphere over the past 50 years, every spring a hole appears
in the ozone layer above Antarctica. You already heard, and you know more about it than any country in the world, about
the unhealthy levels of ultraviolet radiation which pass through. Now, ever Kiwi school child who has participated in
Block Day knows what it means, why you have to have sunscreen and a hat.
But in 1987, the international community came together in Montreal and agreed to stop the use of chemicals that deplete
the ozone layer. Experts tell us that if we keep going the ozone hole will shrink, and by the middle of the next century
the ozone hole could actually close, so that, miracle of miracles, we would have a problem created by people solved by
people, and their development. This is the sort of thing we have to do with climate change -- and the stakes are even
higher.
The Antarctic is a great cooling tower for our planet, a great learning tower for our planet's scientists. What happens
to it will determine weather all over the globe, and will determine the patterns of life of the children here in this
audience and certainly of their children and grandchildren. It is a bridge to our future and a window on our past.
Right now, the ice is two miles thick and goes back more than 400,000 years. By studying the patterns of the past,
scientists will be able to tell us what will likely happen in the future and how we are changing the future from the
past based on what we are doing.
So much of what we know today from global climate patterns comes also from satellite images. But scientists have never
had detailed images of key parts of the Antarctic to work with until today. So I wanted to come here with one small
contribution to the marvelous work that all of our people are doing here. Today America is releasing once classified
satellite images of the Antarctic's unique dry valleys. The pictures provide two sets of images taken 10 years apart and
provides some of the most detailed and important information we've ever had on these ecological treasures.
Last month, Vice President Gore did the same thing for the Arctic. Both these releases will help scientists understand
changes taking place at the poles, and help us take another step toward meeting the challenge of a warming planet.
This is a special challenge for our young people. We have used the Internet, through and initiative called the Globe
program, to teach students in more than 50 countries that a grasp of science and ecology is the first step toward a
cleaner world. I am pleased that, working with Prime Minister Shipley, we are also going to establish a new Globe
program for children right here in New Zealand.
When Sir Edmund Hillary made his trek, the Antarctic was the last new place humanity looked before turning its
attention to the stars. In less than four months, all humanity will be looking forward to the promise of a new century
and a new millennium. When the dawn breaks on January 1st, the international timeline tells us that New Zealand
literally will lead the world into a new age.
Let us vow, in this place of first light, to act in the spirit of the Antarctic Treaty, to conquer the new challenges
that face us in the new millennium. Let us work with the determination of Sir Edmund Hillary to strengthen our
partnership, to keep our air and water clean and our future alive for our children. We owe it to the children of New
Zealand, the children of the United States and the children of the world. And we can do it.
Thank you very much. (Applause.)
END 12:56 P.M. (L)