U.S. Relations with the People's Republic of China (2005)

Rice Urges Ukrainian Students To Defend, Protect Their Democracy

Secretary says Ukraine could be "anchor of democratic stability" in region

Following is the State Department transcript:

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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
December 7, 2005

REMARKS

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Town Hall Meeting

Shevchenko University
Kiev, Ukraine
December 7, 2005

MODERATOR: (In Russian.)

(Applause.)

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QUESTION: (Off-mike.) Thanks. (Inaudible) and what can you say about the world ecological problems? Why didn't America take part to accepting of the Kyoto Protocol?

SECRETARY RICE: Thank you. This is about the Kyoto Protocol and environmental issues. Let me start with just the fact that the United States has today cleaner water and cleaner air than it's ever had. When I was a little girl growing up in places like Alabama the air wasn't very clean and I remember that the rivers weren't very clean. And everybody, including Americans, want to live in a clean environment.

We also are very concerned about the challenges of global climate change. Do you know that the United States spends $5.8 billion on climate change issues, either on trying to make incentives for people to move to new technologies or the research on climate change so that we know more about why there is a warming of the earth. And we are, therefore, very actively involved in climate change.

Now, as to the Kyoto Protocol, it was the American view that the Protocol, as it was structured, did not address a couple of problems. One is that it did not permit growth in economies like ours. There were estimates that it would have seriously retarded or diminished growth in the United States. And given the American role as an economic engine in the world, you don't want American growth to diminish. You want American growth to keep going.

Secondly, that because the Kyoto Protocol did not cover developing countries like China and India, it was not going to have the desired effect in terms of greenhouse gas intensity. And so the United States has been following a path, first of all, to diminish greenhouse gas intensity as we improve the technologies that are driving energy in our economy. The President has gone to Congress to get a wide variety of new technologies that are clean: clean coal, to try to restart the nuclear industry in the United States, nuclear energy industry. And we have signed on with a number of countries around the world to try and make growth, the environment and energy all a part of the same package.

So we have, for instance, something called the Asia-Pacific Partnership, which has China, India, Japan, South Korea and the United States, Australia, as a part of it. I'm sorry, not Japan -- South Korea, the United States, Australia, China and India. Japan and others have expressed an interest in what we're going to do in that partnership. And so that partnership is an example of how countries can come together to pursue, simultaneously, growth, environmental responsibility and clean energy. And so that has been our way of dealing with the issue.

We also, at the G-8 meetings at Gleneagles in Great Britain, had a series of G-8 led initiatives on the environment and global climate changes, so I think we're doing a lot in this area.

Maybe a couple more questions. Yes.

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