U.S. Relations With the People's Republic of China (2008)

The White House

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
April 16, 2008

Press Briefing by Dana Perino and Jim Connaughton, Chairman, Council on Environmental Quality

James S. Brady Press Briefing Room

1:07 P.M. EDT

[ ...Intervening Text... ]

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. Today the President will give remarks on climate change. The remarks will come in three contexts. I will be flying out tonight as his personal representative to the next meeting of the leaders' representatives of the major economies. The President last year announced a new initiative to bring the 17 countries of the world that have the largest economies and produce the greatest amount of greenhouse gases into a conversation to see if we can support and accelerate the negotiations under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. So that's coming up in the President's thinking of that.

[ ...Intervening Text... ]

In addition we just reached a new international agreement, including with developing countries -- including China and India -- on the accelerated phase out of HCFCs. These are hydroflurocarbons that are refrigerants. They're also potent greenhouse gases. And so we have a new international accord to more rapidly phase those out, and we'll be putting that into U.S. law very soon.

[ ...Intervening Text... ]

Q: You say he's offering new national goals. How much influence do you think he's going to have on this debate, come stepping forward in the eighth year of his presidency, rather than a lot sooner?

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: That question actually answers itself in the influence the President has already had. He has brought together internationally the 17 largest economies, with leader commitments to meet this summer to discuss for the first time at that level where we're going to go next with an international treaty. He led the way with a State of the Union announcement two years ago on advanced biofuels that led to the State of the Union announcement last year for the most ambitious mandates on renewable fuels of any country in the world. And in the course of less than a year, we found ourselves with a bipartisan energy bill that nobody thought was possible, that had five major new mandates, to back up the incentive programs in the 2005 energy bill that the President led on. The President led the way on this new international agreement to phase out HCFCs, which will reduce emissions by as much or more than the Kyoto Protocol -- and that's an agreement that had China and India on it.

So we are leading -- we are leading, and we have the demonstrated results of that leadership, and as a result the leaders are coming together to see how we can take this conversation further.

[ ...Intervening Text... ]

Q: Keeping that reluctance in mind, there's a reference to religious freedom in there. Did they specifically discuss the situation in China? And within that, did they discuss Tibet?

MS. PERINO: I couldn't tell you specifically, I don't know. I asked him specifically about Iraq, but not China.

[ ...Intervening Text... ]

Q: And can I just clarify something that Jim said? So he was essentially saying, if I understood him correctly, that the practical effect in the administration's eyes of the President setting this national goal today, even though he does have less than a year in office, is to basically provide a place for the next President to kind of take over, the thinking being, what we've heard on the campaign trail is that the next President will be willing to sort of pick up where this President leaves off. Is that what the administration believes will happen here?

MS. PERINO: Well, I think, Elaine, just look -- we're mindful of the clock. But look back to May -- last May, 2007, when the President first announced that he would start this post-Kyoto conversation. And he said, I will lead this effort, and I will lead it in a way that keeps China and India at the table, which is critical for having the political consensus, for everyone to have the will to actually move forward and get this done. Otherwise it is going to fall apart.

We said at that time, and then in September 2007, that we want every country to agree to establish intermediate and then a long-term goal, and then that the plans of those goals would not be finalized until the end of 2009. So we had already said last May and then in September that we knew that this was going to be a process that would take a while, but it is a post-2012 conversation. And so, yes, the next President is going to have to deal with this. But so is the Congress. I mean, this is just something that the world is going to have to deal with for quite a while to come.

Q: Again, a non-binding goal -- I mean, some people might look at that --

MS. PERINO: You need to look back at the September 2007 statement because through the major economies meeting process, in order to keep this process on track, and by having China and India at the table, that's how you do that. We will be able to collectively agree on a goal that all of us will be held accountable by under the United Nations framework.

[ ...Intervening Text... ]

END

1:52 P.M. EDT