         |
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of
the Press Secretary
(Moscow, Russia)
| For
Immediate Release |
June 4,
2000 |
Fact Sheet
Protecting the Environment and
Combating Global Warming
President Clinton and President Putin
today announced a new commitment between the United States and the Russian
Federation to strengthen joint efforts to combat global climate change. The two
nations pledged to work together and with other nations to complete the
negotiations necessary to make the Kyoto Protocol a working reality. They
pledged to expand cooperation on the measurement and reporting of greenhouse
gas emissions, and called for strong, transparent international rules that
maximize the potential of the Protocol's market-based tools to achieve
cost-effective emissions reductions.
Joint Statement on Cooperation
to Combat Global Warming: The joint statement reaffirms the commitment of
the United States and the Russian Federation to strengthen their cooperation in
fighting global warming. It follows a joint statement between the United States
and China last month, and a U.S.-India statement in March, pledging stronger
cooperation on climate change and other environmental concerns. The statement
with Russia outlines a common climate change agenda, including:
- Promotion of a shared vision that countries can achieve
robust economic growth while protecting the environment and taking action to
combat climate change;
- Reaffirmation of the United States' and Russia's opposition
to proposals to limit the Kyoto mechanisms by placing quantitative restrictions
on their use;
- Reaffirmation of the importance of developing rigorous and
transparent rules and guidelines for the Kyoto Protocol's flexibility
mechanisms, including international emissions trading and joint implementation;
and
- A declaration by the United States that it intends to
expand cooperation with Russia in the measurement and reporting of greenhouse
gas emissions, the development of market-based tools for managing those
emissions, and the identification of specific opportunities to further reduce
or sequester those emissions.
Statement Builds Upon Ongoing Bilateral Consultations and
Technical Assistance. Today's statement builds upon ongoing cooperation on
climate change between the United States and the Russian Federation, which has
been coordinated primarily through the U.S.-Russia Joint Commission, under the
leadership of Vice President Gore. As a result of this coordination, a variety
of ongoing technical assistance programs have been carried out in recent years
under the sponsorship of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S.
Agency for International Development, the Department of Energy, and the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Current work includes efforts
to:
- Encourage energy efficiency in Russia;
- Capture methane emissions from coal mines and landfills;
- Curb natural gas pipeline leakage;
- Improve greenhouse gas inventories at the regional level;
- Reduce mobile source emissions; and
- Develop domestic emissions trading programs in Russia.
Global Warming and the Kyoto Protocol: There is broad
scientific consensus that greenhouse gas emissions -- primarily in the form of
carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels -- are at least partly responsible for
an increase in global temperatures over the last century. Under the 1997 Kyoto
Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the world's
industrialized nations -- including the United States and Russia -- agreed to
reduce their overall greenhouse gas emissions by more than 5% percent below
1990 levels by 2008-2012. The Protocol, which has not yet been ratified by
either nation, also contains important market-based mechanisms to ensure that
nations can meet their targets in a cost-effective manner.
Under
Kyoto's emissions trading provisions, for example, countries or companies that
find it relatively expensive to reduce emissions may purchase additional
emissions units from emitters that have already met their targets with room to
spare. Economists widely agree that trading will encourage reductions where
they can be achieved at the lowest cost, resulting in the greatest reductions
for each available dollar, ruble, yen, or euro. |
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