Remarks by President Bush on energy at APEC summit in Sydney

Business Wire released remarks on energy issues by President Bush, who spoke at a news conference at the APEC meetings in Sydney.

“Kyoto may work for other countries — it may have made sense for certain countries that ratified it. It just didn’t make sense for the United States. And so, therefore, I told the truth. And by the way, prior to my arrival in Washington, the United States Senate was given a chance to express their approval or disapproval of whether or not Kyoto made sense to the United States: There was a 95 to nothing vote against Kyoto. So it’s just not my opinion. There’s a lot of people who thought Kyoto wasn’t the way to go.

“So we developed a different approach: energy efficiency standards based upon new technologies….we reduced greenhouse gases in America last year and our economy grew at 3 percent. I don’t know if many countries can make that claim, but we can — because our strategy of putting new technologies in place is working…..Over the next 10 years, we will reduce our gasoline consumption by 20 percent by using ethanol and other new technologies. I believe battery technology is going to be coming on so that people in Sydney can drive the first 40 miles in their cars on battery without your car looking like a golf cart.

“The reason we rejected Kyoto is because it wouldn’t have allowed us to do what we wanted to do, which is grow our economy, become less dependent on foreign oil and be good stewards of the environment.

John [Howard] and I have talked about his desire to put climate change at the forefront of APEC, and I was a strong supporter of that. I also reminded him that at the G8, I took the message that said to our partners there that if you really want to really solve the global climate change issue, let’s get everybody to the table. Let’s make sure that countries such as China and India are at the table as we discuss the way forward. Otherwise, I suspect, if they feel like nations are going to cram down a solution down their throat and not give them a voice on how to achieve a common objective, they’ll walk. And then you can’t have effective global climate change, if a nation like China is not involved.”

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