Bill Clinton: “Today we are planning for the future, and we're working on two issues I wanted to mention briefly. First, we are about…”

“Today we are planning for the future, and we're working on two issues I wanted to mention briefly. First, we are about to start a meeting, as you can see, with the economic team, planning for the 1998 budget. This will be the sixth year of our economic plan of invest in our people, cut the deficit, expand America's ability to sell abroad. And as all of you know, the deficit has gone from $290 billion when I took office to $23 billion today. Our economy is the strongest in a generation. And what we are going to be doing now is looking to continue this strategy within the confines of the balanced budget. Keep in mind, we have a balanced budget plan, but we don't have a balanced budget yet. We have to keep that uppermost in our minds. The second thing we're going to be doing is continuing to work on the challenge of climate change, with the Kyoto conference in Japan opening this week. The conference begins today. I've asked the Vice President to go to Kyoto early next week to present our approach, which is both environmentally strong and economically sound. All of you know that I believe that global warming is one of the great challenges that America must face over the next few decades, and we must begin now. The challenge is not imminent in the sense that most people can't feel it now, but it is clear, and it is very profound. It is a danger that the world community would ignore only at its peril. There are still significant differences between the parties on key issues at the conference. The question before us is whether the nations of the world, both the developed and the developing nations, can put their rhetoric aside and find common ground in a way that enables us to make real progress in reducing the danger of global warming. And this can be done, I firmly believe, without undermining the capacity of the developing countries to grow or, for that matter, the capacity of the developed countries to grow. We have set forward a plan that is both aggressive and achievable. It represents our commitment to do what we promised to do and to work very hard to avoid promising to do something that neither we nor others can do. The Vice President will lay out the essence of our plan, explain its central goals: a strong target, a vigorous domestic program, reliance on market mechanisms to reduce the cost of cutting emissions, and meaningful participation by the developing countries, because the progress that we need to make cannot be made and, indeed, the problem cannot be solved unless all countries are involved. This is a global problem requiring a global solution. I'm pleased the Vice President is going to Kyoto to present our position. It shows that we consider this to be a profoundly important issue, and we have taken it very seriously. We have worked very hard on it. An outstanding negotiating team, led by Under Secretary of State Stu Eizenstat, will conduct the negotiations. And I believe that if we all work hard, this will be viewed as a landmark meeting on our way to making progress on this critical challenge. International Agreement on Greenhouse Gas Emissions”