This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
Administrator J. Brian Atwood
Fulbright Association 20th Annual Conference
Washington, D.C., October 4, 1997
U.S. Agency for International Development
I want to thank the Fulbright Association for inviting me here
today. I would particularly like to acknowledge board member
Sally Shelton-Colby, who heads USAID's Global Programs Bureau.
Ambassador Shelton-Colby was a Fulbright scholar at the Institut
des Sciences Politique in Paris. She exemplifies this program's
potential for developing enlightened leadership.
I also want to extend a warm welcome to the former and
current American and international Fulbrighters who are with us
today. This program has sent 120,000 people from around the
world to the United States to study, teach or conduct research and
90,000 Americans have gone abroad as Fulbright scholars. What a
wonderful contribution to global understanding, peace and stability.
Those of you who have participated know well how your own lives
and perspectives have been shaped by your experience.
Like President Clinton, Senator Fulbright's roots were in the
Arkansas Ozarks. Last year, at the 50th Anniversary Dinner for
the Fulbright Program, the President spoke of his fellow Arkansan:
"His vision and brilliance and the power of his example
said to a whole generation of us who were landlocked --
and most of us had never been very far from home by
the time we were nearly grown -- that we could still
imagine a world beyond the borders of our state and
relate to it, to participate in it; that we needed to
understand that world and that perhaps we had something
to give it."
Along with Sally Shelton-Colby and perhaps others here, I
was privileged to work in the Senate when Senator Fulbright
chaired the Foreign Relations Committee. He used that Committee
to educate -- to educate his colleagues, the American people, even
the Executive Branch, though that was never easy. The Senator
could be very tough in exposing the weaknesses of a policy
approach. His hearings on Vietnam certainly revealed flaws that
historians and newly retrospective participants such as Robert
McNamara now confirm as painfully real.
A handful of laws bear the Fulbright name -- the Fulbright
Scholars program is the best known. But I remember his reluctance
to legislate in the area of foreign affairs. He believed the Executive
Branch should not be bound by inflexible legislative formulas. He
gave Presidents and Secretaries of State the benefit of the doubt
until they lost his trust on a given issue. Then he would conduct a
seminar that was more revealing and more painful for the witness
than any amendment.
Today we seem to pass amendments and ask questions later.
We are at a juncture when it is more complicated than ever to
pursue American interests abroad. Yet, we are more constrained in
doing so than ever before. We need more seminars -- even painful
seminars -- and fewer rigid laws whose objectives may be good but
whose prescription is to deny our country needed flexibility.
I am encouraged that, in many respects, Fulbright's global
vision lives on. There is a growing recognition in America that a
global approach is the only approach. Most of our top business
schools, for example, have undergone major restructuring to better
educate students of the growing importance of international
economics, commerce and finance, and to expose tomorrow's
captains of industry to the international diversity of cultures and
societies.
Nonetheless, the debate about American investment in global
peace and development continues. Many on Capitol Hill are calling
for cuts in American contributions to the Fulbright program. There
are similar strains in the debate in which I have been engaged over
the last five years. I have tried with some degree of success to
argue that foreign aid is a misnomer. Today's aid program
supports American domestic interests as never before whether it is
protecting Americans against deadly infectious diseases, creating
new markets for our exports, or waging the battle against climate
change.
I know I'm preaching to the choir when I tell this group that
we live in a world where trends toward globalization and increased
interdependence are powerful and accelerating. International
cooperation is no longer a choice we make out of the goodness of
our heart. It is a necessity. We can't hide from the world's
problems behind our borders. The diverse fields of health, trade,
crime, environmental protection and job creation all require an
international reach. In all of these areas, the benefits of fruitful cooperation are obvious, while the failure to work together is
increasingly costly and immediate.
The U.S. spends a smaller percentage of its wealth on foreign
assistance than any other industrialized country. One of these days
we may hear a presidential candidate charge as Kennedy did about
the missile gap, that we have allowed our first line of defense to
grow terribly weak. We may wake up and discover that the
investments we made thirty years ago are no longer producing an
edge for Americans. Then we will hear the recriminations.
Fortunately, those investments are still paying off. We are
exploiting the emerging markets of Asia and Latin America as
never before (though we need fast track legislation if we are to
compete in our own hemisphere). We work with American-
educated ministers and leaders all over the world. We still have an
edge, but I worry about the next generation.
One area where international cooperation will be vital is the
global climate change issue. You will hear a great deal about this
issue from now on. On Monday, President Clinton and others from
the Administration will speak at a full day White House conference
on climate change. If you haven't followed the issue, I recommend
you start -- it has major implications for the well being of future
generations.
The American author and humorist Mark Twain once
observed that "everyone talks about the weather, but nobody does
anything about it." That is no longer the case. Collectively, we
are changing the weather. As President Clinton noted at the United
Nations in June, the science on climate change is clear and
compelling. Two thousand eminent scientists serving on the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded in 1995 that
human activity is having a "discernible impact on global climate."
The greenhouse effect, as most of you know, is caused by
gases such as carbon dioxide which accumulate in the atmosphere
and trap solar radiation, increasing the Earth's temperature.
Current levels of carbon dioxide are the highest in 200,000 years
and will soon reach double the concentrations of the pre-industrial
age. If this trend continues, scientists expect that global
temperatures will rise by 1 to 3.5 degrees centigrade over the next
century. What will this mean?
Sea levels are expected to rise one-and-a-half feet, putting 100
million people around the world at risk from flooding and storm
surges. Many nations would lose millions of acres of sea-level
land. Island nations would be devastated. People will be
displaced as flood-prone areas will increase by 300 percent.
Malaria, dengue and other water-related diseases would become
more common. Crops would suffer droughts in some areas while
enduring flooding elsewhere. Rice yields, forest productivity and
forest cover would all decline.
The cumulative effect of climate change will change the face
of global politics in the coming century. Over 200 million
environmental refugees worldwide could be created by the
combined effect of shifting agricultural patterns, weather-related
damage, epidemics and disrupted water supplies. Scientists predict
that a doubling of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations is a
virtual certainty under current trends. A trebling or quadrupling of
greenhouse gas concentrations would have even more drastic -- and
unpredictable -- effects.
Coping with climate change is not just a scientific issue, but
one that involves politics, policy, economics, finance and social
concerns. In democracies such as ours, wrestling with these issues
becomes particularly complex. Reaching global agreement on these
issues will be a major challenge.
What can be done?
The issue is being made more difficult as a result of a
disinformation campaign being waged by a few industries who
oppose our setting meaningful targets to reduce carbon emissions.
The tactics are simple: question the science, exaggerate the
economic impact and demand that our negotiators in Kyoto bring
home a treaty that includes all countries -- including the developing
countries -- even though the agreed framework for the negotiation
requires the industrial countries to agree first to binding emissions
targets. No wonder some people are confused!
President Clinton stated at the United Nations in June that the
United States "will bring to the Kyoto conference a strong
American commitment to realistic and binding limits that will
significantly reduce our emissions of greenhouse gas." We are
currently studying how we fulfill this presidential commitment in a
way that protects our economic growth and is fair to the developing
countries.
It is clear that we must convince the largest developing
economies to join this international effort. I visited India last week
to explore the climate change issue with one of the largest nations
and fastest growing economies in the developing world. I was
surprised at the receptivity of the Indians with whom I met. They
understood that climate change will do more damage to developing
countries than to the richer countries. They want access to private
capital and the latest technology for their energy sector.
Their problem is very simple and very serious. India has 25
percent less electricity than it now needs to support its economic
growth rate. That means power outages and generally
undependable power for manufacturers, farmers, hospitals, schools
and homes. As one wise Indian told me "The most expensive
power is when there is no power." A nation cannot produce up to
its potential without adequate power.
A World Bank study shows that India will need to add
140,000 megawatts of electricity by the year 2012 if it is to
maintain its rate of economic growth. India currently is able to
produce only 85,000 megawatts for a country of 950 million
people. Compare that to the United States: in 1990 we produced
and consumed 775,000 megawatts for a population of 260 (?)
million.
It is not in our interests to constrain India's economic growth
or to try to force this nation into an international regime that will
make it more difficult for India to fulfill its potential. Seventy
percent of India's population lives in poverty. Poverty is the
number one cause of environmental decay in the developing world.
It forces growing populations into cities and destroys rainforests.
Fossil fuel is the agent of climate change, but poverty is the cause.
We cannot encourage India to grow economically with old,
fossil fuel-generated power. Only the introduction of clean
technology and appropriate energy-sector policies will allow India
to grow while limiting greenhouse gas emissions. Through
USAID, we are now introducing these techniques and technologies
-- energy efficient power plants, renewable energy, reduced
subsidies for energy, better methods to collect tariffs for electricity
use.
The key to success in Kyoto is to engage in this type of
international cooperation and collaboration. We are all in the same
boat heading toward the same reef. We don't know how much time
we have, but we know that we must begin to slow the boat down
and change its direction. We can best do this by being aware of the
needs of our interlocutors in countries like India and by showing
real American leadership.
Part of that leadership means arriving in Kyoto with a strong
commitment to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. The other
part is fulfilling President Clinton's $1 billion commitment to help
developing countries reduce emissions. USAID will release its
action plan on climate change on Monday for public comment. It
will contain many of the programs we have underway in India:
partnership between U.S. and Indian utilities; technical assistance to
state electricity boards; demonstration energy efficiency technology;
and renewable energy projects to introduce solar, wind and
hydroelectric systems in areas not covered by India's grid.
The Clinton Administration shares the objectives of Senator
Byrd's resolution urging us to include the developing countries to
join a worldwide treaty and climate change. But we will not
achieve that objective by demanding compliance from poor
countries while we duck responsibility. We are going to have to
show that we mean business in reducing emissions and we are
going to have to continue to serve our own interests by cooperating
with less fortunate countries as they seek both to grow economically
and contain greenhouse gases.
The stakes are high at Kyoto. Climate change is a public
policy issue that cannot be put off just because it is difficult to
handle politically. We cannot allow those most responsible for
polluting the atmosphere to buy public opinion on this issue.
The President is taking the issue to the public. On Monday he
will bring scientists, economists, business executives and academics
together at Georgetown University to discuss the science and the
economics of climate change. He will speak to the people directly and he will let the facts speak for themselves. This is what
leadership is all about.
The President, in conducting this all-day seminar, is doing
exactly what Bill Fulbright would have done. He is educating the
American people. He knows that climate change is an issue we
cannot walk away from. If we are honest about the economic
projections and if we employ ingenuity and technology, we will not
need major sacrifice. But if we delay, we are asking for trouble.
And the next generation will not forgive us if we fail to answer the
call of history.
Thank you.
This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
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Last Updated on: July 18, 2001
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