Thank you, Director Fri, for that introduction and thanks to the Museum of Natural History for sponsoring this event. From the Hope Diamond to the Blue Whale to the multi-legged attractions of your Insect Zoo, the wonders of the world are on display here. I can think of no better place than this to recommit ourselves to our planet's environmental health.

Dr. Baker, I also want to thank you for your fine, clear and objective presentation. And to congratulate you on the wonderful job you are doing at NOAA -- especially during this, the Year of the Ocean.

Now saving a planet is a pretty big job, even for the Smithsonian and NOAA. But for those of you who may be daunted by the challenge, let me remind you of the Gary Larsen cartoon some time back in which a dinosaur, after prolonged study, says to his comrades: "Friends, the outlook is bleak. The world's climate is changing. Humans are taking over. And we each have a brain the size of a walnut."

So take heart, things could be worse.

Earth Day was first celebrated in 1970, which was not a quiet time. The Vietnam War was at its peak. Middle East tensions were high. The entire world was split between red, white and blue on the one hand and just plain red on the other. And there were deep divisions here at home over the economy and the plight of our cities.

But still, environmental concerns broke through. How could they not? Americans could see, smell and feel the difference pollution was making in their lives. Smog was everywhere. Rivers and lakes were unfit for swimming. And there had been a major oil spill in Santa Barbara.

The next few years were a remarkable period. I know because I was working then for Senator Ed Muskie of Maine, who taught me, really for the first time, to think green. Senator Muskie and his colleagues in a Democratic Congress joined forces with a Republican President. Together, they enacted laws that would do much to clean our waters, improve air quality, protect endangered species, and safeguard the transportation of oil and other hazardous goods.

Some opposed these steps, saying they were not needed and would threaten prosperity. Some questioned the science, arguing that fish grow well in polluted waters -- which they do, they grow extra heads. And some argued that we would become uncompetitive if we insisted on having air we could breathe, while other nations did not.

Today, we may be thankful that the decision makers of the 1970's did not listen -- if I may borrow a phrase from that era -- to the nattering nabobs of negativism. Instead, they took the steps that would make our country healthier, cleaner and more competitive. We owe them a debt of gratitude. And today, we should commit ourselves to following their example.

The threats we face from environmental harm are not as spectacular as those of a terrorist's bomb or missile.

But we know that the health of our families will be affected by the health of the global environment.

The prosperity of our families will be affected by whether other nations develop in sustainable ways.

The safety of our families will be affected by whether we cut back on the use of toxic chemicals.

And the security of our nation will be affected by whether we are able to prevent conflicts from arising over scarce resources.

There is much that we can do through our diplomacy to achieve these goals. Currently, to cite just three examples, we are promoting efficient management of the Nile River Basin; supporting better forestry practices in Southeast Asia, and striving to negotiate a worldwide ban on the release of pollutants such as DDT and PCBs.

But if we are to move ahead as rapidly as we would like, we will also need support from our friends in Congress.

For example, we need to gain approval of the President's request for funds for USAID so that we can help other countries grow in ways that balance economic progress, social development and environmental concerns.

We need support for the Global Environment Facility (GEF), which embodies the partnership for sustainable development that was forged in Rio. This partnership is not helped by the fact that, in each of the last three years, we have fallen short of our pledged share to the GEF. We need to do better than that. We need to meet our commitments -- in full -- this year and every year.

As the President stressed during his recent trip to Africa, we are asking the Senate to approve the Convention Against Desertification.

We are also asking the Senate to approve the Biodiversity Convention. For we cannot ensure our future if we endanger the biological base that serves the needs of every human society, no matter how rich or poor.

For example, many improvements in the production of food can be traced to crossbreeding plants.

And nature has provided the key to many other secrets we very much want to know. For in the Rosy Periwinkle, researchers found a treatment for childhood leukemia; in the Pacific Yew and Australian Coral, treatments for ovarian and breast cancer; in the Poison Arrow Frog, a painkiller without the side effects of morphine; and yet another cancer treatment has been produced in the laboratory through the combined efforts -- and excretions -- of jellyfish and glow worms.

The Administration believes we can implement the Biodiversity Convention in a way that protects our commercial interests while enabling those who protect biodiversity to share in the benefits. That makes business sense, environmental sense, scientific and medical sense. So I hope the Senate will use common sense and approve the Biodiversity Convention as soon as possible.

A major contributor to the stress we place on the global environment is growth in the world's population. At current rates, we are increasing by an amount equal to the population of Mexico each year. And more than 90% of this increase is in the developing world.

As I have seen in visits to South Asia, Africa, Latin America and Haiti, rapidly rising populations make it harder for societies to cope. Even when economies grow, living standards do not rise. Even when there is planning, resources of land and water are depleted. Even when overall production of food goes up, more people go hungry.

The Clinton Administration favors a comprehensive approach that takes into account the environment, development and the rights and needs of women. This accords with the consensus created at the 1994 Cairo Conference. It is reflected in our Child Survival and Disease Programs, and in our support for international family planning.

As is well known, there are those who would like to impose crippling conditions on our assistance to family planning. On this issue, there are strong feelings on all sides. I know, because my own feelings are strong. And I believe international family planning needs and deserves our support. The programs we help are voluntary; they improve people's health; they save people's lives; they reduce significantly the number of abortions; and they contribute to a more livable world.

Finally, and this is the subject I want to emphasize today, we must act with others around the world, not years from now but now, not with timidity but resolve, to combat global climate change.

This problem affects us all.

As Dr. Baker made clear, and as leading scientists agree, greenhouse gases are warming our planet. This means, to use formal diplomatic language, that we should all "get ready to get sweaty."

A warming planet is a changing planet, and not for the better. Unless we act, sea levels will continue to rise throughout the next century, swamping some areas and putting millions of people at greater risk to coastal storms.

We can expect significant and possibly sudden changes in agricultural production and forest ecosystems, leading to modified migrations of wildlife and larger migrations of people.

We will also see more heat-related deaths, more serious air quality problems, increased allergic disorders and more widespread malaria, cholera and other infectious disease.

Unlike Dr. Baker, but probably like most of you, I am not a scientist. I am also something of a skeptic. We all know of times in the past when prophets of doom and gloom were proven wrong; when predictions that we would soon run out of food, water or air did not come true.

So I am no Chicken Little. But I note that the scientific backing behind the current projections is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, representing the work of more than 2000 scientists from more than 50 countries. If you review their report, you see that it is carefully worded, factually based and that it recognizes the uncertainties as well as the risks.

But all that aside, I have been on Earth now for sixty years. And I have never witnessed weather of the kind I have seen, read about, and heard about these past few years.

As Secretary of State, I cannot count the number of times I have called foreign leaders to offer help in response to weather-related disasters. In Africa, Asia and just across our southern border in Mexico, the effects of El Nino have had a devastating impact on coastal populations.

Globally, nine of the last eleven years have been among the century's warmest.

And here in the United States, heavy downpours of rain are up twenty percent. In recent years, we have seen floods in California, the Pacific Northwest and along the Mississippi, drought in the Plains States, and tornadoes in Florida, Alabama and -- this past week -- in Tennessee, Arkansas and Kentucky.

Freakishly bad weather brings with it far more than the need for new umbrellas and boots. The human and financial costs are enormous. Storms kill people. They destroy houses and livestock, disrupt food production, and require huge outlays for humanitarian relief

It is true that we can't point to El Nino, or to any individual storm or drought, and say global warming made it happen. But we can point to the pattern and say it is consistent with the trends that scientists believe global warming would create.

And we can ask ourselves, is more and more of this what we want for our children?

Our choice is clear. We can keep pumping more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, invite greater and more severe climate change, and simply let future generations deal with the consequences.

Or we can begin to act now to protect our planet -- our children's home.

The Administration has chosen the latter course. We favor a comprehensive global climate change agreement, in which nations consent to binding targets on future greenhouse gas emissions.

We took an essential step towards that goal this past December in Kyoto. There, for the first time, industrialized nations agreed to mandatory targets. These vary from country to country, with the United States pledging to meet a standard 7 percent below 1990 levels within the next ten to fourteen years.

This is appropriate, because if we are to slow global warming, the United States must help show the way. We have less than one-twentieth of the world's people; but we generate one-fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions. This reflects the size of our economy. But it carries with it a responsibility. That is why the President has unveiled three major initiatives within the last nine months to stimulate the development and use of clean technologies.

Our efforts can accomplish a great deal. They can set an example for others to follow. They can expand our knowledge and reduce the cost of innovative technologies and techniques. They can create more and better jobs in America's huge and highly competitive environmental manufacturing and services sector. And they can help restrain the growth in greenhouse gas emissions. But our efforts alone cannot solve the problem.

It is expected that, within two decades, the largest emitter of greenhouse gases will not be the United States, but China. And that, by ten years after that, the developing world will have become the source of the majority of such emissions. Industrialized nations created the global warming problem and must take the lead in responding. But clearly, we will not find a solution unless developing countries are a part of it.

That is why President Clinton has said that he will not submit the Kyoto Protocol for the Senate's consideration until there is meaningful participation by developing countries. To make this easier, we are building partnerships with many of these countries so that they may take advantage of the latest clean technologies. This will help them grow in ways that do not harm the environment.

In this connection, I am pleased that we are joined here today by executives from U.S. utilities who are working through the USAID/U.S. Energy Association Partnership Program to promote clean energy growth in developing countries.

Of course, meaningful participation will require something far different from a poor and non-industrialized nation than from one that is densely populated and on the threshold of developed status.

As Senator Robert Byrd has said: "Binding commitments for developing nations should be paced according to the ability of each country to achieve ... limitations appropriate to its national circumstance and economic growth."

Obviously, we cannot take a cookie cutter approach. Our goal is to establish and build a dialogue that takes into account the needs of every nation, and that leads every nation to conclude that the fight against global warming is everyone's battle and in every nation's interest.

Although we still have far to go, there are grounds for optimism.

Some less developed nations, particularly island nations, are among the most vulnerable to sea level rise and weather extremes. They are also among the leading supporters of efforts to combat climate change.

Second, many developing nations have constituencies who understand the dangers of global warming and who want the world, including their own governments, to respond.

Third, actions that reduce greenhouse gas emissions are often not a burden, but an opportunity. Many developing countries have already moved as in China, to increase reliance on cogeneration; or as in Mexico, to establish energy efficiency standards; or, as in Brazil, to make greater use of ethanol. Such steps cut energy costs, save natural resources, reduce health care expenses and increase competitiveness.

This is a point I heard President Clinton make repeatedly this past weekend at the Summit of the Americas in Chile. He said that, time after time; we in the U.S. have been warned that environmental safeguards such as emission standards would harm our economy. Time after time, we have acted anyway and found our economy did not shrink, but grow; and that we did not become less competitive, but more.

In part because of the President's persistence and persuasiveness, this is a message more and more countries are beginning to accept.

Finally, the parties agreed in Kyoto to something called the Clean Development Mechanism. This provides a financial incentive for firms from developed countries to invest, for example, in building environmentally friendly power plants in the developing world. Under this arrangement, participants would share certified emission reductions, and both the investing and host countries gain.

So when I sit down with my counterpart from a developing country, this is the argument I make.

If your country agrees to participate in the effort to limit climate change, your economy will continue to grow, but with greater access to new technologies that will make you more competitive.

Your exports will be welcome because the world will know they were not produced by undercutting environmental standards.

Your citizens will enjoy a higher quality of life, because you will have found the path to greater prosperity without sacrificing breathable air, drinkable water and livable cities.

Your nation will have earned respect by its willingness to lead on a matter of fundamental importance.

And your people, and their children and their children's children, will all benefit from a Global Climate Change agreement that is far more likely to be implemented by industrialized nations, including the United States, than if you do not participate.

Today, I am announcing a diplomatic full court press to encourage meaningful developing country participation in the effort to combat global climate change.

We are pushing this matter hard in bilateral discussions around the world. As I said, it was on the agenda of the Summit of the Americas. I will raise it in Beijing and Seoul during my trip to East Asia next week. We will be discussing it in the U.K. at the G-8 meetings next month, in Manila at the ASEAN meetings in July and at the UN General-Assembly this fall.

To make these efforts as effective as possible, I will be appointing a Special State Department Coordinator for Global Climate Change to make sure our diplomatic efforts on this issue are creative, constant, consistent and coordinated. That individual will work closely with the White House and other agencies, and in the State Department with senior negotiator Under Secretary Stu Eizenstat and Acting Assistant Secretary Melinda Kimble.

This decision reflects the importance we attach to this issue. And the fact that we want a global climate change agreement that is truly global and that will truly work to preserve the health of the environment upon which every nation depends.

It is said that nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time.

We are about to enter a century in which there will be far more of us, living closer together, consuming more, expecting more and demanding more. Inevitably, we will be participants in a race between the "using up" that results from human activity, and the ability to adapt that can result from human genius.

Policymakers must be willing to make hard decisions. We cannot simply assume that science and technology will provide the answers for us. We must work together, on a bipartisan basis, to design rules and nurture habits that respect the limits of our natural environment.

Whether the immediate issue is global warming or conserving fish stocks or managing forests, the fundamental issue is the same. And that issue is respect.

Respect for ourselves, because that's what it takes to accept responsibility for the consequences of our actions.

Respect for those in other countries, because upon their well-being depends our own.

Respect for future generations, because we have an obligation not only to educate and prepare our children for the world, but also to protect that world for our children.

And respect for nature, itself, because we -- of all creatures -- have been given both the power to destroy our planet's capacity to sustain life and the ability to appreciate and enjoy all of its wonders.

It is said that the meek shall inherit the Earth. But it will take boldness and action to save it. On Earth Day 1998, let us each pledge to treat our shared environment with respect, and to act with determination to safeguard it for generation upon generation to come. Thank you very much.

(end text)