ShareThisBy KEVIN YAMAMURA
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Thursday that the U.S. and other countries should enter into a new international greenhouse gas reduction pact similar to the Kyoto Protocol that President Bush has opposed and the U.S. has never ratified.
Schwarzenegger, speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, said he supports an idea by British Prime Minister Tony Blair to bring all of the Kyoto holdouts into a new worldwide agreement to lower greenhouse gas emissions.
"I think the problem is getting so serious now that those countries have to participate, everyone has to participate," Schwarzenegger said. "Including China, including India, the United States.
"The federal government is falling behind with the action here. I mean, I believe very strongly that if the federal government does what California does, which is to make a commitment to roll back the greenhouse gases or to come up with carbon fuel standards the way we have done ... a lot of things can happen and we can be a great inspiration to the rest of the world."
Asked a question about whether environmentally minded politicians should be held accountable for the large cars and private planes they use, Schwarzenegger suggested those details should be of little consequence if the politicians are working toward a larger good.
The Republican governor himself owns four Hummers and uses a private plane, and he said the people have a right to know what environmentalists do energy-wise. But he framed his answer as a defense of former Vice President Al Gore, who faced criticism for energy use in his large Tennessee home after the success of his global warming documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth."
"It doesn't mean we should discredit that person, not by any means," Schwarzenegger said. "Because no matter what Al Gore does, and no matter how many big cars he has _ let's assume he has some, I don't know what vehicles he has or if he flies a private jet ... it makes no difference to me because the fact of the matter is he has created so much inspiration and he has done so much in order to move the environmental movement forward that it is OK in the end.
"I still appreciate what he has accomplished. And as far as that goes, (the same) with actors or with anyone else that is talking about the environment."
