Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Sunday Morning

Seattle Takes Global Warming Positions Seriously

Aired July 29, 2001 - 09:36   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Unlike the Bush administration, the city of Seattle supports the Kyoto protocol to combat global warming. Seattle says if Washington won't be a part of the world plan on global warming, then the locals will do it themselves.

Joining us now, Nancy Glaser is Seattle's City Lights director of planning, Heidi Wills is a Seattle Councilwoman who chairs the energy environmental committee, and in Washington, Chris Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Good morning to all three of you.

NANCY GLASER, SEATTLE CITY LIGHT: Good morning.

HEIDI WILLS, SEATTLE COUNCILWOMAN: Good morning

CHRIS HORNER, COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE: Good morning.

PHILLIPS: Ms. Glaser, let's start with you. Why don't you go ahead and tell us about this resolution that was recently passed regarding the Kyoto?

GLASER: Yes, our city has decided that we need to go foreword, acting locally. We believe there are very good economic reasons, both in terms of the local economy and our electric utility itself, to both go forward and assess the greenhouse gas emissions in our city and in our region more generally and then take action to mitigate. And we believe that we will be able to reasonably mitigate probably well beyond three times the 7 percent target that was outlined in the Kyoto resolution.

PHILLIPS: And Councilwoman Wills, you're very much involved with these projects. Tell me what it is, specifically, that you're working on that helps make such a difference.

WILLS: Well, we're doing this also because we can't afford not to. In the city of Seattle, we depend on hydroelectricity for our power base, but we also rely on a hydropower cycle for salmon, water, for crops, for fish, drinking water, for recreation. We're worried about the health impacts to ground level smog increases due to global warming. So, we've made a commitment. A very tangible commitment, because the people of Seattle own their own electric utility and we will be offering 100 percent green power, no net emissions of greenhouse gases associated with our power utility.

PHILLIPS: So, Mr. Horner, what's your reaction to Seattle's decision to go forward and adopt the Kyoto standards?

HORNER: Well, it might be the feel-good resolution of the year, but it's not Kyoto. I read it and I noticed it doesn't have international economic sanctions if you use more energy than the UN decides you should. It is not binding. It talks about goals. It doesn't have enforcement mechanisms. It doesn't have a $1 billion wealth transfer to third world nations through a climate change fund.

In fact, when reading it, I thought to myself, "I think I've read this before." And I went back and I have. This is in effect the 1992 Rio Treaty, the framework convention that Kyoto seeks to amend in a much more stringent way. This is a voluntary program, which we applaud the volunteer nature of it. It's in furtherance of a treaty that is in effect, but it is not Kyoto. It has no pain.

PHILLIPS: Ms. Glaser?

GLASER: We are very committed to action. We'll live up to that action. And basically the idea was not so much to try to mirror or structure what we will do here in Seattle exactly as the Kyoto protocol, but basically to clarify that we acknowledge there is a problem, that it is no longer possible to try to ignore the facts that the impacts of human activity are having a significant impact our climate. Those impacts in our local region will have probably results of a 50 percent reduction in our snow pack, which will have significant impact not just on our ability to generate electricity cost effectively, but impacts on our drinking water capabilities, issues for draught.

We are committed wholeheartedly to go forward. Our electric utility by the year 2003, actually we have gone forward and assessed what kinds of emissions come out of our electricity generating resources, and we are going to fully mitigate for those resources by 2003. That is a strong commitment that we will step up to and it is not just a few words there and we have worked very publicly with both scientists and specialists in the field to decide how we will mitigate.

PHILLIPS: Mr. Horner, I see you biting your tongue. I'd better let you in here and be able to say something.

HORNER: Yeah, well, we're used to filibusters in this zip code, but you need to address the fact that Seattle -- there is a lot of morally superior rhetoric accompanying this, which is the only thing to which I object. We applaud the voluntary nature. Voluntary is the way to go. The one of the 245 scenarios that the UN described, which you're repeating, is one of 245 scenarios. It wasn't given any greater weight than any of the others. It's just very hyperbolic and easy to use to get action.

This isn't really action. It's a feel good resolution, and that's great. What Seattle is in a unique position to do is rely on hydropower, for example, as you noted, which does not emit what are so-called greenhouse gases. The rest of the country, and by the way this doesn't address what the country would have to address, Seattle's municipal economy, that is, this is about the city government. It doesn't talk about automobile manufacturing. Take this to Detroit and see what happens. It doesn't talk about steel manufacturing. There is no energy intensive manufacturing the city participates in and that's when we're talking about the job cuts and the pain.

If the city wants to do what every mother who has to balance the checkbook for her family, what every employer has to do to turn a profit and meet his payroll, and that is find inefficiencies and make them more efficient; find cost savings through energy use reductions. That's great. It's about time governmental entities acted like the rest of the world. But this is not, as this rhetoric indicates, doing what Bush should be shamed into doing.

You say have him join us and the rest of the world. This just in, all of the rhetoric aside, none of the countries with any obligations under this treaty, and that includes all the industrial titans, Liechtenstein, Iceland, Belgium, oh, and the U.S., and some others, but not China, India, Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia, South Korea, our trade competitors, none of the countries with any obligations under this thing have ratified it. They're leading a four year boycott with this intense morally superior rhetoric cavalcade, which is just disturbing.

PHILLIPS: Councilwoman Wills, got to let you -- filibuster or an honest fight here? You're the politician. You've got to read the fine print, right?

WILLS: We're in the other Washington over here. You know, while people like Chris want to continue to argue about what's the best way to do this, whether it makes economic sense, people in local communities are moving forward with very direct and concrete actions in order to mitigate the effects of greenhouse gases.

We're going to be insuring that all of our new growth in our load for electricity is met with no net emissions of greenhouses gases. That's a huge commitment. We're moving forward with securing wind based power, geothermal power. We will be fully mitigating all power associated with fossil fuel generation, which is a good portion of our portfolio, about 10 percent of it, 150 megawatts.

We'll be moving forward with $3 million in projects to offset those greenhouse gases, to protect forests, to plant more trees, to invest in alternative forms of transportation, for a more fuel efficient fleet, for city facilities, for clean diesel gasoline for our metro bus system, our public transportation system. We'll be making very concrete actions. Frankly, because we can't afford not to.

And when federal governments such as ours do such embarrassing things as to not move forward like the rest of the world, to acknowledge that global warming is a real threat to local communities such as the city of Seattle, it leaves us no choice but to make these actions and we're doing this in concert with 96 other cities in the United States and 400 cities around the world with an organization called ICLEI, the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives.

The rest of the world is onboard. It's about time the U.S. stepped up.

PHILLIPS: Well...

HORNER: Who has ratified treaty? Who is onboard is the question. Who is onboard? The EU is leading a four year boycott of ratifying it. We've got to stop the inaccurate rhetoric of, you know, feels so good to demonize the U.S. or President Bush. He is doing the right thing. This is a job killer. All the Clinton administration officials involved in the economic assessment now come out and say, well, we had some pretty silly assumptions and so all the other assessments which say four percent of our economy this will take were right. That's why the rest of the world is not ratifying it. They're leading a four year boycott.

So, you are not joining the rest of the world, but you're doing something voluntarily pursuant to the Rio treaty. That's good. That's existing law. That makes sense while we pursue the science. The U.S. is not doing nothing. We're spending three times as much as anyone else on this science, and money does matter because we're in a nascent stage here. We're developing real models to know what the true assumption should be to figure out what, if any, impact man has. It is appreciable?

You know, the climate, you're talking about stabilizing it, I read in this resolution. News: the climate has never been stable. It never has been; it never will be. Weather happens. We have average temperatures and average rainfalls by taking the highs and the lows; the average rarely occurs. We were panicked about global cooling in the 1970's. Now we're panicked about global warming. Nobody acted then, and we shouldn't have. We're waiting for the science to develop, but the world is not moving on without us.

PHILLIPS: And that's true. And we are not -- we're going to move on right now, but we will definitely not move past this issue. We'll continue to cover it with full force.

Chris Horner, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Heidi Wills, Councilwoman for Seattle and also Nancy Glaser, head of the Seattle City Light. Thank you all very much for a very enlightening discussion.

HORNER: Thanks.

GLASER: Thank you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com