===========================================================================
Press Gaggle by Jim Connaughton, Chairman of the Council on Environmental
Quality; and Dan Price, Assistant to the President for International
Economic Affairs and Deputy National Security Advisor on Leaders' Meeting
of Major Economies
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For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary July 9, 2008

Press Gaggle by Jim Connaughton, Chairman of the Council on Environmental
Quality; and Dan Price, Assistant to the President for International
Economic Affairs and Deputy National Security Advisor on Leaders' Meeting
of Major Economies Windsor Hotel Toya Resort and Spa Toyako, Japan

˙˙Press Briefings


12:38 P.M. (Local)

MR. PRICE: Good afternoon. We just finished an approximately two-hour-long
meeting of the leaders of the major economies. As you know, this was an
initiative that was started by President Bush, embraced at Heiligendamm
last year. It is the culmination of four meetings of leaders'
representatives. I will offer just a couple of observations, and then turn
it over to Jim Connaughton, who was the leader's representative -- who is
the leader's representative.

As we listened to the leaders around the room there was universal praise
for the major economies process. There was universal recognition that
having these countries in the room trying to find common ground was an
enormous contribution to the U.N. negotiations.

A declaration was adopted, and Jim will go into that. But the most
significant take-away from this meeting, in addition to the very
substantive leaders' declaration, was the desire of all leaders to continue
this process. And indeed, there was agreement to hold another meeting of
the leaders of the major economies at next year's summit in Italy.

The meeting concluded not only with that decision, but with specific
recognition for the contributions of President Bush, and a round of
applause for the President for initiating this process.

With that, let me turn it over to Jim Connaughton.

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: Thanks, Dan. What I want to do is just give you the
highlights of the decisions that came out of the meeting that will be found
in the declaration that is being posted to the web as we speak. We will
also have a fact sheet for you -- got anther data swing for you that I'll
give you at the end. So first was the overall sense of political purpose.

Okay, we're starting again, and I'm starting from the beginning so nobody
back in the file center is going to miss anything. So I want to run through
the declaration, the elements of the declaration, and give you a sense of
the meeting itself on each of the issues that will be found in the
declaration. And as I indicated, we'll have a fact sheet and some other
data for you. And all of that is being posted immediately, so that should
be available shortly.

First, in addition to the leaders of the 17 major economies, also in
attendance was Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of the U.N.; and the head of
the OECD; and the head of the IEA, which is the International Energy
Agency; and Bob Zoellick, the head of the World Bank. So they were also
participants in the meeting, not just watchers.

One of the points that President Bush made at the outset of his remarks was
the fact this was a historic gathering. In the more than 20 years of
climate and energy security discussions, the leaders of the major economies
have never assembled before to either discuss past actions or discuss sort
of the political impetus going forward. And so one of the important opening
sequences in the discussion today -- and you'll see this reflected in the
declaration -- was the importance of leader-level involvement in this issue
as we go forward, as much for providing political impetus for agreement on
climate change, but also to make sure that this is done in a way that
addresses and advances the interlink challenges of energy security and
sustainable development.

As Dan indicated, the leaders themselves recognize the value of the process
that led to this meeting, which was four meetings of their direct personal
representatives, and then the fact that we were able to dig into specific
elements that can support a new agreement under the U.N. Framework
Convention on Climate Change is something that will hope -- substantively
provide impetus to an agreement by the end of next year.

The leaders' declaration emphasizes the need for ambitious, realistic, and
achievable steps. Each of those is an important component and there was a
good discussion around each of those today, beginning with the discussion
about the desirability of all the countries to the U.N. process to adopt an
ambitious long-term global goal for greenhouse gas emission reduction, and
to do so in a way that assures continued growth and prosperity.
Importantly, all the leaders today recognized what the G8 also articulated
yesterday, that achieving an ambitious long-term goal depends on
significant advances in technology and the infrastructure to deliver that
technology in all of our countries.

As you know, the G8 had offered the proposal of a 50 percent reduction by
2050. A number of the major emerging economies leaders indicated that that
is a goal that they would be interested in exploring further. Other major
economies leaders are interested in continuing that discussion, so that is
an active point of discussion and we did have a fair amount of back and
forth on that and that is now in play.

Q So some of them said it was a good idea that they would explore?

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: Some of them were prepared to support that at this
point. Others were not quite ready to support that and indicated, actually
with quite, sort of specific comments on the need to look very closely at
the scenarios that have been given to us by the IPCC and by the OECD, and
the need to have a much better understanding of the different implications
of such a scenario for each country's relative contribution.

Q How many were ready to sign onto it?

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: Let's see -- so you have the G8 countries, and --
several, I think it would be fair to say. You'll have to check in with each
country. I can't speak for them.

Q More than half?

Q A handful?

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: Several. Several. In the leaders' declaration, then,
we talked -- you'll see a reflection of a discussion about the midterm
actions, and recall from the Bali Action Plan that was released last
December, all the countries agreed on the need to establish a new round of
national plans that set midterm goals and produce midterm actions. A step
forward on this occurred with respect to the fact that the major developed
economies indicated that they're going to take actions in the midterm to
halt the growth of their greenhouse gas emissions and achieve absolute
emission reductions. And the developing countries for the first time at a
leaders' level have indicated that they are going the take actions in the
midterm to achieve what is called a deviation from business-as-usual
emissions. That's kind of U.N.-speak, but the plain-speak is they're going
to significantly slow the growth of their emissions. So if you take a
business-as-usual projection, they're going to work to come in below that.

That's going to provide the foundation for discussion really in the coming
year -- specific midterm goals of each country. As I indicated yesterday,
the European Union, Canada and the U.S. have already articulated national
midterm goals. Each of the other major emerging economies is working on a
national plan that would include their own description of midterm goals and
actions.

Q Which ones were those again?

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: It was the EU, Canada and the United States. But we
know that each of the major economies have already initiated cabinet-level
processes for doing midterm plans. Mexico, Korea -- India just announced a
report of the progress of their cabinet committee just last week. So these
discussions are well underway.

Let me make one observation about that, by the way. Something different now
is that each country is doing a bottom-up analysis of what they can
achieve. Back in 1997, it was a top-down approach; countries strove to
reach agreement on overall targets, but had not done the groundwork as to
how they would actually be achieved at the domestic level. We think that
the catalyst that this major economies meeting has provided for each
country to do the bottom-up work is going to give us greater confidence in
commitments as we go to next year.

One of the open questions is the manner in which these midterm strategies
will be reflected in a new international agreement. Recall yesterday the G8
had indicated the importance of all the major economies having their
national strategies bound in a new international agreement. In today's
document you will see that the major emerging economies have agreed that
their national strategies will be reflected in the new international
agreement. And so between the words "bound" and
"reflected" there's going
to be some discussion as to the nature of those commitments next year --
but really a step toward each other on that point, which is very good.

There's also discussion in the midterm about actions to reduce net
emissions from deforestation and from forest degradation. This is very
important because it has been estimated that up to 20 percent of the
emissions problem is from deforestation and unsustainable land use. And
that is now squarely on the agenda as part of the collective contribution
of countries to taking action, in addition to reducing greenhouse gases
from industrial activity and power generation and transportation.

The third component -- so we've talked about long-term goals, we've talked
about midterm strategies -- the third component are the things we've now
agreed to do together. When President Bush launched this initiative the one
topic on the table was working together to try to reduce barriers to trade
in climate-friendly technologies. We also talked about the need for a more
effective measurement system so we can responsibly measure emissions and
fairly measure emissions from country to country, including the major
developing countries.

Well, as a result of that discussion, actually, we now have a long list of
near-term actions that we're going to take. In fact, it was at the last
meeting in Seoul that that list was significantly expanded, and that, in
our view, is a real sign of the confidence in this process.

So first on the list is a much closer cooperation on technology
development. We've tended in the past to do technology development within
each of our countries and not do very much in cooperation with each other.
And this is something thematically President Bush introduced last year in
his remarks to the major economies in September, and we're pleased that
we're able to get a program of work going forward on that.

In addition, we're going to be exploring what are called sectoral
approaches. So these are activities where we get the major power-generation
sector together in each of our countries, to begin to exchange best
practices and opportunities for investment in cleaner technologies. And
that could also include forestry; it could include consideration of some
large industries.

Q Is this like utility companies getting together and --

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: We've done a trial run on this with something called
the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, which was
created in 2006, and has the seven countries of India and China, Japan,
Australia, South Korea, Canada and the U.S., where we have eight sectors
identified and we actually do a major exchange. Engineers are going back
and forth to each other's countries trying to figure out how to make power
from coal more efficiently, for example.

Q What are some of the other sectors?

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: We have power generation, steel, aluminum, cement,
buildings and appliances. One of the biggest increases in America's
emissions is due to more buildings, more people in service-based jobs in
bigger buildings using more electrical gizmos. So that's one of the areas
that's in the Asia Pacific Partnership. We'll be suggesting some of these
areas for the purposes of now the broader discussion among the major
economies.

Q So they get together and trade notes for best management practices?

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: Well, also investment opportunities, and often it's
-- a lot of our countries -- we have engineers who are "show me" people;
they won't buy it until they see it and know how it works. Well, this is
the opportunity to do that at a level of public-private interaction that
has not occurred before.

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon emphasized the value of that, in particular,
because it is a bottom-up way for countries to help design their own
national plans.

The leaders will -- have agreed to direct their trade officials, who are
responsible for the WTO Doha negotiations, to advance with urgency their
discussions on climate-related issues in the trade context, with an
emphasis on eliminating trade barriers to the spread of clean energy
technologies. This is a very challenging discussion. It is one of the
overlooked and very positive aspects of the Doha negotiations. So there's a
real opportunity for us to allow more trade from the developed world to the
developing world, but also from the developing world back to us as we seek
to significantly cut our own emissions. So there's a real opportunity here
for two-way trade that is currently significantly impeded by very high
tariffs, especially in the developing countries.

Finally, we are going to try to build on the success of a major agreement
that we reached last year under the Montreal Protocol, which is the treaty
that deals with ozone-depleting substances, where we got China and India
and other developing countries to join with the developed countries to
phase out what are called HCFCs -- these are refrigerants. As it happens,
they're also potent greenhouse gases. That one agreement alone will reduce
more greenhouse gases than the Kyoto Protocol. And we've agreed we're going
to look at further opportunities under that treaty to make progress on
climate change as well.

Finally, the leaders collectively made a strong statement on the desire to
conclude a new agreement by the end of next year in the U.N. in Copenhagen,
and they recognized in deciding to agree to meet in the middle of next year
-- they recognized the importance of high-level-leader political impetus to
getting a deal done by the end of next year.

Q The leaders would meet --

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: Yes, the leaders would meet again at the time of the
G8 next year. So Prime Minister Berlusconi offered that at the suggestion
of Chancellor Merkel, and the leaders collectively agreed that that would
be a useful thing to do.

The one handout I wanted to give you, because there's always discussion
about how every country is doing, the question also is about what the Bush
administration has accomplished with respect to climate change, so I'm
going to give you a U.N. base chart, that's data from the U.N. that shows
the changes in net greenhouse gas emissions in each of the major economies.
You may find it interesting -- I do -- that the U.S. had the second-best
performance in reducing greenhouse gas emissions of the 17 major economies
since President Bush took office. The U.S. had a very significant increase
of emissions between 1990 and 2000, but since President Bush took office we
actually had a 3 percent net reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, even as
we enjoyed good economic growth.

France was number one, by the way. And I'll just give you the list and you
can see it -- and this is based on U.N. data.

Q Is there anything that happened today that will lock these countries into
moving forward, and not just leaving the status quo? Is it more than just
talk?

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: Yes, one of the leaders made the point toward the end
of the meeting that this joining together of these countries is now
irreversible. And I think the leaders -- the tone of the meeting itself was
a recognition that this group of leaders has to stay together and begin to
find further ways to cooperate.

One of the non-G8 leaders said very clearly that the buck stops with us --
the "us" being the leaders of all the major economies.

Q Who said that?

Q Did he say that in English? I'm just curious.

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: I'll have to leave it to respective countries to
speak on behalf of their leaders.

The other piece that binds, if you will, is the fact that this set of
meetings, and then the commitments that flow from it, require us to work
together. So we don't have to -- we won't go back, if you will, to our
climate negotiators only negotiating climate text; we now have active work
on climate-related trade issues, active work on sectoral approaches.
There's going to be a very intensive exchange on the clean technology fund
that was welcomed by all of the leaders. And then as we develop national
plans and strategies, there's much more international exchange on providing
each other advice on the programs and strategies that each of us are
implementing.

I had a half-hour hallway conversation the night before last with a senior
representative of a major developed country who is very eager to know how
we were doing our fuel economy standards and how we have set the criteria
for our renewable fuel standards because they're considering doing the same
thing. We have never had that kind of discussion before. And you're seeing
similar programs being developed in the major emerging economies.

So at this point, I think it is fair to say that we are all very well
interlinked, and there's no getting away from it.

Q Jim, of the countries that did not -- were not ready to sign on just yet,
what do they say as to why they're not ready?

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: Well, I think context is important for this, first.
Prior to last May, when the President suggested that all these countries
should get together, the operating procedure was to have our climate
negotiators, along with 190 of their counterparts, working these issues
through the U.N. And so we introduced a lot of agenda at the time of the G8
under Chancellor Merkel for this major economies discussion. In less than
nine months, we have produced an agenda for action that does have forward
movement on every single point.

The issues that we're debating are the toughest ones of the climate
negotiating process. And the fact that we've gotten -- the G8 has taken
steps forward in every category, and the major emerging economies have
taken steps forward in every category -- as we work to find convergence,
what we've achieved in nine months has actually been pretty remarkable if
you measure it in climate negotiation time.

Q Of those who hesitated, though, what did they say? What was -- what did
they say as a reason for their hesitation?

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: Many of the concepts are new and just require further
national development and consensus-building. So for example, the long-term
goal was a brand new item for discussion, suggested at the time of the G8
last year and taken up conceptually for the first time in Bali in December.
And so every country wants a sense of, if we're going to be very ambitious,
which all leaders now want to be, what does it mean with respect to each of
our relative levels of effort.

And so thinking about the long-term goal applies a certain -- implies a
certain level of effort in the midterm. And if countries have not proceeded
far enough in their national planning, it's difficult for them to agree on
a number before they have a sense of what they're capable of doing in the
midterm.

Q So they're saying they might -- it might wreck their economy?

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: No, they actually want to be sure that they can take
the steps in ways that won't wreck their economy. Every leader made clear,
and there were some pretty emphatic statements, that it is essential to
pursue strategies that will continue strong economic growth, because it is
only through strong economic growth that you can have the resources to pay
for the technologies that make the solution possible. And that was a common
refrain among all the leaders, developed and developing alike.

Q Do you get the impression that these other countries are going to be
there in Italy, or that they're going to decide that they just can't do
this?

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: I have high confidence that this meeting will occur
next year and it will be successful in advancing the political impetus
necessary to get a deal at the end of next year. All of the specific
numbers -- the long-term goal, the midterm goals -- those will ultimately
be decided at the U.N. Convention at the end of next year, but there are
things that countries can do with respect to their own national statements
that can help provide some hope for a good outcome at the end of next year.

So I think between now and the meeting next year, I would expect that most
if not all of the major economies will have clearly articulated their
national strategies, and they'll begin to sort of -- all the countries will
then sort of look at each other's and check to see how ambitious they are,
check to see how realistic they are, and I think there will be a lot of
technical exchange, just to make sure that everybody is carrying forward
with a reasonable level of ambition, realism, and achievability. So I think
that will be one of the core tests for next year.

Q Can I try once more with respect on that "several" word -- does it mean
three or six or half of them, or -- can you just be a little more specific
on "several"? I don't know what "several" means.

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: Three or four. But there are different shadings to
their contribution on the point. So that's -- and so some countries are not
ready to do that yet; other countries are ready to explore it a little more
closely. All of them have agreed that we must have a long-term goal. All of
them agreed the goal needs to be ambitious. And you'll see specifically in
the declaration, we are pointing to consideration of the ambitious IPCC
scenarios for cutting emissions. This is the U.N. assessment document that
provides about 170, I think, scenarios for cutting emissions, but there's a
sub-list of that that have the more aggressive pathways to stabilize
emissions. And that's what we'll be looking at.

MS. PERINO: Last one for him.

Q The only thing I'm a little fuzzy on still is the G8 set up a long-term
goal and then these guys said that they might be able to sign onto that.
And then what they said about their midterm goals wasn't exactly specific,
and there was no specific on the G8 on the midterm either. Is that the
right --

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: Yes, I think if you're particularly enterprising
you'll be able to lay the G8 document and this document side by side, and
what you'll find is on each of the issues we discussed, the G8 has taken a
significant step forward in its level of ambition. And on each issue,
you'll see the major emerging economies have taken a step forward toward
that from where they started. We are not in complete convergence yet, but
we are -- they -- we've have found a way to have a dialogue to accomplish
that.

As the person who was in these meetings, many, many, many hours of
meetings, we really had to spend a lot of time on understanding each
other's national circumstances before we could even begin to get into the
details of some of these things. That has now occurred, and I think that's
what gave the leaders the confidence to say, let's keep this process going.

You may recall when we first announced it, it was met with great suspicion.
Then we had the successful outcome in the U.N. meetings in Bali. And then
-- now you have Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, other international
observers, including leading NGOs, including presidential candidates, who
have suggested the importance of keeping this group of leaders talking. So
we've come a long way in a short period of time.

Q Given the fact that you all have said that the major economies have to be
a part of this process in going forward and making these kinds of
commitments, do you feel you're walking away from this meeting having
sufficient support, et cetera, to move forward within the U.S. rubric?

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: As you all know, there are few items in the area of
climate change in which our political spectrum is nearly universally
unified. One of them is the fact that all the major economies have to make
commitments that are binding in a new international agreement. And that was
the test of the Byrd-Hagel resolution before Kyoto, which was 95 to 0; that
remains the test of the Senate, even in the last Senate debate on this
issue, that progress can only be achieved in mitigating greenhouse gas
emissions and addressing long-term temperature trends if all the major
economies with the most emissions are taking on new commitments.

We have taken a significant step in that direction with the language in
today's declaration. The G8 for the first time has been unified in its
expression of the fact that all countries' national actions need to be
bound into an international agreement. And I think that provides a good
platform for trying to come together on that point by the end of next year.

Q Is there something, is there another benchmark that President Bush
himself needs to do between now and the last just under 200 days left in
office?

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: Well, we have a very intensive discussion with our
Congress about providing funding for the new clean energy technology fund.
We're seeking $2 billion for that. We've lined up a little bit north of $5
billion from several other countries, but we have this donors group I
talked about that's several dozen countries that are interested in
participating. One of the questions the Congress will have is, if we're
going to provide this funding, is it going to be in support of real
commitments by the countries receiving it? I think we've made a significant
stride in that respect, and -- think this will provide a basis for some
give and take on that point.

Q And the total figure on that is?

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: The total figure right now, it's $5 billion. Bob
Zoellick reinforced the fact today that that will then be used to leverage
other development financing, as well as private sector financing. And I
think the number in the G8 text -- is Dan still here?

MS. PERINO: No.

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: I think the number that the G8 text has is
consideration of about $100 billion in total that will begin to flow.

Q That sounds --

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: That's a lot of money. That's a lot of money -- and
largely through private enterprise, which is good as well.

Q Are there meetings or other things like that that he plans in the last --

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: Yes. Well, Secretary Paulson is going to be pushing
hard to conclude the build-out of this clean technology fund. Doha -- we
have the trade barrier -- the tariff elimination proposals in Doha for
climate-friendly technologies. That would be one of the earliest signs of
good faith, that we're serious about this issue, because why on earth are
we -- there are some countries imposing tariffs as high as 70 percent on
the technologies that allow them not only to reduce their greenhouse gas
emissions, but cut the air pollution that's currently creating huge health
problems for their people.

So that's an example of how -- that would be an indicator of how serious a
number of the major emerging economies actually treat the climate and
sustainable development issue.

MS. PERINO: And that ministerial is July 21st, I think.

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: Yes, in three -- in a couple of weeks.

MS. PERINO: The Doha ministerial.

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: And then finally, watch for the setting up of these
sectoral discussions. And I think we're going to get a lot of support from
the U.N. for that, to make that happen. So if we can expand what we've been
doing on the Asia Pacific Partnership to a broader grouping of countries,
that would be another good sign that people are ready to roll up their
sleeves and actually start working on practical action, and move beyond
sort of the negotiating positions.

Q I'm sorry, I was just -- I'm good, I guess.

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: Okay.

Q Thank you.

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: And here are your --

MS. PERINO: You can send that up to --

Q It looks like people got an e-mail --

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: Oh, you did?

Q Yes.

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: Okay.

Q Are there copies of this?

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: Yes. I have copies for each of you.

MS. PERINO: And then I have a -- I said I would get back to you on a
question you had this morning regarding our negotiations with Iraq.

Q This is still being fed, right?

MS. PERINO: Yes, this is still being fed. You don't have to write
furiously.

This is in regards to the negotiations we're having with the Iraqis and how
we want to respond is in the following: The recent Iraqi statements that
you've seen that reflect the ongoing negotiations between the United States
and Iraq we believe reflect the recent positive developments in Iraq,
including the area of security, where Iraqi forces are currently in the
lead in, for example, Basra, Mosul, and Sadr City -- places that were in
horrible shape security-wise just a little while ago, but because of
proactive actions they've improved so tremendously.

We also believe that the comments coming from the Iraqis are an indication
of the Iraqi government's and the Iraqi security force's increasing
capacity and the improving conditions on the ground for them to be able to
take on more responsibility. This should allow for more what we've called
return on success for our forces. A sovereign Iraqi government and the
Iraqi people are every day more ready, willing, and able to take on more of
their responsibility, and that is exactly what we've been working for.
That's been our objective from the beginning.

So the strategic framework agreement that we are working on would describe
the political, economic, security and then diplomatic relationships that we
would establish with -- between our two nations going forward.

Increasingly, the Iraqis, as you've seen in those three places I've
mentioned, such as Basra, Mosul, and Sadr City, they are taking over combat
missions. That's one of the things that we want so that we can transition
our forces to more overwatch, training, and counterterrorism activities.
And that, again, allows us more return on success, because we can further
reduce our combat troops and have our forces then focused on some of those
other areas.

We have always been opposed, and remain so, to an arbitrary withdrawal
date. We believe that, as we've said before, that any actual troop
withdrawal schedule needs to be based on conditions on the ground. And we
believe the Iraqis agree with us in that regard. We want a sovereign Iraq
to be able to take on more of its own security, more responsibility, and we
have been able to talk to them about some aspirational time frames for some
of those activities, such as taking over the security control in some of
the provinces, like you've seen in some of the areas. And hopefully soon
we'll be turning over that security control in the area of Anbar.

And so these ideas for aspirational time frames are something that our
negotiators, led by Ryan Crocker, Ambassador Crocker, in Baghdad, will
continue to work on as we work to conclude this round of negotiations.

Q Russia?

MS. PERINO: I believe Gordon got a comment out on that. I think that in
regards in the comments this morning that we heard out of Russia regarding
the missile defense system, let me point you back to what the President and
President Medvedev said in their meeting on Monday -- I think that was
Monday of this week.

The President said that we want to work together with the Russians and the
Europeans on a joint partnership where we would be designing a system
together and we would be working as equal partners, because our concept for
a missile defense system is not aimed at Russia. And the President repeated
that to President Medvedev, again recognizing that we have rogue --
possible threats from rogue nations, such as Iran, that the Europeans and
the Russians would want to protect against, and noting that our missile
defense system as conceived would be absolutely dwarfed by any type of
military stockpiles that Russia has.

And so the President and President Medvedev agreed to continue to have this
discussion, and we will do that. But we are very pleased that Secretary
Rice was able to sign that agreement yesterday.

Q What do you think caused Russia to make that --

MS. PERINO: I think, Roger, I think you need to look back that they've said
similar things before out of the Foreign Ministry.

Q Well, they've just -- hometown consumption or --

MS. PERINO: Well, no, I am not -- I don't question their thoughts and I
know that some people in Russia have -- believe that a missile defense
system would be a threat to their country. We've sought to reassure them
that it would not be, and one of the ways that we've done that is to say,
let's work together in a joint partnership, design the system together,
have a mutual system where we're all working together to protect us from
threats from rogue nations.

Q I guess I just thought -- you know, they just met a few days ago, like
you said, and then the Foreign Ministry --

MS. PERINO: Well, I don't think --

Q -- comes out with this --

MS. PERINO: Feelings that run deep like that don't necessarily change
overnight. And as I said, I think that the comments from that ministry have
been similar in the past.

Q So you don't take it seriously -- or, well --

MS. PERINO: I wouldn't say we don't take it seriously, but I think that
what's more important is what President Bush and President Medvedev said
together here, that there was a desire to work together in a cooperative
effort.

Q And there was never any mention by the Russian President of any kind of
military retaliation if such a system is built?

MS. PERINO: Not as I recall it, no. I think I would remember it if it had,
and I don't recall it that way at all.

Q Has the President talked to -- going back to Iraq for a minute -- did the
President talk to Prime Minister Maliki? Does the White House see --

MS. PERINO: Since he's been on this trip? No. No, he just spoke to him
right before we left. I can't remember what day we left, but the President
had a secure video teleconference with Prime Minister Maliki -- I believe
it was last Thursday. And so they talk regularly, and then Ambassador
Crocker, who is leading our negotiations, checks in with the President
daily almost.

Q Dana, this is I think two days now in which at first there were comments
that suggested the Iraqis wanted a firm timetable for withdrawal, and now
they've come out and said it more explicitly.

MS. PERINO: I think that what you -- I think that is a reflection of, first
and foremost, the positive developments that we've seen recently in Iraq,
but in addition to that the negotiations are intensifying. And so it's not
unusual when that happens to have more vocal statements. And this is,
again, looking at Iraq and where -- how far they've come in a year, this is
politics and this is negotiations and this is about their future. And they
want to take on more of their own responsibility -- and we want that, too.
We just want them to be able to do that in a way that is sustainable, to
make sure that the gains that they have made are solidified and cemented in
a way that they can continue to improve, and then become a thriving,
prosperous, and democratic nation.

Q I have one more of Jim.

Q I'm sorry, can I -- if I can remember what it was -- (laughter) -- oh, is
the end of July still the goal? Sorry.

MS. PERINO: We've talk -- we're working towards that, but as we don't have
timetables for troop withdrawals, we don't have timetables for
negotiations. But we want to be able to try to work this out quickly.

And the main reason that we want this is because our troops are going to be
there past the end of this year; that's a fact. It's also a fact that the
U.N. mandate that governs our troops there will also expire -- I'm sorry,
will expire, and so we need a legal mechanism to make sure that our troops
have -- understand the rules of engagement and -- but we also lay out with
the Iraqis the way forward. And we can talk about some time frames with
them in terms of turning over the security control to a province such as
Anbar, which a year ago I don't think anybody in this room would have
thought possible, but because of their incredible gains they've been able
to do that. And so they want to move forward. We want to help them, but we
want to do so in a way that we make sure it's sustainable.

You had one more for Jim.

Q I know that the White House thinks that just getting all these people at
the table on the climate is a victory in itself. Is there anything that the
President was disappointed that he didn't get, that they didn't achieve at
that -- in the meeting today? Were there any little elements that he had
wished they would have signed onto and --

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: The President had several very aggressive proposals.
Last May he was seeking to eliminate tariffs by the end of last year.
That's how aggressive he was, and thought the world community should be,
because he questioned why any country would be putting up -- making it more
expensive to buy the clean technologies that you need. So there's an
example.

As you know, the President made clear last year, and in the State of the
Union this year, that we were very interested in a strong statement of
political commitment by each country that they were -- in principle would
have their commitments bound into an international agreement. Many
countries have made that commitment, including many non-G8 countries. I
guess that's another "several," by the way.

There were -- President Calder˘n was already publicly on record at the time
of the North American leaders' statement as making clear -- even though
they are not what's called an Annex I country; they are not a country under
the Kyoto Protocol that has obligations -- that he fully intends to have a
national plan, and that he fully intends to have that plan reflected in
internationally binding commitments. So he's publicly on record with
respect to that.

Several other countries indicated that they were willing to consider that,
too. Other countries have been more cautious. So would we have liked to see
an even stronger statement on that point for the major emerging economies?
The answer to that is, yes.

Q On which part?

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: On the commitment in principle to have your national
plans be bound into a new international agreement -- in part not just
because we think it's important as a sign of confidence globally, but as
you know, our Senate has made very clear that's a very important
precondition to the U.S. joining a new international agreement. And so a
clearer statement on that sooner would have been better. We got a strong
statement on it that we think we can build on.

MS. PERINO: Okay. See you guys on the plane, I guess, most of you.

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: We got more than we imagined on the near-term
actions. That was the other thing. That was a happy surprise.

Q "Got more" -- say that again.

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: We got more than we imagined or called for on the
near-term actions, and that was a happy surprise.

Q Is it like those best management --

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: Yes, the Montreal Protocol issues, the best
management practices --

Q -- those four items.

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: Yes. And you'll see in the leaders' declaration there
is a series of more -- on forestry -- there's a whole list of them, and I
gave you the highlights.

Q And you wished you would have gotten more countries to say that they want
their national plans bound into the U.N. agreement?

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: Yes. We knew going in no country --

Q How many do you have now?

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: First of all, nobody expected that any country would
state their targets now. That was never the expectation. We knew that those
would be negotiated by the end of next year. But we thought we could get a
stronger statement in principle from some of the major emerging economies
-- not thought -- we were hoping. As I said, we got a good step forward on
that. That language is consequential that says that they intend to have
their national plans reflected in a new agreement. That is a very
consequential statement. It is not as strong a statement as the G8 called
for yesterday.

Q But you're looking for the targets perhaps next year?

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: The targets will all get worked out by the end of
next year. I think a number of countries will pre-declare, like the U.S.
has and like Canada and Europe has, but ultimately those get worked out.

Q These are the midterm targets?

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: The midterm targets -- at the 2020 to 2030 time
frame.

MS. PERINO: I think one thing to think about when you look at this is that
for the G8 countries, the major developed countries that were going to be
involved in the Kyoto Protocol, we've been talking about these issues
within our countries for a long time, and over a decade or so -- well,
maybe not quite a decade, but around that. So these debates are robust,
they are healthy, they can get very tense, they're complex. And so for us,
we've been doing this for 10 years. Some of these developing countries that
weren't going to be a part of the Kyoto Protocol -- which is one of the
reasons we didn't join because it wouldn't solve the problem -- a lot of
these debates haven't been fully fleshed out in their capitals yet and they
need to go back and continue to do that. So that's why I think that we have
made significant progress in a year. They've come a long way and a lot
farther and a lot faster than we did in several years.

Okay. I'll see you guys later. We have to give the President his room back.

END 1:23 P.M. (Local)

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