Obama on the Record: Strasbourg Town Hall

Obama on the Record: Strasbourg Town Hall


Now, he actually is committed to working towards dealing with the climate change issue, but he made a very simple point, which is a point that I understood before the meeting and all of us should not forget — and that is that you cannot expect poor countries, or relatively poor countries, to be partners with us on climate change if we are not taking the lead, given that our carbon footprint is many times more than theirs per capita. I mean, each one of us in the developed world, I don’t care how environmentally conscious you are, how green you are — I’m sure there are some green folks here —

Q Yes!

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Yes! I don’t care how green you are, you are — you have a much bigger carbon footprint than the average Indian, or the average person from China. And so we in developed countries then — it’s critical for us to lead by example by becoming more energy efficient, and we also have to harness technology and shared scientific breakthroughs in order to find more sustainable energy patterns.

Now, I’ve got other things that I want to do, but that’s a pretty long list. Let me go on to a few more questions. (Applause.)

All right, now, I know there’s some other Americans in the crowd. (Applause.) But do me a favor, Americans, wait till we get back home and I’ll do a town hall there — (laughter and applause) — because I want to hear from my French and German and European friends. All right. And — wait, wait, wait — this gentleman right here in the glasses.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. I’m a student from Heidelberg, Germany, and — (applause) — my mother tongue is German, but my French is not good enough, so I ask my question in English.

You mentioned in your speech that we are a lucky generation. We live in peace, we live in democracies and free states, and we really — we are very pleased to have this situation in Europe. But this is not the case all over the world, even not in Europe. Look to Belarus, for example; there’s an autocratic regime.

And so my question concerns the many children all over the world that live in poverty, under human rights violation. They have hunger, they have no education, and other problems. So what is your strategy, Mr. President, to solve this problem?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, it’s an excellent question, and the — first of all, I think one of the things that we should be very proud of from the G20 summit yesterday was that we made a significant commitment to additional resources through the IMF and other mechanisms to provide assistance to emerging markets and poor countries that, as I said, are bearing the burden of a collapse in the financial system that they had nothing to do with.


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