Jan. 24 Republican debate transcript

Russert: Mayor Giuliani, I have a follow-up on a potential catastrophe. Florida has 1,200 miles of beautiful coast which can be threatened with climate change, global warming, in a major way, as the world's population goes from 6 billion to 9 billion and the level of greenhouse gases doubles over the next 20 to 30 years.

And yet you are against a mandatory cap on greenhouse gases. Why?

Giuliani: The very best way to do it is to support the technologies that are alternatives that can save the environment and to get us to the point where those technologies can actually take over.

We haven't licensed a nuclear power plant in 30 years. France is 80 percent nuclear; we're 20 percent nuclear; we're going down to 15 percent nuclear. We have to crack through there.

We need to expand the use of hybrid vehicles. We need to expand the use of clean coal. Carbon sequestration is expensive, but it's a process that works. We have more coal reserves in the United States than they have oil reserves in Saudi Arabia.

I prefer incentives for these new industries. The same thing is true with biofuels. We should expand biofuels the way Brazil has done. We should expand wind, solar, hydroelectric. We should expand natural gas, liquid natural gas.

We should have a project like putting the man on a moon the way we did back in the '50s and 60s. It should be a major national project to be energy independent. That's a matter of national security. It's also the best way -- the very best way -- to protect against global warming.

Just think about this. If we did everything we could, we put all these caps on, all these negative incentives on, we would crush American industry, and China and India would be sending out more greenhouse gases than we could ever match.

You've got to solve it as a world problem. You cannot solve it just in the United States. It needs new industries, new ideas. They're there. They need to be supported. And you have to do this in positive way, not a negative way.

Russert: Senator McCain, you are in favor of mandatory caps.

McCain: No, I'm in favor of cap-and-trade. And Joe Lieberman and I, one of my favorite Democrats and I, have proposed that -- and we did the same thing with acid rain. They're doing it in Europe now, although not very well.

And all we are saying is, "Look, if you can reduce your greenhouse gas emissions, you earn a credit. If somebody else is going to increase theirs, you can sell it to them." And, meanwhile, we have a gradual reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

We need a global agreement, but it has to include India and China. We need to go back to nuclear power. We cannot be dependent on $400 billion a year paying for foreign oil. There's a nexus here.

But climate change, in my view, is real. It can affect states like Florida dramatically, because I think it has to do with violent weather changes, as well.

But I am confident -- I am confident American technology and the embrace of green technologies, many of the things that Rudy just talked about, and nuclear power being one of them, we can reduce these greenhouse gas emissions.

And suppose that we are wrong, and there's no such thing as climate change, and we hand our kids a cleaner world. But suppose we are right and do nothing.

I think that's a challenge for America. We can meet it.

Williams: Time is up. Senator, time is up, in fact, for this segment.

We'll take one more break. When we come back, that will take us the rest of the way tonight with the Republican candidates for president from Boca Raton, Florida.

(Commercial)