Technology against climate change? Yes, but which one?

Sep 25, 2007, 0:33 GMT

New York - It seems all world leaders agree that new, clean technologies will help solve global warming, but ask them for details and you'll get a vast array of answers.

World leaders and ministers from some 150 countries all offered their insights into global warming during a one-day conference at the United Nations Monday.

'The world needs a technological revolution,' said US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. But which ones?

Brazil, the world's largest producer of clean-burning ethanol for cars, spoke of biofuels. French President Nicolas Sarkozy raised the idea of nuclear energy - the top power-producer in France.

And Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, did its best to make sure that increasingly unpopular fossil fuels would never be kept far from the solution.

'The call for moving away from fossil fuel consumption as a way to address climate change is not a viable alternative,' said Ali Ibrahim al-Naimi, Saudi Arabia's minister of petroleum and mineral resources. 'I can assure you that that through the use of technology solutions that the world can continue to rely on oil.'

That position seemed to be contradicted by Rice, who said the world must 'transcend' fossil fuel as it searches for cleaner, renewable options.

Then there was California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who didn't suggest any specific technologies, but wanted to make sure the his state's vast technology sector was at the forefront or any and all green efforts.

'Right now ... the brightest scientists from around the world and the smartest venture capitalists are racing to find new energy technologies, and the solutions to global warming,' he said.

'I have seen their ambition, and I would not bet against it,' Schwarzenegger said. Against what exactly will no doubt be left for another day.