[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 142 (Tuesday, October 21, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10871-S10876]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             GLOBAL WARMING

  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, this week, representatives from over 160 
nations are meeting in Bonn, Germany, for the final negotiating session 
prior to the climate change conference scheduled in Kyoto in December. 
It is a critical meeting, the culmination of several years of 
international cooperation on this extraordinarily important global 
issue.
  Over the past several months I have had an opportunity to discuss 
global warming with scientists and representatives from the United 
States and abroad and, indeed, we have had one brief discussion on the 
Senate floor in the context of the Byrd-Hagel amendment.
  Last week, I met in London with a number of officials of the 
Government of Great Britain, but most importantly on this subject with 
Foreign Minister Robin Cook, to discuss our mutual concerns about the 
climate change problem and how best to address this issue from a global 
perspective. As our U.S. negotiators continue their work in Bonn and 
the President finalizes the U.S. position for the Kyoto conference, I 
wanted to share with my colleagues some views on the science of global 
warming, on the international process, the U.S. role, and the next 
steps that the United States and others should undertake to address 
this issue in a responsible manner.
  Last July, I joined with Senator Byrd and others in the Chamber to 
discuss global warming and to debate Senate Resolution 98 which 
addressed some of the Senate position on the Kyoto treaty. The Byrd-
Hagel resolution called for the United States to support binding 
commitments to reduce greenhouse gases only if: One, all nations, 
developed and developing, participate in addressing this global 
problem; and two, if the commitment did not adversely impact the U.S. 
economy. In addition, the resolution created a bipartisan Senate 
observer group of which I am pleased to be a member. Our task is to 
continue to monitor this process.
  I supported the Byrd-Hagel resolution, Mr. President, which passed 
the Senate 95-0 after we worked out in colloquy some of the 
interpretations of definitions contained therein. I supported it 
because I believe that there has to be a universal effort to tackle 
this ever-growing problem, and that the United States, while taking a 
lead role, need not jeopardize its economic viability in order to meet 
our international obligations.
  The resolution language, in my judgment, provides enough flexibility 
to address the concerns of growing economies of the developing world 
even as we encourage them to join in this global effort.
  The resolution was silent, however, as to the science of global 
warming. It addressed only the U.S. role in the Kyoto negotiations. 
During the debate over the resolution, there was some discussion by a 
few Senators over their interpretation individually of the science. But 
there was no broad debate about the science, and there was certainly in 
the resolution no judgment by the U.S. Senate whatsoever as to the 
foundations of science which might or might not be applied to the 
negotiations in Kyoto. From the statements in the Record by the 
resolution's chief sponsor, Senator Byrd, it is clear that he agrees, 
as I and others do, that the prospect of human-induced global warming 
as an accepted thesis is beyond debate, and that there are many adverse 
impacts that can be anticipated as a consequence of those theories in 
fact being found to be true. We are joined by many of our colleagues in 
thinking that there is sufficient scientific consensus that human 
activities are exacerbating climate changes.
  The vast majority of scientists and policymakers who have examined 
this issue carefully have concluded that the science is sound and that 
it is time to take additional steps through the established 
international theory to address this issue in a more systematic way. A 
small but extremely vociferous minority continue to assert that the 
science is not yet convincing. They advocate a wait-and-see approach. 
They believe that continued review and inaction is best for the U.S. 
economy and for Americans in general.
  Given the money that the very vociferous minority has been expending 
in trying to promote their view, and given the fact that shortly we 
will be engaged in some discussions based on the factual foundations of 
this issue, I would like to address the issue of science for a few 
moments on the floor of the Senate.
  Mr. President, the vast majority of the scientific community--the 
vast majority of those who have taken time to make a dispassionate, 
apolitical, nonideological determination based on lifetimes of work, 
and certainly on a lifetime-acquired discipline in their particular 
areas--the vast majority of consensus of those who have been so engaged 
is that the science regarding global warming is compelling and that to 
do nothing would be the most dangerous of all options.
  In the late 1980's, a number of our Senate colleagues--among them 
Vice President Gore, State Department Counselor Tim Wirth, Senators 
John Heinz and Fritz Hollings--and I, and a few others became 
increasingly concerned about the potential threat of global warming. It 
was at that time that I joined as an original cosponsor of Senator 
Hollings' bill, the National Global Change Research Act, which 
attracted support from many Members still serving in this body, 
including Senators Stevens, McCain, Cochran, Inouye, and Gorton. After 
numerous hearings and roundtable discussions, this legislation to 
create the global change research program at the National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration became law in 1990.
  As a Senator from a coastal State I take very seriously parochial 
implications of global warming. As a United States Senator and a member 
of the Foreign Relations Committee, I am also concerned about the 
crafting of a workable international response that treats all parties--
including the United States --fairly.

[[Page S10872]]

  I have stated that I would be happy to engage any of my colleagues in 
the debate on the science of climate change here on the Senate floor, 
or elsewhere. And I have sought on numerous occasions--as yet not 
successfully--to try to get an adequate airing of the science within 
the Senate observer group. And it is my hope that, before that group 
reports to the Senate, a broad-based review of the science will be 
undertaken in a bipartisan, nonpolitical way.
  But, Mr. President, before we even proceed further with 
that analysis, I want to take this opportunity to at least lay out some 
precursor truths with respect to the science as we know it.

  Whether by nature or experience, we know that scientists are a 
fundamentally cautious group of people. That is why I find it 
particularly compelling that over 2,000 scientists who participated in 
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change--the most comprehensive 
and thoroughly reviewed assessment of any environmental problem ever 
undertaken--concluded that global climate change is currently under 
way. The 1995 IPCC report concludes that the Earth has already warmed 
about 1 degree Fahrenheit over the last century, and that ``the balance 
of evidence suggests that there is a discernible human influence on 
global climate.'' The IPCC estimates that the global surface air 
temperature will increase another 2 to 6.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the 
next century. Their ``best guess'' is that we will experience warming 
of about 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100. That would be a 
faster rate of climate change than any experienced during the last 
10,000 years of the history of this planet. And we have to recognize 
that the human history as we have recorded it and, therefore, 
understand its impact on ourselves and current human endeavor is within 
a span of about 8,000 years.
  The conclusion that the observed warming trend is not simply a 
natural fluctuation is affirmed by the research of several 
institutions. Basing their conclusions on climate model calculations, 
scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, 
Germany, concluded that the warming of the Earth over the past 30 years 
goes far beyond natural variations. Indeed, there is a judgment that 
there is only a 1-in-40 chance of that variation being natural. So we 
are dealing with a 1-in-40 prospect in terms of odds.
  The United States and other governments have been collecting at 
ground-based and ocean-based sites global surface temperature 
measurements since the year 1880. Remarkably the 11 warmest years this 
century have all occurred since 1980, with 1995 the warmest on record.
  Some will argue that there are discrepancies between our long-term 
surface record and recent satellite observations. But that fact--by 
again nonideological dispassionate and nonpolitical scientists--has 
been determined to be not surprising at all because the two 
techniques--measurement at the surface and measurement by satellite--
are entirely different. They measure temperature at different parts of 
the Earth's system--the surface and various layers of the atmosphere. 
In addition, other factors, such as the presence of airborne materials 
from the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo volcano, affect each record in a 
very different way.
  The natural ``greenhouse effect'' has made life on Earth possible. 
Without it, our planet would be about 60 degrees colder. Water vapor, 
carbon dioxide, and other trace gases, such as methane and nitrous 
oxide, trap the solar heat, and they slow the loss of that solar heat 
by the reradiation back into space. That is a natural process.
  But with industrialization and with population growth, greenhouse gas 
emissions from human activities have consistently increased. 
Anthropogenic climate changes, most importantly the burning of fossil 
fuels--coal, oil, and natural gas--and deforestation, have tipped the 
very delicate balance of nature. We all know that the forests of the 
planet play a critical role in the recycling of carbon dioxide. The 
forests in the Amazon, all through Central and Latin America, and all 
through Asia have been disappearing in entirely measurable and 
discernible ways. As we have seen by satellite photography over the 
last 15 or 20 years, all of the areas of the Earth's green are 
beginning to shrink in those satellite photographs; we understand that 
we are diminishing our capacity to do the recycling of the 
CO2.
  Therefore, more gas is trapped. More gases have the impact of 
diminishing the amount of reradiation that takes place. This natural 
climate variability alone, including the effect of volcanic eruptions 
and solar variability--that is, sunspot activity--would not have 
changed carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. However, the manmade 
addition, presently about 3 percent of annual natural emissions, is 
sufficient to exceed what is known to be the balancing effects of 
``carbon sinks.'' As a result, carbon dioxide is gradually accumulated 
in the atmosphere, until, at present, its concentration is 30 percent 
above preindustrial levels. Existing data of other greenhouse gases 
show increasing concentrations of methane, nitrous oxide, and 
chlorofluorocarbons over recent decades. While ice core data show that 
concentrations of methane and nitrous oxide have increased in the past 
few centuries, after having been relatively constant for thousands of 
years, chlorofluorocarbons are absent from deep-ice cores because they 
have no natural sources and were not manufactured before 1930.

  So I want to emphasize for those who try to doubt the science, for 
those who come and say there is no indicator of this change and that we 
have only been recording the temperature since 1880, the fact is that 
both in the Arctic and the Antarctic we have accumulations of thousands 
of years--tens of thousands of years--of ice. And we have to be able to 
bore down into that ice. In the bores that we bring out--just as we 
have tested and found geological formations which have allowed us to 
drill for gas--we have been able to come up with ice cores. And as the 
scientists look at those ice cores, they have been able to measure the 
degree of carbon dioxide that was trapped in those ice cores. By 
measuring that, and, indeed, by measuring the absence of 
chlorofluorocarbons, we have been able to trace thousands of years of 
climatic activity and change that we otherwise would not have knowledge 
of.
  That is what has given us this capacity to make a determination about 
the rapidity with which changes are taking place today relative to what 
we knew or can discern was taking place thousands of years ago.
  While we have no control over sun spots or volcanoes, we, obviously, 
can control human activities.
  Then the question will be, ``Well, why should we do that? What is the 
showing that somehow this really represents a danger sufficient to 
require a response from Government?'' Well, the essential issue here, 
Mr. President, is one of compounding emissions over time. We know that 
the emissions we put into the atmosphere today have a life that goes on 
and on and on. It is like nuclear material that has a half-life. So 
does this material have a half-life. And the fact is that, even if we 
were to stop our activity today, what is already in the atmosphere will 
continue to do the damage that it does. And the models have to measure 
the rate at which we might be able to reduce today in order to 
guarantee that you have turned off the spigot sufficiently to be able 
to control what will happen in the future. But anyone who follows the 
stock market or even your back account, obviously, understands the 
miracle of compounded interest. It means that a small amount set aside 
becomes a big amount over time.
  That is what is happening to the Earth's accumulation of greenhouse 
gases. Many of these gases reside in the atmosphere for years to come--
hundreds to thousands of years. Even constant emissions of the gases 
can cause atmospheric concentrations to build up rapidly.
  So, unlike the stock market, when it comes to emissions, the small 
amounts don't necessarily bring a miracle. But they could bring 
enormous calamities.
  So why would we care if the Earth warms a few degrees? I have 
actually heard people say it really doesn't matter that much if all of 
a sudden North Dakota or South Dakota became a little more attractive, 
and they don't have as long a winter, or somehow you have a longer 
hiking season in a particular State. Well, Mr. President, it isn't that 
simple. It just isn't reduced to that kind of simplistic judgment about 
the overall impacts.

[[Page S10873]]

  The IPCC scientific assessment of climate change estimated that the 
average surface temperature will increase by 1 to 3.5 degrees with an 
associated rise in sea level of 6 to 37 inches. These changes are 
projected to lead to a number of potentially serious consequences with 
incidence of heat waves, floods, droughts, hurricanes, and other 
extreme events affecting human health and natural ecosystems.
  Americans will experience more health problems and there will be an 
increase in health-induced deaths from future warming. Heat waves of 
the type in the 1995 Chicago heat wave which killed 465 people will 
occur more frequently, and increased warming will exacerbate existing 
air quality problems such as smog that aggravate asthma and allergic 
disorders, especially in children and the elderly. Warmer climates 
breed diseases such as malaria, dengue and yellow fevers, encephalitis, 
and cholera due to the expansive range of mosquitoes as a consequence 
of increased warmer climates and other disease-carrying organisms.
  One key aspect of climate change that is important to remember is the 
slow capacity of any corrective action to have an impact. Harvard 
professor and member of the President's Committee of Advisors on 
Science and Technology, Dr. John Holdren, shared his analogy at the 
White House Round Table on Climate Change. He said:

       The world's energy-economic system is a lot like a 
     supertanker, very hard to steer and with very bad brakes * * 
     * and we know from the science that the supertanker is 
     heading for a reef * * * it's a bad idea to keep on a course 
     of full speed ahead.

  The oceans are going to continue to expand for several centuries even 
after the temperatures stabilize. We are currently dealing with rising 
sea levels that are already eroding beaches and wetlands, inundating 
low-lying areas and increasing the vulnerability of coastal areas to 
flooding from storm surges and intense rainfall.
  We know how costly droughts, flood control, and erosion mitigation 
efforts can be to the taxpayers. We constantly, every year, are facing 
requests from one community or another to do a beach-erosion project or 
to undertake some kind of erosion mitigation, and we spend literally 
millions of dollars in insurance as a consequence of those anticipated 
problems already.
  Damages from the southern plains drought of 1996 were estimated at $4 
billion; the 1993 Mississippi River flood damages were $10 billion to 
$20 billion; the Pacific Northwest floods of the winter of 1996-97 were 
$3 billion; the 1997 Ohio River flood was nearly $1 billion; and the 
1997 river flood in the Northern Plains was another $2 billion. And 
this is just the impact of the changes perceived in the United States 
in the last few years.
  Scientists have not definitively said that any one of these events I 
just listed is absolutely tied to global warming. And I am not going to 
suggest that that is in fact true if they are not willing to suggest 
that that there is that linkage. But the scientists have issued a 
warning. The scientists have issued a warning--not the politicians, the 
scientists. And their warning is that these disasters collectively show 
precisely what we are likely to see if we do not reverse the current 
trend lines of global warming. And we will see them with greater 
frequency, with more destruction under global warming.
  The areas of greatest vulnerability are those where quality and 
quantity of water are already problems such as the arid and semiarid 
regions in the United States and the world. If warming trends were to 
continue, then water scarcity in the Middle East and Africa will become 
even more pronounced, exacerbating tensions among countries that depend 
on water supplies that originate outside of their borders.
  Another key area of concern will be the dramatic alteration of 
geographic distributions of vegetation. The composition of one-third of 
the Earth's forests would undergo major changes as a result of a 
doubling of preindustrial carbon dioxide levels. Over the next 100 
years, the range of some North American forest species will shift by as 
much as 300 miles to the north, far faster than the forests can migrate 
naturally. For example, in my region of the country, New England, we 
could lose the most economically important species, the sugar maple.

  Other areas of the country would be hit economically as well. The 
tourism industry, for instance, surrounding the Glacier National Park 
could literally evaporate along with glaciers which we already know 
have receded steadily for decades. Since the park's founding, over 70 
percent of the glaciers have already melted. Model projections indicate 
that all of the park's glaciers will disappear by the year 2030 unless 
temperatures begin to cool. One-third to one-half of the world's 
mountain glacier mass could disappear by the year 2100, thus 
eliminating a natural reservoir of water for many areas.
  Let me give an example. In Lima, Peru, the entire water supply for 10 
million people depends on the annual summer melt from a glacier that is 
now in rapid retreat. These are just some of the predictions, 
predictions made by scientists, predictions made by various models 
where they have taken the data which scientists have agreed on--not 
speculated about, but agreed on.
  The facts about global warming are beyond reasonable scientific 
doubt, and they ought to be beyond reasonable policymaking doubt.
  Mr. John Browne, CEO of British Petroleum, in a recent speech at 
Stanford University said:

       The time to consider the policy dimensions of climate 
     change is not when the link between greenhouse gases and 
     climate change is conclusively proven but when the 
     possibility cannot be discounted and is taken seriously by 
     the society of which we are part. We in BP have reached that 
     point.

  That is the CEO of British Petroleum saying that they have reached 
the point of concluding that linkage exists.
  Efforts to rein in and reduce manmade contributions of such emissions 
are now warranted. Worst case scenarios under current business-as-usual 
practices are catastrophic.
  So let me turn for a moment to the international efforts and the role 
of the United States at this point.
  In 1992, it was precisely because of those scientific conclusions 
that I have just enumerated that President Bush at the Earth Summit in 
Rio signed a climate-change agreement, and it was ratified later that 
year by the Senate. That agreement pledged that nations would reduce 
their gas emissions to their 1990 levels by the year 2000. Regrettably, 
the vast majority of nations, including the United States, have failed 
to achieve this goal. Today, the United States has increased emissions 
about 8 percent above 1990 levels. Much of that increase has been tied 
to our economic expansion.
  However, it should also be noted that industry during this remarkable 
growth period was also engaged in a voluntary program to reduce 
emissions. While not achieving its objective completely, the voluntary 
effort did meet 70 percent of the original targets at a time when the 
American economy grew and wherein the American jobs machine was rolling 
along at as high a rate as we have seen in recent years. The relative 
success of voluntary industry effort ought to encourage confidence that 
more comprehensive efforts under a global regime can result in greater 
progress at far less cost than Cassandras allowed for.
  However, the question is now for all countries, developed and 
developing, to step forward to support binding commitments to reach an 
acceptable level of human-induced emissions. That is why the United 
States is engaged in negotiating a legally binding climate-change 
agreement to be finalized in Kyoto this December.
  Our challenge is to shape an agreement which sets tough, realistic 
global emission standards and goals while harnessing the market forces 
to lower costs, foster technological development, and ensure economic 
growth.
  The climate change problem is global. It requires a solution, 
obviously, that includes a global response--participation from all 
nations, industrialized countries and those countries in the developing 
world. The best approach is to establish a global economic incentive 
program in which the free market and not Government intervention is 
driving the reductions.

  The goal of universal participation via an international treaty with 
binding commitments ought to be undertaken now, not with delay, not 
with an effort to try to have subterfuge diminish what we can 
accomplish in Kyoto. The United States, with 22 percent of global 
emissions, is the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases. And 
today

[[Page S10874]]

the industrial world comprises nearly three-quarters of all of the 
global emissions. But that does not mean that we are the only ones who 
should deal with this problem. The reason for that is clear. China is 
currently the world's second largest emitter, and it is expected to 
displace the United States as the largest emitter by the year 2015. 
Over the next few decades, 90 percent of the world's population growth 
will take place in the developing world. Given the projected economic 
and population growth statistics of China and other quickly developing 
countries such as India, Mexico and Brazil, the developing world will 
exceed the industrialized world in emissions by the year 2035.
  Universal participation, therefore, does not mean we have to all 
begin at the same time. It does not mean you have to embrace the exact 
same commitment at the exact same implementation moment. Clearly, if 
one country is doing more than another, there is room for us to be able 
to negotiate an agreement where we all meet at the appropriate point. 
But it does mean that it is quite reasonable for the industrialized 
nations, those nations that have put most of the greenhouse pollution 
into the atmosphere, initially to take the lead, as long as in so doing 
they do not simply fall into a trap of disadvantaging themselves 
economically. A scenario where the industrialized world acts alone will 
not be enough to prevent the costly implications of global warming in 
the future.
  I want to emphasize that. The developing nations cannot go to Kyoto 
and suggest that it is up to the developed world simply to bear the 
burden of reductions, because even if we reduce to the greatest degree 
possible, we cannot alone avert the problems that will come from global 
warming. It is absolutely essential that China, India, Brazil, Mexico, 
and other countries join in the effort with an understanding that we 
are moving down this road together.
  Currently, many of these developing nations are not inclined to join 
in an international treaty. Some believe it is not in their immediate 
economic interests to do so. Others believe that as long as the biggest 
contributors to the problem, the industrialized nations, are not taking 
sufficient effective steps to cut back on greenhouse pollution, it is 
not in the interest of their nations to do so either. One could well 
understand how they would make that kind of determination. Some of them 
cite the language of the 1995 ``Berlin Mandate,'' calling on the Annex 
I countries, the developed countries, to be the ones to complete a 
treaty with binding commitments by December 1997 but to leave excluded 
the developing world from an established binding reduction target.
  Let me say that in my reading of the ``Berlin Mandate,'' I do not 
believe that we are precluded from proceeding to Kyoto in an effort to 
come up with a two-stage arrangement which would have the developed 
countries enter into an agreement while simultaneously bringing the 
developed countries along. I don't believe it is in any nation's 
interest to thwart international efforts to reduce greenhouse gases in 
as expeditious and as economically feasible a manner as possible. The 
remaining option is the option of doing nothing, and nothing would, in 
most people's judgment, be ultimate mutual devastation.

  The only viable solution is a global treaty which provides economic 
incentives for all nations. I believe such a treaty can be crafted, one 
that would include all nations but permit flexibility in the targets 
and flexibility in the timing of compliance for developing nations, 
while at the same time requiring all countries to agree to make legally 
binding commitments by a date certain. If the United States signs such 
a treaty, it would be reasonable for the President to refrain from 
transmitting that treaty to the Senate until the developing world signs 
its binding commitments. In that way we can make Kyoto a success, 
coming up with the binding agreements necessary but still maintain and 
keep good faith with the approach we have thus far deemed to be the 
roadmap to the achievement of this treaty.
  In this Chamber I previously shared my concerns with a component of 
the European proposal as it currently stands. The Europeans continue to 
argue for a treaty that would enable the European Union to secure an 
exclusive bubble emissions policy. This is tantamount to a regional 
emissions trading program. They want Europe to be contained under one 
bubble, whereby they can trade their emissions within the European 
bubble, a license, in effect, to increase emissions in some European 
countries by relying on the trendline decreases that are already in 
place in others. Such a posture is helpful only to the European Union. 
It fails to address the essential need to engage those rapidly growing 
economies of the developing world, and it excludes other industrialized 
countries which could be left to meet target reductions in a more 
costly manner.
  The European proposal would provide the Europeans with a competitive 
advantage over the United States by creating this collective emissions 
cap as opposed to country-by-country reduction targets. Some European 
countries could actually increase their emissions by up to 40 percent. 
This approach, coupled with their opposition to joint implementation 
with developing nations, seems to be aimed almost exclusively at 
beating the United States out of economically sensible emissions 
reduction activities in Eastern Europe, Russia, the Far East, and 
elsewhere. I think they should know that is not acceptable under most 
people's definition of fairness.
  Therefore, it is my feeling that we should approach Kyoto in the 
following way. I believe President Clinton and his advisers have been 
developing a U.S. position for these negotiations that moves mostly in 
the right direction. I have shared views with the administration over 
the course of these last months and in recent weeks, and there are a 
number of different options that are currently rumored to be under 
consideration by the President. It is my hope the President will 
announce a U.S. position that is aggressive in curbing the projected 
business-as-usual trendline.
  I believe the President ought to press for a proposal that will seek 
at least a target of 2010, rather than the outyear options of 2020 or 
2030 that we have heard discussed. The Europeans, given the protection 
of their European bubble proposal, have proposed a 15 percent reduction 
below the 1990 levels by the year 2010. Perhaps without the bubble this 
level may prove to be too ambitious to achieve without significant harm 
to their economies. However, I believe it is realistic for the United 
States and other nations to stabilize their emissions at 1990 levels by 
the year 2010, remembering, of course, that our original goal was to do 
so by the year 2000. With additional economic incentives such as early 
credits for reductions and joint implementation and a market-oriented 
emissions trading system, perhaps additional reductions could be 
undertaken.
  I believe also that the centerpiece of the U.S. negotiating position 
should be a worldwide emissions trading program. Emissions trading is 
an important market mechanism that will benefit all countries including 
the United States. But it is not only advantageous to U.S. businesses. 
It will provide developing countries with incentives to sign up to 
binding legal commitments that are absolutely essential to a workable 
treaty.

  The market-based approach of emissions trading is a sensible one that 
helps businesses lower costs by promoting emissions reductions and by 
giving the industry flexibility to decide how they will go about 
reducing pollution. We know an emissions trading system could reduce 
the cost of emissions controls dramatically, afford American industry 
great opportunities to do what we do best, which is to innovate, to 
develop cheaper, better ways of getting the job done. And, if the 
system includes joint implementation with developing countries, 
providing jobs here at home in the well-paying technology export 
sectors that serve the booming demands in rapidly industrializing 
nations, we would be well served.
  Experiences in States such as Massachusetts or California or Texas or 
Florida, States which have invested in technology and which have built 
on their combined technology bases and education bases--those 
experiences have proven where we invest in technology in order to solve 
some of these problems, we inevitably not only create jobs for 
Americans but we wind up creating an export capacity, because

[[Page S10875]]

we are the leading, cutting edge of technology and we wind up greatly 
reducing the costs that the original estimates are based on.
  If you look at the SO2 reduction programs in this country, 
I remember the automobile and other industries arguing it was going to 
be upward of $1,000 per ton to reduce. In fact, because of the 
technology advances, the costs have come in around $90. Therefore, the 
opportunity, by virtue of pushing our technology and advancing our 
capacity to transfer that technology to the developing countries, can 
assist all of us in the effort to create jobs and to provide for the 
gains necessary to be able to meet these targets. The United States 
should contain in this effort, along with the rest of the 
industrialized countries, a significant technology transfer component 
in order to assist in achieving this treaty and its goals.
  Economically, the best time to establish an international trading 
program is now. Many developing countries are currently investing in 
long-term energy programs. By excluding any discussion of joint 
implementation with developing countries and early credits for 
reductions prior to implementation of such a system, important 
incentives to encourage developing countries to begin shifting their 
development trajectory to a cleaner path would be lost. U.S. industry 
and U.S. competitiveness are the winners of an international trading 
system, wholly apart from any environmental gains.
  Environmentally, we need to get the trading program going as soon as 
possible, and world events are escalating the seriousness of the 
problem. The terrible fires in Indonesia and the havoc that that 
conflagration continues to wreak on the people of South Asia are 
additional testaments to an urgent need for a global framework that 
provides powerful market incentives for environmentally friendlier 
behavior. Emissions from these fires are pumping greenhouse gases into 
the atmosphere and destroying forests that could be protected and 
harvested in a much more sustainable manner. A Kyoto protocol that 
provides credits for protecting forests that sequester carbon dioxide, 
and an income stream that would potentially be available to those who 
husband the forest, would be an important step for the nations and the 
peoples of the worlds.
  A model for such a regime is the SO2 trading program 
contained in the 1990 Clean Air Act. That program, as I mentioned a 
moment ago, really contradicted what had been predicted by the 
industry. According to the Wall Street Journal, some initial industry 
estimates for those SO2 reductions were $1,500 per ton but 
which actually came in at $90 per ton, which was 6 percent of the 
original doom forecast of the industry.
  I would like to emphasize one point about the sulfur program that is 
key to its success. In the sulfur trading program, the Government has 
resisted the temptation to intervene in the market and provide price 
props or cushions, or to print new allowances and sell them at a set 
price. I understand that one option before the President is exactly 
such an approach. I believe other Senators would join me and strongly 
urge him to resist such intervention here. When the Government 
intervenes in market trading it inevitably drives those prices up.
  My recommendation to the President would be that any proposal that 
would make companies pay the Government for additional carbon permits 
is likely to be regarded--in this institution, anyway--as a thinly 
veiled tax, and would, frankly, not receive favorable reception. I urge 
the President to let the market for greenhouse emissions reductions do 
what the markets do best, which is to spur companies to develop better 
products at a lower cost. I am very optimistic that the President will 
ultimately make a judgment that would be opposed to that alternative, 
significant intervention in the marketplace.
  A second goal should be a framework that brings all countries into 
this effort at the beginning while allowing for the developing 
countries to initiate their reduction efforts at a different rate than 
the industrialized world. I think this is an essential component of any 
realistic approach to this effort. Even without a universal emission 
reductions program, the Montreal Protocol, signed by President Reagan 
during his second term, called for the phaseout of chlorofluorocarbons. 
As with the SO 2 estimates, the CFC reduction costs were 
grossly exaggerated by certain industry sectors. Market-type mechanisms 
in the Montreal Protocol and the U.S. domestic implementation program 
drove prices down, with the result that companies were spurred to bring 
online CFC substitutes that proved cheaper and cleaner. A more 
inclusive treaty, covering all greenhouse gas emissions, sources and 
sinks would produce even more economic and environmental progress.
  A final goal is to recognize the opportunity presented by technology 
to help in this effort. The United States is now a world leader in the 
high tech industries of pollution prevention, abatement and control. 
With a global emissions reduction treaty, the faster we invest in new 
pollution prevention and energy conservation technologies, the faster 
we will achieve emissions reductions and the quicker we will gain 
market share in the international arena. This means more jobs for U.S. 
workers and more revenues for U.S. companies. If we don't, then someone 
else will.
  I would simply cite the example of what took place in the two decades 
ago. At the end of the 1970's, President Carter had made a commitment 
to alternative and renewable fuel research. Regrettably, when the 
Reagan administration arrived in 1980, support for the institute in 
Colorado was withdrawn. So it was that over a 10-year period of time 
the great lead that the United States had built up in photovoltaics and 
in alternatives and renewables was lost.
  Today, as the former Soviet bloc countries of Eastern Europe come 
online in their effort to try to reduce the grotesque pollution that is 
one of the longest legacies of the Communist rule, they are turning to 
the Japanese and to the Germans for the technology where we once were 
the leader. But since we withdrew our own investment, we ceased to be 
that leader.
  So I believe there is, in this effort, an enormous economic 
opportunity for the United States for the future. At home, we need to 
consider ways to leverage our technological leadership through domestic 
tax provisions, such as a zero capital gains tax rate, or a 
specifically targeted investment tax credit for companies that invest 
in pollution prevention and energy conservation, or quicker 
depreciation of investment in such technologies. I repeat, a zero 
capital gains tax rate or faster depreciation for those companies that 
invest in energy saving, energy conservation and pollution prevention.
  I anticipate, Mr. President, that following the announcement the 
President makes regarding a U.S. proposal, regardless of what that 
proposal entails, there will be a number of colleagues on the floor of 
the Senate denouncing it, arguing that the science is not yet there or 
that the economic assumptions are unreliable. Some will argue it is 
unnecessary and too costly for the United States to participate in an 
international treaty.
  On the contrary. I believe the evidence from scientists is 
overwhelming, that it is far too costly to sit on the sidelines and do 
nothing. Mr. President, 2,500 leading economists, including 8 Nobel 
laureates tell us:
  For the United States in particular, sound economic analysis shows 
that there are policy options that would slow climate change without 
harming American living standards, and these measures may, in fact, 
improve U.S. production in the long term.
  I believe that if we heed the warnings, if we plan for the future 
now, if we avoid allowing this to become the political football that it 
might, if we seek the involvement of all nations, we can secure a 
healthy planet for ourselves and for our children and for future 
generations, and we can exercise our responsibility as U.S. Senators in 
the way that we ought to. I yield the floor.
  Mr. CHAFEE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kempthorne). The Senator from Rhode 
Island.
  Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from 
Massachusetts for his thoughtful comments about global warming. It is a 
subject in which I am deeply interested.
  I was very interested and pleased with his references and comparisons

[[Page S10876]]

with what took place with the Montreal protocol and our efforts that 
were successful in controlling chlorofluorocarbons, so-called CFC's. 
There is an example where the first scientific body of opinion 
suggested that, indeed, the CFC's were destroying the ozone layer. 
There was great skepticism, not only in this body, but throughout the 
Nation. But gradually, through testimony and through powerful speeches 
and articles by those who were involved, this country came to recognize 
that, indeed, CFC's were destroying the ozone layer, were causing skin 
cancer to our population and the population of the world.
  As a result of that, we moved forward and various meetings were held, 
which many of us remember, and capping it all off was the Montreal 
protocol, which called for substantial reduction of the production of 
CFC's in our country and the world.
  At the time, it looked as though it would be very difficult to 
achieve, but as the Senator from Massachusetts pointed out, the United 
States' scientific and mechanical ingenuity rose to the surface and, lo 
and behold, we not only met those reductions but we exceeded them.
  The results are now showing that the amount of chlorofluorocarbons in 
the atmosphere has been reduced, at least the increases have been 
reduced, and gradually we will see a reduction in the total body of 
CFC's, as it were, in the atmosphere, because all of this takes a long 
time to achieve.
  I also say to the Senator from Massachusetts that I think it is 
important to stress not only the costs of complying with a global 
warming treaty--that is always what is portrayed, it is going to cost 
our farmers, it is going to cost our manufacturers, it is going to cost 
our automobile industry, the coal miners, and on and on it goes. The 
costs of complying. But rarely does anybody ask, what are the costs if 
we don't have the treaty?
  The scientific evidence, as the Senator from Massachusetts was 
pointing out, is increasingly coming to be recognized that, indeed, the 
world is becoming warmer, just as the Senator pointed out what is 
happening to the ice accumulations, the glaciers. In every single place 
in the world, the glaciers are retreating. Why is that coming about? It 
is coming about because of the increased temperature, infinitesimal 
though it might seem, that is occurring throughout the world.
  So more and more I believe we have to say to ourselves, what does it 
cost if we don't do anything? Just take Florida. I don't know what the 
height of Florida is above sea level, but it must be tiny. If they get 
an increase in the level of the oceans of the world, and particularly 
those in the Caribbean, for example, the effects to Florida can't help 
but be devastating. Indeed, in my State, likewise; Massachusetts, 
likewise. In all our States, we are doing what we can to increase 
seawalls. What is happening? We are not sure. All we know is, once upon 
a time, our beaches were steeper and now they have been cut away. Now 
we have to have breakwaters and barriers and groins, as they call them, 
and so forth, to try and prevent the erosion of the soil.
  The Senator from Massachusetts pointed out what one of the presidents 
of one of the oil-producing countries of the world had to say. I would 
like to also point out a statement by the chairman of the Ford Motor 
Co. finance committee, none other than William Clay Ford, Jr. This is 
what he had to say on October 11, just 10 days ago, as quoted in the 
Washington Post:

       Ford Motor executive William Clay Ford, Jr., called global 
     warming a genuine threat to the environment and said 
     automakers who oppose a proposed treaty to address the 
     problem risk being ``marginalized'' in the court of public 
     opinion.

  This is what someone, whose family owns 40 percent of the voting 
stock of Ford Motor Co., had to say.

  The remarks by Ford, a leading contender to become chairman of the 
No. 2 automaker, distances himself from several Detroit executives who, 
in recent months, have criticized the proposed global warming treaty 
saying the phenomenon might not exist or its causes are uncertain.
  So that's what the leader of the second largest automobile 
manufacturing company in our country had to say.
  All I am saying to my colleagues, and substantiating what the Senator 
from Massachusetts said, is let's examine this thing carefully. Let's 
look at what the scientists have to say. We can say we don't agree with 
them. I don't know how many Nobel laureates there are in that group--
are there 10 Nobel laureates in that most recent group? It is something 
like that--plus a total of 2,500 scientists.
  I believe this thing is serious, and I think we ought to approach it 
with that attitude and not say, ``No, we're not going to have anything 
to do with it because if we have anything to do with it and try and 
solve the problem it will be very expensive.'' Well, that is no way to 
approach things.
  I commend the Senator from Massachusetts for the remarks he made, and 
I hope that all our colleagues were listening. This thing is serious; 
let's take it seriously. We may not agree. We may have different 
scientific evidence, but let's not just trash it because it is going to 
be expensive to comply with.
  Mr. KERRY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Rhode Island for 
his generous comments and also for his substantive comments. He has 
been dealing with this issue for a long period of time. As chairman of 
the committee of jurisdiction with respect to the environment, as well 
as a Senator from a coastal State, a neighbor of ours, he is very 
knowledgeable about these impacts. He serves also on the observer 
group. So I appreciate his comments particularly and his leadership on 
it.
  I will just say to my friend from Rhode Island, when I was in this 
discussion with the British minister just last week, he was quite 
dumbstruck, in fact, that Senators here are still questioning the 
science or that some people want to make an issue out of the science. 
There is almost a universal European acceptance among those in 
Government of the science. They really have stepped beyond that debate.
  The debate now is not over the science. The debate is how do you 
really deal with this the best. The Senator from Rhode Island pointed 
out Ford Motor Co. Let me just share with my colleague the 
environmental commitment statement by the insurance industry. The 
insurance industry in America is increasingly concerned about this. 
Here is what they said:

       Based on the current status of climate research and on 
     their experience as insurers and reinsurers, the member 
     companies of the UNEP-Insurance Industry Initiative conclude 
     that . . . Man-made climate change will lead to shifts in 
     atmospheric and ocean circulation patterns. This will 
     probably increase the likelihood of extreme weather events in 
     certain areas. Such effects carry the risk of dramatically 
     increased property damage, with serious implications for 
     property insurers and reinsurers . . . We are convinced that 
     in dealing with climate change risks, it is important to 
     recognize the precautionary principle, in that it is not 
     possible to quantify anticipated economic and social impacts 
     of climate change fully before taking action. Research is 
     needed to reduce uncertainty but cannot eliminate it entirely 
     . . . We insist that in accordance with the precautionary 
     principle, the negotiations for the Framework Convention on 
     Climate Change must achieve early, substantial reductions in 
     greenhouse gas emissions.

  So I think that increasingly businesses are aware of the fact that 
the costs of not doing something are the real measurement here.
  I thank the distinguished chairman for bringing that to the Senate's 
attention. I yield the floor.
  Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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