[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 200 (Wednesday, December 19, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7867-S7870]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
U.N. FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE
Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I rise today with two of our colleagues,
Senator Ed Markey and Senator Jeff Merkley, to reflect on the 24th
session of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
that concluded just this last weekend in the country of Poland.
This important conference, which is better known as COP24, refers to
Conference of Parties 24. I think they have been meeting for 24 years.
They met there for 2 weeks as leaders from nearly 200 nations, working
to reach an agreement on how our world will actually implement the
Paris climate agreement.
The stakes could not be higher. I am not one, as my colleagues know,
given to hyperbole, but the future of our planet and the future of our
children and grandchildren may well hang in the balance.
Was it a positive step forward that the international community could
come together and agree to meaningful action to combat climate change
on a global scale by finally getting to implement the Paris Agreement?
Yes, it was.
Having said that, this agreement is not perfect, they know it, and we
know it. No one is pretending that it is. It falls well short of the
steps that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC,
determined just 1 month ago are needed to avoid the most catastrophic
effects of climate change over the next decade.
The entire world needs to do even more to address this problem. That
includes setting much more aggressive emissions reduction targets going
forward to address the challenges of climate change in the years ahead.
While we certainly can and should be doing more, though, this agreement
is cause for hope that bolder future agreements are achievable, but
reaching bolder future agreements is going to require real leadership
from leaders and from nations across the world. After all, leadership
is the biggest key to success for almost any organization or endeavor,
and that includes saving this planet.
Unfortunately, our President, along with many in his administration,
continue to reject climate science and deny the reality and the
magnitude of the challenges we are facing. Well, here is the reality.
According to NOAA, the United States experienced 16 extreme weather-
related disasters in 2017 that exceeded $1 billion apiece. In the past
year alone, Americans paid $306 billion in damages due to storm surges,
flooding, wildfires, crop freezes, and droughts--a new record.
Thirteen of our Nation's leading scientific Federal agencies recently
reported to us in a National Climate Assessment that if we do nothing
to address our climate emissions, today's extreme weather-related
events will pale in comparison to what lies ahead.
Here is a sampling of what we can look forward to if we do nothing--
if we don't do enough. In the future, we can continue to expect
rainfall or precipitation as measured by the foot, not by
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the inch. We can continue to expect more wildfires in places out West,
burning areas larger than my home State of Delaware. We can continue to
expect extreme flooding to devastate communities like Ellicott City,
MD, not too far from here, which has been hit by not one but two 1,000-
year floods in the past 2 years alone. Think about that.
Somebody asked me the other day: What is a 1,000-year flood? It is
something that is supposed to happen only once in 1,000 years. They
have seen two of them in Ellicott City in the past 2 years.
One of the most memorable lyrics from my youth and maybe for some of
the others in this Chamber comes from a guy named Stephen Stills. I
would describe him as a California-based climatologist. He is not. He
is a singer-songwriter from Buffalo Springfield fame and Crosby,
Stills, Nash, and Young. He once wrote a lyric that goes like this:
Something's happening here. Just what it is ain't exactly
clear.
Think about that.
Something's happening here. Just what it is ain't exactly
clear.
Well, make no mistake, something is happening here, and what is
happening here is exactly clear. What is also clear is, there is still
time to do something about it while actually fostering economic growth
in the United States and beyond our borders. Let me say that again.
Here is the good news: What is also clear is that there is still time
to do something about it while actually fostering economic growth in
the United States and beyond our borders. Climate scientists aren't
part of some grand hoax. It isn't some alarmist prediction. It doesn't
come from some left-leaning organization. It doesn't come from talk
radio. The truth is that it comes directly from our Nation's leading
scientists and leading scientists around the world.
We also remind our colleagues that the National Climate Assessment is
not developed at the direction or whim of any one person or any one
administration; it was Congress that passed a law mandating that the
National Climate Assessment be presented every 4 years. We did it.
Congress did it. That law was called the Global Change Research Act of
1990. It passed this Senate in 1990 unanimously, and it was signed into
law by the late President George Herbert Walker Bush, a Republican.
Our Nation's leading scientists warned us yet again less than a month
ago that if we failed to start seriously reducing carbon emissions now,
by the end of this century, we may well be witnessing the following
tale of horribles.
Here is a chart. First, it deals with sea levels rising 6 feet. That
is a lot. Since 1993, it has risen 3 inches. Compared to what we have
experienced in the last 25 years, that is a heck of a lot. We would
expect that if sea level rise does go to 6 feet, it would result in
some $3.6 trillion in cumulative damages to the U.S. coastal properties
and infrastructure. Most of our east coast would be underwater,
including maybe parts of the lowest lying State in America, which is
Delaware.
Our next chart talks about annual economic losses of up to $500
billion by 2090--not cumulative but every year.
We have another chart here that speaks to gross domestic product. You
may recall that when we fell into the great recession around 10 years
ago--the worst recession since the Great Depression--we saw GDP losses
of just over 4 percent. It was horrible. Banks stopped lending money.
The unemployment rate was 10 percent or more. People couldn't get loans
for anything. That is where we were.
If these estimates from some of the best, smartest scientists in the
world are correct, it is not going to be losses at 4 percent; we will
be looking at 10 percent by 2100. No Member of this Senate is going to
be around then, but these pages sitting down here will be. Our
grandsons and granddaughters may well be around too.
As the world works to develop meaningful solutions to mitigate these
effects of climate change, the Trump administration chooses to
exacerbate the problem by doubling down on dirty and outdated energy
policies. This administration is also attempting to discredit the
recent science reports by pushing talking points from well-known
climate deniers.
Americans are not falling for these tricks anymore. Americans are
witnessing firsthand the effects of climate change in their communities
every day. They want action, and they want us to be part of that
action. So does the business community. While this administration sits
on its hands, American businesses are actually stepping up in a big way
to combat the effects of climate change. Many businesses stand ready to
do even more. They are looking to us here in our Nation's Capital to
provide some leadership.
To our international friends around the world who are wondering where
our Nation is on climate change, I want to say to those folks that,
speaking on behalf of the majority of not just Delawareans but
Americans, we are with you. We support the Paris climate agreement. We
want to reduce carbon emissions because we are convinced that doing so
will enable us to save our planet and create jobs.
This is not a Democratic or Republican issue. This is not a blue
State or red State issue. It affects us all. If you think climate
change hasn't reached your State yet, the science is clear that
eventually it will.
Luckily for us, young people are leading the call for action. Climate
change and environmental issues are often mistakenly forgotten when we
discuss domestic issues. In today's news cycle, especially under this
administration, they doesn't always make headlines. It has oftentimes
been said that climate change is not an issue that drives Americans to
the polls. I think that is changing.
Young people led the way to changing our country before. I remember
when I was your age, I say to our pages. In the 1950s, we led the
decades-long civil rights movement for equal rights for every American
under the law. Young activists made clear their opposition to the
Vietnam war. Back in the 1970s, when I was actually serving during the
Vietnam war as a naval flight officer, young people pushed hard for
strong environmental standards. The Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, OH--
north of Ohio State where I went to school--was on fire. At the
same time, we had shores of our country littered with garbage.
Our country is back at another one of those make-or-break moments in
our history. We need the energy of Americans of all ages, young and
old, to make sure we don't blow it. We need to listen to them all,
especially to our younger Americans. After all, when you think about
it, they should be energized by this. It is their planet, and it is
their future.
When it comes to global challenges, such as terrorism and cyber
attacks, the United States doesn't sit back and wait for someone else
to lead the way; we step up and we lead. We have many dogs in this
fight--some big ones and some not-so-big ones. We have a lot at stake.
Fortunately, acting sooner rather than later on climate change brings
with it a number of positives. We can put our country on course to
reduce emissions while growing our economy. I keep coming back to this
theme, and it is an important theme. We can put our country on a course
to reduce emissions and grow our economy. The two are not mutually
exclusive--I don't care what some people say and would have us believe.
In fact, it is quite the opposite. They are not mutually exclusive.
What we can and should be doing is using our energy and resources to
foster new economic opportunities for communities that may be dependent
today on the old world order.
In 2017, nearly 3.2 million Americans were working in wind, solar,
energy efficiency, and other clean energy jobs. A year or two ago, one
of them was one of our sons. Our oldest son worked for 6 years or so
helping develop ways for large buildings all over the Northeast to
conserve energy. That was one of the jobs.
There are 3.2 million jobs. More jobs will follow, and it is
incumbent on us to ensure that some of those new jobs go to people
whose jobs are going away as we seek to reduce carbon emissions in this
country and on our planet. How would we feel if we lost our jobs and at
the same time, 3 million people gained jobs? How about me? I was born
in West Virginia. Dad was a coal miner for a while earlier in his life.
How
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about those people? We need to make sure that when we make progress
reducing carbon emissions, we don't forget folks who lose their jobs
because of the reduction of those carbon emissions. We have to reach
back and help them too.
We don't have the luxury of waiting around. We need to crank it up,
and we need to get going. That is why, as the senior Democrat and
ranking member of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, which
I serve on with Senators Markey, Merkley, and others, I am anxious to
join them to help lead the fight for policies that take this country
into a brighter climate future. If we are honest with our children and
grandchildren, we don't have any other choice.
It was my hope that on the world stage this week, America's
representative at COP24 would make clear that our country is ready to
lead by example. Unfortunately, they apparently did not. That is no
reason to despair. We have the facts, and I think we have the energy
and the commitment on our side.
Today, I want to leave our colleagues with this message: Climate
action should not be an issue that divides us; it should be an issue
that unites us. It should unite not just this country but the entire
global community. Our world could definitely use more unification these
days, and so could our country.
Years from now, when our sons' children are dealing with the
inevitable consequences of our failure to address climate change--if we
do fail--there will be a day when they might come to me or, frankly,
any of us and say: Well, you were a Senator, weren't you, Grandpa? What
did you do when you had the chance to do something about this impending
disaster when there was still time? What did you do about it?
We should all want to be able to say the same thing: I worked
tirelessly reminding, warning my colleagues, pushing my colleagues. We
moved Heaven and Earth to make sure that future generations could
inherit a safe, healthy planet, one where their dreams and aspirations
could be realized and not destroyed.
My colleagues and I--especially Senator Markey and Senator Merkley--
are on the floor to make it clear that the overwhelming majority of
Americans stand with every other nation in the world on this issue. We
need to act. We need to act now. Time is not on our side. Let's seize
the day. Carpe diem.
I am happy to yield the floor.
It is like preaching to the choir. Nobody has done more in this body
and the Congress in the last 15 years than this man here--Senator Ed
Markey from Massachusetts--to try to make sure that we realize this is
a problem, that we do something about it, and that we do something
about it soon and in a way that creates economic opportunity.
I thank you. It is a pleasure to stand in front of you and serve
beside you.
Mr. MARKEY. I thank Bishop Carper--I mean Senator Carper as I
continue preaching to the choir. There is no one who does it better
than you do, and we have to continue to do this insistently,
persistently, and constantly to make sure this message is heard. We
thank you for all of your great leadership, Senator Carper.
Senator Merkley will be joining us out here on the floor. We have so
many other Members who are completely committed to this issue. It is
absolutely essential that we make progress in 2019 and 2020 on this
issue.
We are speaking on the floor today about the just-concluded
international climate negotiations in Poland--also called COP24. That
means conference of parties. That means every nation on Earth. Twenty-
four. The 24 times that every nation on Earth met to preserve the
Earth, to make sure that this great gift God gave us is, in fact,
passed on better than we found it and not potentially at great risk
because we did not act.
Unfortunately, given the focus of the Trump administration at the
climate conference, you could say that we are here on the Senate floor
not for a colloquy but for ``coal-oquy''--a discussion about the role
of coal in our society.
In a shameful moment for our country in the history of international
climate negotiations, the United States formed a gaslighting group with
Kuwait, Russia, and Saudi Arabia to downplay the findings on climate
change while at the talks in Poland.
Despite the fact that in the IPCC's special report--the U.N.'s
special report--on 1.5 degrees Celsius, the world's scientists tell us
that coal without carbon capture must be completely eliminated as a
source of power by the year 2050, the United States, unfortunately,
held an official event celebrating dirty fossil fuels, with no solution
to the problem.
That is the Trump administration. President Trump, I think, got his
degree in climate science from Trump University, and the diplomas were
handed out by the Koch brothers. This is the problem. It is not the
coal miners. We have to make sure that we take care of the coal miners.
We have to make sure that they get the healthcare they need, the
pensions they need.
There is a revolution going on. It is a renewables revolution, and it
is an all-electric vehicle revolution. This administration has been
trying as hard as it can to stop it, to slow it down, even as the
planet gets dangerously warm.
Fortunately, for the planet, the international community set the
rules of the road for implementing the Paris climate agreement despite
the misinformation being peddled by the Trump administration. The
global community was in agreement in its belief in the science of
climate. Now we have a new rule book based on the international
consensus for making progress toward the goals outlined in the Paris
climate agreement.
What happened in Poland was an important milestone for the planet.
When Donald Trump announced that the United States would withdraw from
the Paris Agreement, he defied the wishes of the majority of Americans
and of many of our biggest business leaders because they know that
being a part of the Paris Agreement makes America more competitive. It
will create new jobs, open up new markets, catalyze economic growth,
and reduce business risks. The Trump administration's decision to pull
the United States from the Paris accord continues to be a grave,
unforced error that will have massive implications for our economy, for
our security, for our public health, and for our future.
The new Conference of the Parties' rule book--the new meeting of
every country in the world--makes the Paris Agreement stronger than
ever, but the United States wants the rules to simply allow us to sit
out the game. By the ``United States,'' I mean the Trump
administration, representing the Federal Government. Yet it doesn't
represent the people. It doesn't represent the States. It doesn't
represent the cities. It doesn't represent all of the businesses in our
country that are moving on renewables, that are moving on this dramatic
change.
Recently released scientific studies make clear that as one of the
world's greatest polluters, the United States cannot sit on the
sidelines. You cannot preach temperance from a bar stool. You cannot
tell the rest of the world to do something while you yourself are
allowing all of these emissions to go up into the atmosphere. Of the 17
hottest years on record, 16 have occurred since the year 2000. At the
rate we are warming, the world is on course to breach 1.5-degrees
Celsius above preindustrial levels by the year 2030.
The National Climate Assessment warns that the Northeast will warm
faster than any other region in the United States, breaching 2-degrees
of warming above preindustrial levels of 2035. In other words, the Gulf
of Maine--Massachusetts Bay--is the second fastest warming body of
water on the planet after the Arctic. That is dangerous. What it means
is that we could have a total loss of coral reefs, the doubling in loss
of plant and animal species, a loss of up to one-tenth of U.S. GDP--
more than double the losses of the great recession by 2100.
Senator Carper already laid all of this out in graphic detail for the
Members to see and for the American people to see. When asked about the
conclusions from his own administration's scientists on climate change,
President Trump said: I don't believe my own scientists on climate
action.
The world no longer sees the American President as Commander in
Chief; it sees a climate denier in chief sitting in the Oval Office.
Thankfully, America's climate scientists are fighting for us. The
world's scientists are fighting for us, and we
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must fight for them. We must fight efforts to censor their research. We
must fight the efforts to ax their budgets. We must fight for them
because the work they do is essential to our planet's future.
One only has to look at the litany of sins perpetrated by the Trump
administration on climate science and climate action to see how big of
a fight we have. The list of this administration's efforts to weaken
climate action, public health, and environmental rules is so long that
Senator Whitehouse and I had to publish a report to capture all of the
ways Donald Trump has already come to lead ``The Most Anti-Climate
Administration in History.''
This is the report. It just goes on. It is page after page of actions
that the administration has taken to undermine the progress we should
be making on climate. We just issued this report this week. There are
more than 114 climate actions that President Trump and his Big Oil all-
star team, at the Cabinet level in this administration, have put in
place. That has been, literally, one attack per week over the past 2
years.
During his tenure, President Trump nominated Andrew Wheeler, a member
of the coal industry's hall of fame, to run the Agency that is tasked
with protecting our environment. He has moved to freeze fuel economy
standards at 2020 levels rather than pushing for the economically and
technologically achievable goal of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. While
in the White House, the President, day by day, tries his best to make
sure that no progress is made.
Here is what I know. We went all the way from 1975 until 2007 with no
new law being passed on fuel economy standards. In the House and in
partnering with Members over here in the Senate, I was able to pass the
increase in 2007 for fuel economy standards. That was the first
increase in 32 years. President Trump has proposed a clean powerplant
replacement that would kill 1,400 more Americans every year and emit 12
times more carbon dioxide. This list goes on and on. The only thing
longer than the list of anti-climate and environmental actions taken by
the Trump administration might be the number of investigations of the
Trump administration.
Unfortunately, in the absence of leadership from Trump's Federal
agencies, people wonder what is happening. Is there a reason for hope?
The answer is yes. Our towns, our cities, our States haven't missed a
step. There are 22 States, 550 cities, and 900 companies with
operations in the United States that have climate commitments in place.
These pledgers could get us within striking distance of our original
commitment in the Paris climate agreement.
After the Waxman-Markey bill passed on the floor of the U.S. House of
Representatives and when President Obama went to Copenhagen, the
promise he made was the 17-percent reduction by 2020, which was in the
Waxman-Markey bill. That is the pledge, that 17 percent in the Waxman-
Markey bill. We are still capable of coming very close to that, but we
know that even the U.S. commitment in Paris of up to 28 percent in the
years after that would be insufficient to limit the warming to 1.5
degrees by midcentury, so we need to be thinking beyond that.
We need to get to net zero emissions by 2050. To get there, we will
need to take unprecedented action. We need to supercharge our
investments in a clean energy economy, and we need to do that at the
Federal level. Globally, we need to cut greenhouse gas emissions in
half by 2030. We need to invest in energy efficiency solutions to
reduce the total energy demand by one-third. We need to transform our
transportation system because as much as 65 percent of energy used in
transportation will need to come from low-emission sources. At the same
time, in the power sector, we need at least 75 percent of our
electricity to come from clean sources by 2050.
Getting there will not be easy, but we have the technologies that are
necessary for this to be possible. We have the momentum in the markets
to get renewable energy to every corner of this country. We are
ushering our power sector into a clean energy future that is good for
our environment and good for our economy, as Senator Carper said. In
the early 2020s, it could be cheaper to build new renewables from
scratch than to continue operating old, dirty, coal-fired power plants.
That is not a conspiracy; that is called competition.
Adam Smith is smiling in his grave, looking at this competition
unfold. The cost of solar has fallen 50 to 60 percent over the last 5
to 6 years. In fact, wind and solar are generally cheaper than coal and
nuclear energy right now. That is not just happening here. Half of all
electricity installed around the world last year was renewable. Let me
say it again. Last year, half of all new electricity on the planet was
renewable. Renewable energy deployment around the world has increased
by 8 percent a year for 7 years in a row, and there is no likelihood
that it is going to change.
Globally, more than 330 billion dollars was invested in clean energy
just last year. This is a global clean energy race. It is a global job
creation race, and we cannot let nations like China and India and
others win that race. We have to push ourselves harder. Right now, we
have more than 50,000 megawatts installed in the United States. By the
end of 2022, we could have over 250,000 megawatts of wind and solar
installed if we would just continue at the pace on which we are right
now and don't allow Donald Trump and his cronies to roll back those
advances.
We now have five times as many workers in the solar industry as we do
in coal mining in the United States. In 2016, we added as many jobs in
the solar industry as exist in the coal mining industry. By 2020, we
will have 500,000 Americans working in wind and solar. Who are these
workers? They are electricians. They are roofers. They are carpenters.
They are blue-collar workers all across this country. We have unleashed
a blue-collar job revolution in this country. There are hundreds of
thousands of people working in it with there being a direct assault
from the White House going against those workers every single day.
Blue-collar workers are workers who, right now, are five times larger
in number than are the coal miners in our country. It will be
machinists to build advanced fuel-efficient vehicles. It will be
American electricians retrofitting energy-efficient buildings. It will
be American roofers installing solar panels. Clean energy is the
greatest force for blue-collar, high-wage job creation in a generation.
While we have a responsibility to protect the livelihoods of the
millions of Americans who work in energy efficiency, clean energy,
clean vehicles, and clean fuels, we need to make sure that those
working in fossil fuel industries are supported throughout this clean
energy transition.
I thank Senator Merkley. I thank Senator Carper. I thank all of the
Members who have worked on these issues that move us toward a 100-
percent renewable future. We need a green new deal for our country. Now
we just have to exert the political will to make it a reality.
I thank everyone for all of their work on this issue. In 2019, we are
going to raise every one of these climate issues in the context of a
massive job creation effort. We are going to save all of creation by
engaging in massive blue-collar job creation in our country.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
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