[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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