Lawmakers Hearing Warnings on Climate Change

Lawmakers Hearing Warnings on Climate Change

Feb 2007 - The United States 
has vested economic interests and a moral obligation to tackle 
global warming, economists, corporate leaders, and 
environmentalists told two Senate committees Tuesday. The 
panelists urged U.S. lawmakers to quickly impose mandatory 
restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions and to demonstrate 
that the United States is willing to lead a global effort to 
confront climate change. 
"Uncontrolled climate change constitutes a risk that we as a 
global community cannot afford to take," former World Bank 
economist chief economist Sir Nicholas Stern told the Senate 
Energy and Natural Resources Committee. 
Economist Sir Nicholas Stern 
Stern, head of the British Government Economic Service and 
lead author of the most comprehensive economic review of 
climate change to date, said climate change is a global 
problem that "requires a global response." 
"Equity demands that rich countries takes the lead," Stern 
said. "It is they who are responsible for the bulk of the 
problem. And it is the poor countries will be hit earliest and 
hardest." 
Stern's report, "The Stern Review," issued last October, 
warned that unabated climate change will sharply impact 
societies and ecosystems across the planet and could cost the 
world five to 20 percent of gross domestic product, GDP, 
annually. 
The costs of acting now, however, can be limited to about one 
percent of annual global GDP, according to the report. 
"That amount will not slow growth," Stern said. "The later we 
leave it the greater the risks and the higher will be costs of 
controlling them." 
But lawmakers voiced lingering concern about the United States 
enacting mandatory emission reductions absent obligations from 
developing nations, namely China and India. 
Senator Pete Domenici, a New Mexico Republican, said he is 
"more and more fearful" of the consequences of the U.S. acting 
alone. 
China uses more coal than the United States, Domenici said, 
and is opening a new coal-fired power plant virtually every 
week. 
The coal-fired Gongyi-2 power plant in China's Hebei province 
 Investment Ltd)
"Somebody in a big leadership role has to get together with 
the Chinese and the Indians, and decide whether they have a 
stake or not - and if they do then we should try to do 
something together," Domenici told colleagues. 
Stern called on U.S. lawmakers to recognize that China is 
taking steps to tackle climate change. China is no longer 
deforesting, he said, has a plan to cut its energy intensity 
20 percent in five years, and has imposed an export tax on 
steel and other energy intensive goods. 
"You cannot sell an American car in China because they don't 
meet emissions [standards]," Stern said. "It is not correct to 
say that China is doing nothing." 
Stern added that China, India and other nations are also 
watching for the United States to act more aggressively and 
will go faster if the United States demonstrates leadership. 
"Leadership in the world's largest markets sets the pace 
elsewhere," Stern said. 
That message was echoed by panelists at a hearing held by the 
Senate Environment and Works Committee, which focused on the 
recommendations of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, USCAP. 

A coalition that consists of the chief executives of 10 major 
corporations, including DuPont, General Electric, and Duke 
Energy, and leaders of four national environmental groups, 
USCAP has called for mandatory controls to reduce greenhouse 
gas emissions by some 60 to 80 percent from today's levels by 
2050. 
"We share a view that climate change is the most pressing 
environmental issue of our time and we agree that as the 
world's largest source of global warming emissions our country 
has an obligation to lead," said Peter Darbee, chairman and 
CEO of PG&E Corp., California's largest gas and electric 
utility. 
Peter Darbee is chairman and CEO of Pacific Gas & Electric 
Corporation 
The U.S. economy "is the world's locomotive," Darbee told the 
panel, adding that the members of USCAP "believe it is 
critical to get the engine pulling in the right direction on 
climate change." 
USCAP's message clearly resonated with Senator John Warner, a 
Virginia Republican who could prove to be a key swing vote 
when Boxer's committee acts on legislation. 
"A group like this, you've got my attention," Warner told the 
panel. 
Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat and chair of the 
environment committee, said the USCAP recommendations, 
released last month, marked a "turning point" in the U.S. 
debate over controlling greenhouse gas emissions. 
Senator Barbara Boxer of California 
"The companies and groups before us today also make clear that 
by acting now, we can help, not hurt our economy," she said. 
But Senator James Inhofe, a Republican from the oil-producing 
state of Oklahoma, called the group "climate profiteers," 
motivated by self-interest. 
"More and more companies that wish to profit on backs of 
consumers are coming out of the woodwork to endorse climate 
proposals in hopes of forcing customers to buy their products 
or to penalize their competitors," Inhofe said. 
The companies involved in USCAP, such as DuPont and BP, have 
invested heavily in renewable energy technologies, Inhofe 
said, and would benefit from regulations that make 
conventional energy less attractive. 
"These companies will gain market share against their 
competitors while the economy flattens and jobs are sent to 
China," said Inhofe. 
Boxer bristled at Inhofe's comments. 
"It is quite unfair to cast dispersion on people who actually 
might have come to the decision that there is a need for 
corporate responsibility," the committee chair said. 
The members of USCAP said mandatory restrictions on greenhouse 
gas emissions, such as a cap and trade plan, will ensure 
emission reductions while generating a price signal that will 
spark market incentives for greater energy efficiency and 
cleaner technologies. 
"There needs to be a price for greenhouse gas emissions," said 
Jonathan Lash, president of the World Resources Institute. 
The growing consensus that the United States must cut 
emissions of global warming pollutants is creating uncertainty 
in the marketplace, the coalition contends, as companies brace 
for some kind of regulation. 
The sun's rays highlight emissions from a paper mill in 
Alabama. 
Chad Holliday, chairman and CEO of Dupont, said Congress must 
lay down "the rules of the road." 
"The uncertainty of what regulations will do are holding 
companies back," Holliday said. "When you lay down the [rules] 
our universities, our companies, our national labs and our 
individual citizens will lead the world in finding solutions." 

Stern, during his remarks before the Energy Committee, said 
climate change is "the biggest market failure the world has 
ever seen." 
"People should pay in the prices they face for the costs of 
their actions - in this case costs to the climate," he said. 
"Pricing carbon directly through either tax or carbon trading 
or implicitly through regulation is fundamental to a policy 
response." 
Stern called for a mix of policies, including carbon taxes and 
emissions trading, but acknowledged that the latter is more 
politically feasible - even though it is a far more complex 
undertaking. 
If the lawmakers do pursue a cap and trade plan, Stern said, 
they should be "ambitious" with the targets and set up the 
system so that it can link with other similar plans underway 
in other parts of the world. 
Two economists appearing with Stern lamented the political 
difficulties associated with a carbon tax. 
"It would be nice if taxes weren't so taboo," said Gary Yohe, 
an economics professor at Wesleyan University. 
A tax would set a real price for carbon and revenues could be 
used to pay for research, carbon sequestration and adaptation 
measures, added Henry Jacoby, co-director of the Massachusetts 
Institute for Technology's Joint Program on the Science and 
Policy of Global Change. 
"That would be worth some consideration," Jacoby told the 
committee. 
The issue of cap and trade versus a tax also was briefly 
discussed at the Environment Committee hearing. 
"From a theoretical standpoint, a carbon tax is the purest and 
most efficient way to get at that question," PG&E's Darbee 
said. "We understand that a lot of leaders right now aren't 
inclined to implement a significant tax on the economy and 
therefore we felt a cap and trade program would approximate 
the effect of a carbon tax." 
Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma 
Inhofe said that the cap and trade program was, in effect, 
"the largest tax increase in American history," arguing that 
energy companies and other businesses would simply pass costs 
down to consumers. 
The Oklahoma Republican also reiterated his belief that there 
is no scientific consensus that human activity is driving 
climate change, despite the findings of the latest assessment 
by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate 
Change, IPCC. 
The IPCC report by more than 600 scientists, released earlier 
this month, concluded that global warming is real and 
expressed with a confidence level of more than 90 percent that 
human activity is the major factor in current climate change. 
The IPCC report was endorsed by 113 governments, including the 
United States. 
Inhofe, who could prove a roadblock to climate legislation, 
said the "science is not settled." 
"I am told that the rush to do something about global warming 
has gained momentum," Inhofe said. "But the not so hidden 
secret is that more and more serious scientists and political 
leaders are voicing their discontent with both the hype and 
the symbolic approaches that masquerade as solutions that are 
designed more to line the pockets of its promoters than to 
accomplish anything. 
Boxer responded that Inhofe is increasingly a lone voice. 
"There is no debate any more," Boxer said. "The science is 
clear. There are always people who when there is a 
breakthrough in science who continue to say not true. There 
are still people who say HIV doesn't cause AIDS, there are 
still people who say there is no tie between smoking and 
cancer. We know there will always be some naysayers." 
There was no debate about the science of climate change during 
the Energy Committee hearing, rather there was concern - 
raised by Domenici - that it may be too late to do anything 
reverse course. 
The IPCC report said the global climate is likely to warm by 
3.5 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit if current trends continue. 
Preventing such an increase would likely require the world to 
cut greenhouse gas emissions more than 50 percent from today's 
levels by 2050. 
Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico 
A reduction of such magnitude "almost defies doing," Domenici 
said, adding that perhaps a body should be formed to identify 
how society deals with such change. 
"An adaptation policy is in order," Domenici said. "States and 
others ought to be looking at what they might do." 
Stern acknowledged that "even with strong action - we are 
going to have to adapt." 
But he urged lawmakers to embrace a strategy that includes 
both mitigation and adaptation, and urged them to support 
greater investment in low-carbon technologies, policies to 
limit deforestation and to encourage greater energy 
efficiency. 
"Now is the time to act - urgently, strongly and 
internationally," Stern told the committee. "Strong leadership 
from the United States is of the utmost importance in this 
endeavor."

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