Speeches
|
|
Print this page |
ADDRESS TO SYMPOSIUM ON CLIMATE CHANGE
June 15, 2006
Washington D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) delivered the following address to a symposium on climate change hosted by the Embassy of Norway and the Environmental and Energy Study Institute:Thank you. Let me first welcome Ambassador Vollebaek and Foreign Minister Stoere, along with our other visitors from Norway, to the U.S. Senate.
I am pleased to be back with you again this year for this important symposium. The Government of Norway has taken a real leadership role in climate change, and this gathering is just one example of their efforts. For all their hard work, they deserve our sincere thanks.
Any of you who attended last year’s symposium may recall that I spoke about the dramatic climate change impacts that I witnessed in Svalbard, Norway. Since our meeting last year, I have had an opportunity to again visit the Arctic region. Last August, Senators Hillary Clinton, Lindsey Graham, Susan Collins and I visited Alaska and the Yukon Territory in Canada. What we saw during our visit was simply startling.
In the Yukon Territory, we witnessed first hand the destruction of huge areas of pristine spruce forest being destroyed by infestations of bark beetles, which now survive the recent mild winters. We saw areas of spruce trees that have turned from a healthy green to red or bluish, showing the infestation, and many more that have simply died in place, priming them for fire. At times we could see no trees at all, because the smoke from nearby forest fires became too thick - another consequence of warming. The Canadians said that these forest fires, once rare occurrences, by last summer took place virtually every day.
We also saw and heard about other dramatic pieces of unprecedented climate change impacts. We saw 9,000 year-old artifacts found on top of newly melted ice patches, frozen in place until last year. We heard about rain in the wintertime – not snow - and about new abnormalities in fish that scientists attribute to rising water temperatures. Rivers, creeks, and other significant bodies of water have evaporated. All of this is in sharp contrast to the long memories of the Yukon’s native people. One tribal chief told us that as a boy he fished in ponds and streams near his house, but that those are gone now. They have evaporated.
From the Yukon Territory, we traveled to Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost point in North America. Here, inside the Arctic Circle, the evidence of global warming=s impact was equally disturbing. For as long as anyone can remember, starting around November, Arctic Ocean ice would push its way all the way to the shore in Barrow, leaving a more or less unbroken pack of ice from there to the North Pole. But no more.
Now when the sea does freeze over, it is slushy, sometimes not thick enough to allow the native people to venture out onto it for their traditional hunts. As long as the natives can remember, they have engaged in these activities, and now they must stop not because they choose to, but because warming temperatures are making it simply impossible.
The retreat of the ice has become so severe that there is talk that a northwest passage for large ships may soon be possible. Problems with erosion and melting permafrost also plague the region around Barrow. Many villages across Alaska are scheduled to be relocated entirely to safer ground at the cost of millions to the federal government.
Finally, we saw the retreat of glaciers at Kenai Fjords National Park in Alaska, another casualty of these warming trends. We saw the signpost marking the spots at which the Exit Glacier once stood in years past, and we saw where it stands now - a fraction of its previous size. Near the park there is even a visitors center built a few decades ago with a picture perfect view of a nearby glacier. The only problem is that the melting of the glacier has been so severe that it can no longer be seen from the visitors center.
All this adds up to dramatic, compelling evidence that climate change is happening today, and that it is imposing real cultural and economic costs in the Arctic region. If we continue on our present course, this destruction will not be limited to the Arctic region alone.
I know that over the next few hours you will hear from several world class experts on how these Arctic changes will affect the rest of the world. I am sure they will discuss the global ocean circulating patterns, the increase in the release of methane, which is 20 times more capable of trapping heat as carbon dioxide, the decrease in the level of sea ice that reflects the heat from the sun back into the atmosphere, and the increase in the amount of shrubs growing in the Arctic tundra.
In January of this year, I had the opportunity to visit Antarctica. The impacts of climate change there, although not as evident, are certainly as troublesome. There are huge glaciers in remote areas of Antarctica that are thinning and ice shelves, the size of some American states, are either disintegrating or retreating. There are many who fear that as we lose the ice shelves, the lost will trigger the flow of glaciers into the oceans causing unprecedented global sea level rise.
These fears and many others will be addressed further when the International Polar Year research program commences next year. The U.S. and many other nations, including Norway, will engage in an intensive two year coordinated campaign of research that will initiate a new era in polar science. It will include research in both polar regions and recognize the strong links between these regions and the rest of the globe.
It is no secret that many in the Senate and the Administration are reluctant to deal meaningfully and effectively with climate change. But while we dangerously delay a concerted effort to approach this global problem, others are making significant strides below the federal level.
For instance, late last year, seven Northeast states - Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, and Vermont - agreed to implement a "cap-and-trade" program to lower carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. This will be the first mandatory cap-and-trade program for carbon dioxide emissions in U.S. history.
The U.S. mayors have agreed to take action. 238 mayors representing 45 million people have signed onto an agreement led by Mayor Nickels of Seattle to reduce emissions at or below the proposed U.S. levels (7 percent below the 1990 levels by the year 2008) under the Kyoto Protocol. The fact that an agreement can be reached by 238 U.S. mayors representing over 45 million people is simply amazing. If 238 mayors can do it, why can’t 100 U.S. Senators?
U.S. industries themselves are also beginning to realize the inevitability of mandatory reductions in greenhouse gases. Ceres, a national network of investment funds, environmental organizations and other public interest groups working to advance environmental stewardship, issued a report in March of this year indicating that “After years of inaction, a growing number of leading U.S. companies are confronting the business challenges from global warming, recognizing that greenhouse gas limits are inevitable and that they cannot risk falling behind their international competitors in developing climate-friendly technologies. Many companies are still largely ignoring the climate issue with 'business as usual' strategies that may be putting their companies and shareholders at risk.”
And finally, on February 8 of this year, 86 religious leaders released their Evangelical Climate Initiative, calling on the government to act urgently to curb carbon dioxide emissions. In their statement, the evangelical leaders asserted that there is no scientific doubt about the danger of climate change, and that it is a social justice issue because “millions of people could die in this century because of climate change, most of them our poorest global neighbors.”
As you know about a year ago, Senator Lieberman and I offered the Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act as an amendment to the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Despite the addition of a new title to support the deployment of new technologies, the amendment failed. Several of the members indicated that they could not vote for our legislation because of its support for nuclear energy.
I believe that in order to solve the climate problem, we must include this zero emission technology. The reality is that nuclear already represents 20 percent of our power generation capacity. Many of these nuclear plants are nearing the end of their design life and will need to be replaced. To replace them with more carbon-emitting technologies is not the way forward. New plant designs with improved reliability and safety features are.
However, that’s not to say that we will not need to have other technologies as well, such as clean coal with carbon capture, solar, and bio-fuels. We will need a diverse mix of energy sources to meet the nation’s future energy needs.
Senator Lieberman and I will continue to work to secure additional support for our legislation. I know that much of the discussion about climate change has turned to how to implement mandatory reductions without harming the economy. This message was confirmed when the Senate passed a resolution last year as part of the Energy Policy Act. We will continue to seek innovative approaches for our legislation to do just that.
Let me close as I have before with a simple argument. Let’s say that the climate skeptics are right – that the science we are relying upon is wrong – yet we enact legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. What will result? Clean air and a more competitive industrial base.
On the other hand, let’s say that the science is accurate yet we fail to enact legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. What harm will that inaction cause? Melting of the polar ice caps with the accompanying sea level rise, extinction of many animal and plant species, shut-down of the ocean circulating system, more extreme weather events, social and political upheaval, and unimaginable mitigation costs.
Given the high stakes involved – the future of our children and our grandchildren, not to mention the future of the planet as we inherited it – which approach are you willing to bet on? We don’t want our children to ever have to ask the question, “Did they even care?”
Thank you.
# # #
|