Statement of Senator Jon S. Corzine
Committee on Environment and Public Works
Thank
you, Mr. Chairman. I want to commend
you for holding this hearing on what I believe to be the most important
environmental issue that we face—climate change. Mr. Chairman, this issue is enormously complex in every
aspect. Scientifically. Economically. Politically.
But
complexity is no excuse for inattention or inaction. Because the health and viability of the global ecosystems upon
which we all depend are at stake.
I
won’t dwell here on the range and scope of potential climate change impacts,
which are well documented elsewhere.
Suffice it to say that no other issue that will come before this
Committee demands more serious attention.
So
I look forward to today’s testimony on science and mitigation options, and I
hope that this hearing is the beginning of a sustained effort.
Because
the time to act is now.
The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently released its Third
Assessment Report, and the science is increasingly clear and alarming.
We
know that human activities, primarily fossil fuel combustion, have raised the
atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide to the highest levels in the last
420,000 years.
We
know that the planet is warming, and that the balance of the scientific
evidence suggests that most of the recent warming can be attributed to
increased atmospheric greenhouse gas levels.
We
know that without concerted action by the U.S. and other countries, greenhouse gases
will continue to increase.
Finally,
we know that climate models have improved, and that these models predict
warming under all scenarios that have been considered. Even the smallest warming predicted by
current models—2.5 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century—would represent the
greatest rate of increase in global mean surface temperature in the last 10,000
years.
Mr.
Chairman, when I consider these findings, I conclude that we need to begin now
to mitigate climate change. We can and
should improve the science of climate change.
But a call for more research should not obscure or minimize what we
already know.
Mr.
Chairman, the Senate—and the Environment Committee in particular—needs to
provide leadership on this issue.
President Bush has pulled back from the Kyoto protocol, leaving a policy
vacuum in his wake. He has pledged to
craft an alternative to Kyoto, but in the meantime, he will soon issue an
energy policy proposal that, by all reports, will not address climate change in
a meaningful way. If this is true—and I
sincerely hope that it is not—then we can only conclude that President Bush is
not serious about addressing climate change.
So
the task of dealing with climate change would appear to fall to us. Mr. Chairman, current and future generations
are depending on us. To give you one
example, the people of New Jersey are depending on me to protect their
treasured Atlantic Ocean beaches. Like
all coastal areas, these beaches are threatened by projected changes in sea
levels due to climate change. I am
concerned about this impact. And I am
concerned about climate change impacts across New Jersey, the country and the
globe.
So
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses.
I hope that they can help us to identify sensible mitigation policy
options that the Committee can continue to work on. Thank you.