I would like to express my strong concerns regarding the upcoming Copenhagen Climate Conference. From December 7-18, leaders from around the world will gather to negotiate a new international treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and address global climate change. These negotiations are intended to develop a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which is set to expire in 2012. As the Senate continues to debate national energy tax legislation that will place tremendous costs on American families and businesses and send even more jobs overseas, I am concerned that any agreement resulting from the Copenhagen negotiations would only serve to place further regulation on the United States and other industrialized nations while also forcing them to give billions of dollars to help boost the economies of developing countries. Indeed, the United Nations has suggested a transfer of as much as one percent of global GDP to developing nations to assist in curbing their emissions.

The Kyoto Protocol, which was completed in 1997, placed binding greenhouse gas reductions among the industrialized nations that ratified the treaty. Although President Clinton signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1998, it has never been submitted to the United States Senate for ratification as required by Article II of the Constitution. As the potential impacts to our economy became clear during the development of Kyoto, I joined several of my colleagues in sponsoring a resolution to declare that the United States should not enter into any agreement that would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States or that would exempt developing countries. The Senate unanimously passed a similar resolution that was the primary reason President Clinton never submitted the treaty for ratification.

Since the Kyoto Protocol went into effect in 2005 (in order to enter into force, it had to be ratified by nations representing 55% of global emissions, which did not occur until Russia did so in November 2004), its ineffectiveness has been exhibited by the fact that emissions in many of the major nations that ratified the treaty have increased at rates greater than emissions in the United States. We all we want to reduce pollution and greenhouse gases; the question is how to go about doing so. A strong economy spurs far greater innovation than one weakened by excessive government regulation. As such, I believe that an “all of the above” energy policy that allows for continued use of our abundant and available resources to keep our economy growing strong as we develop our next energy technologies represents a far more balanced and commonsense approach than the global governance and oppressive policy advocated by proponents of the Kyoto Protocol and its potential successor.