SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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45–253 CC
1998
GLOBAL CLIMATE NEGOTIATIONS: OBLIGATIONS OF DEVELOPED AND DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
JULY 24, 1997
Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations
COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York, Chairman
WILLIAM GOODLING, Pennsylvania
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JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa
HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois
DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska
CHRISTOPHER SMITH, New Jersey
DAN BURTON, Indiana
ELTON GALLEGLY, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida
CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina
DANA ROHRABACHER, California
DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California
PETER T. KING, New York
JAY KIM, California
STEVEN J. CHABOT, Ohio
MARSHALL ''MARK'' SANFORD, South Carolina
MATT SALMON, Arizona
AMO HOUGHTON, New York
TOM CAMPBELL, California
JON FOX, Pennsylvania
JOHN McHUGH, New York
LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
ROY BLUNT, Missouri
JERRY MORAN, Kansas
KEVIN BRADY, Texas
LEE HAMILTON, Indiana
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SAM GEJDENSON, Connecticut
TOM LANTOS, California
HOWARD BERMAN, California
GARY ACKERMAN, New York
ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American Samoa
MATTHEW G. MARTINEZ, California
DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
CYNTHIA A. McKINNEY, Georgia
ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida
PAT DANNER, Missouri
EARL HILLIARD, Alabama
WALTER CAPPS, California
BRAD SHERMAN, California
ROBERT WEXLER, Florida
STEVE ROTHMAN, New Jersey
BOB CLEMENT, Tennessee
BILL LUTHER, Minnesota
JIM DAVIS, Florida
RICHARD J. GARON, Chief of Staff
MICHAEL H. VAN DUSEN, Democratic Chief of Staff
MARK S. KIRK, Counsel
CAROLINE G. COOPER, Staff Associate
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C O N T E N T S
WITNESSES
Hon. Timothy E. Wirth, Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs
Mr. David F. Hales, Deputy Assistant Administrator and Director for Environment, USAID
Mr. Dean Kleckner, President, American Farm Bureau Federation
Mr. Jerry J. Jasinowski, President and CEO, National Association of Manufacturers
Mr. David A. Smith, Director of Public Policy Development, AFL–CIO
Mr. Daniel F. Becker, Director of Global Warming and Energy Programs, Sierra Club
Mr. Peter DeBrine, Climate and Energy Program Officer, World Wildlife Fund
Mr. Harvey Ruvin, Metropolitan Dade County Clerk
APPENDIX
Prepared statements:
Opening statement of Chairman Benjamin A. Gilman, Chairman, Committee on International Relations
Under Secretary Wirth
Mr. Hales
Mr. Kleckner
Mr. Jasinowski
Mr. Michael Marvin, Executive Director, The Business Council for Sustainable Energy, plus submitted materials
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Mr. Smith
Mr. Becker, plus materials submitted by the Sierra Club
Mr. DeBrine
Mr. Ruvin
Additional materials submitted for the record:
Climate Change Threats to the National Parks and Protected Areas of the United States and Canada submitted by the World Wildlife Fund
Risky Business: Why Joint Implementation is the Wrong Approach to Global Warming Policy
A Long-Term CO2 Emission Reduction Plan for Metropolitan Dade County (2 reports) submitted by Mr. Ruvin
Questions for the record submitted to Under Secretary of State Timothy E. Wirth by the International Relations Committee
Remarks by Under Secretary Wirth
Grant Recipient Statements
GLOBAL CLIMATE NEGOTIATIONS: OBLIGATIONS OF DEVELOPED AND DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
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ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
JULY 24, 1997
Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations
GLOBAL CLIMATE NEGOTIATIONS: OBLIGATIONS OF DEVELOPED AND DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
GLOBAL CLIMATE NEGOTIATIONS: OBLIGATIONS OF DEVELOPED AND DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
GLOBAL CLIMATE NEGOTIATIONS: OBLIGATIONS OF DEVELOPED AND DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
THURSDAY, JULY 24, 1997
House of Representatives,
Committee on International Relations,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:14 a.m. in room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Benjamin A. Gilman (chairman of the Committee) presiding.
Chairman GILMAN. The Committee will come to order.
The International Relations Committee is meeting today to review the progress of the global climate change negotiations scheduled for completion this December in Kyoto, Japan, and while our Committee has held hearings and reported out legislation on a number of major foreign policy topics, the Administration's draft Global Climate Change Treaty is one foreign policy initiative that will affect the daily lives of all Americans, from Maine to Hawaii, and for years to come.
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Because of its extreme importance, we plan to accept the Administration's offer to establish a congressional observer group to the climate change talks to ensure close coordination and support between our Congress and the Administration. Our country is strongest when we work together on matters such as this. On the issue of climate change, evidence is accumulating that human activity from the industrial revolution is having an impact on our planet's climate. The Congressional Research Service reports in a memorandum prepared for our Committee that the temperature of the Earth has increased by 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit over the last 110 years.
The Administration estimates that by the year 2100, that temperature could rise by another 2 to 6 degrees. Such an increase could melt the ice caps, could cause extensive flooding in places like Florida and Louisiana. I agree with the Senator from Maryland, Mr. Sarbanes, who noted in a recent hearing that climate change does pose a serious problem in addition to floods, to agricultural change and spreading disease. They are all potential consequences.
It is because of these concerns that I strongly support AID's Global Warming Program. I was encouraged by the President's announcement at the United Nations to use the development credit authority that I included in our foreign assistance bill to back this program. I am also an original co-sponsor of H. Con. Res. 106, introduced by Mr. Gilchrest of Maryland, which is pending before our Committee calling for legally binding timetables to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions below the 1990 levels set at the Rio Treaty.
Serious steps would be required to reach that goal. They would have an enormous impact on our economy in order to combat what the Administration says is a growing threat from climate change. By some estimates, 1 million Americans could lose their jobs to meet these targets.
When I cosponsored the Gilchrest resolution, I told the sponsors that one significant amendment would have to be made. That amendment would state that these steps should only be taken—incurring substantial costs for all Americans—if all countries, including developing countries, and especially China, are going to be part of the same legally binding timetables.
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The offices of Mr. Gilchrest and Mr. Porter agree that such a modification makes sense. The Administration's own figures show that the developing world is going to surpass the developed world in carbon emissions during the next decade. China alone will surpass the United States and the European Union in greenhouse gas emissions.
Incredibly, the draft treaty prepared by the Administration would not impose any up-front, legally binding restrictions on over 120 countries, including China. In short, the Administration has posited a serious problem, but has not offered a serious resolution.
The treaty, as drafted by the Administration, could cut U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) by up to 3 percent, put our nation at a serious competitive disadvantage in relation to China, to South Korea and 120 other countries not covered by legally binding timetables. In short, the draft treaty is a Band-Aid that does not even cover the wound.
Last year, I wrote to then Secretary of State Warren Christopher urging him to reverse the policy of letting 120 countries off the hook and pointed in particular to the need to bind China to the treaty. The Administration has consulted Congress on this issue, but apparently we do not have any forthcoming initiatives.
The Administration has stated it is for the ''evolution'' of countries into the legally binding parts of the treaty. However, I do remain concerned that it will sign a treaty in December that will not include up-front, legally binding commitments by China and other countries to do what we will force our own citizens to do, and thus cost our own country economical problems.
Last week, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee reported out a resolution calling for a sound economic analysis of the treaty and binding targets on developing nations before the treaty would be submitted for ratification. That resolution was sponsored by 60 Senators. It is a clear warning that changes are going to be necessary if the Senate is going to have to ratify this treaty.
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While other committees in Congress have reviewed the science or economics of the treaty, we will be looking at this through a foreign policy lens. Representatives of the White House have told our Committee that our nation must unilaterally ''lead the way''. They have urged us to support the draft treaty so that China and others may some day follow.
I regret that we have heard such naive optimism before. Let us take a look at the record. For example, over the past 5 years, China has violated the Missile Technology Control Regime by transferring missiles to Pakistan. It has violated the Administration's non-proliferation policy by transferring nuclear technology to Pakistan. It has violated the Administration's chemical and biological precursor policy with transfers to Iran. It has violated the Gore-McCain Act by transferring missiles to Iran. It has violated internationally recognized intellectual property rights, costing American companies billions in lost sales. And violated international standards of human and religious rights, as documented in the Administration's own reports.
Further the FBI reports that China may have violated our campaign finance laws. How, then, does the Administration believe that China's record on climate change will be any different? In sum, treaties that impose heavier burdens on Americans than on other countries have been given a very rough ride in any Congress, Republicans or Democrats. Hopefully, this draft treaty can be adjusted to ensure strong congressional support.
To respond to these issues and questions, we have a truly distinguished panel to help our Committee to consider this issue. Before I introduce our Secretary Wirth, I would like to recognize our Ranking Minority Member, Mr. Hamilton, for an opening statement.
Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Chairman, I have no opening statement. I am delighted to welcome our distinguished witnesses to the Committee and I look forward to their testimony. I am very pleased that you have seen fit to call this hearing this morning. Thank you.
Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Hamilton.
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Ms. Ros-Lehtinen, our distinguished Subcommittee Chairman on International Economic Policy and Trade.
Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. I commend you for holding this hearing on global warming, an issue which is of utmost importance to all of us because it could have significant detrimental effects upon us and many generations to come.
I am especially grateful to you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing Harvey Ruvin, a constituent of my congressional district who is the Dade County clerk, who will bring testimony here on this issue. Mr. Ruvin has served as chair of Dade County's Urban Carbon Dioxide Reduction Project since its inception a few years ago and has been appointed to a 15-member international advisory group that will be instrumental in the Japan meetings that will deal with climate change implications of global warming.
Chairman Gilman, you are correct in your assessment that the problem of climate change deserves a serious solution and I thought your efforts and the efforts of our colleagues that you mentioned in your opening statement, Congressman Gilchrest, who has called in his resolution, which you have co-sponsored, for mandatory targets and timetables to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and I congratulate the efforts of all who have worked to ensure that the Global Warming Treaty talks which are underway in Tokyo are signed in December. I hesitate, however, to say that we have truly solved the problem at that stage. As you had discussed, language in the treaty regarding nations such as China, which is expected to be the world's largest economy producing the most carbon dioxide in the next decade, their language is strictly of a recommendation nature while language as to the action of the western democracies such as us here in the United States is strictly mandated. And it is naive for us to think that a country such as China, which continues to ignore its most basic commitment to human rights and to civil liberties and those regarding the proliferation of nuclear weapons, would now meet any obligations that it may have to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases.
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I applaud our chairman, Chairman Gilman, for calling on the Administration witnesses to offer some explanations as to why a country such as China would have these recommendations suggested to them on its emission of greenhouse gases while it cannot even respect the mandates that it has already agreed on. And this is a clear conflict here between the identification of a problem in global warming and the solution to the problems. We need to ensure that this treaty, as you pointed out, Mr. Gilman, is not a Band-Aid but instead is a worthy and lasting cure for this disease which will afflict our children and our children's children. I thank you again for the inclusion of Mr. Ruvin on the private panel, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Chairman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.
Mr. Rohrabacher, the gentleman from California.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate the timeliness of this hearing.
The Administration seems to be blithefully marching toward the establishment of legally binding targets and timetables for CO2 emissions, a course of action that can have dire economic consequences, especially when there is serious talk about exempting, as we have heard already, many of our major competitors such as China, Indonesia, India and South Korea. You could end up with an intolerable expenditure of jobs and treasure from our own country while 129 other countries will not be required to make similar CO2 emissions reductions. If this comes to pass, we can expect job flight from the United States of America to those other countries. That is what we are setting forth—a formula for more jobs leaving here and going to those countries who are exempted from these regulations.
Basically, economic growth and prosperity that we are now enjoying could be wiped out and this would have a catastrophic effect on the lives of our less fortunate citizens, their economic lives, which could also dramatically affect their health when they no longer can afford health insurance, et cetera, et cetera. At least six studies by renowned economists put the potential cost of this nonsense to the American taxpayer at more than the entire annual defense budget, $250 billion a year or 2.5 percent of our GDP. That is each year for the next decade. Studies also indicate losses of between 500,000 and a million high-paying skilled jobs, not to mention—I hate to say it—the trickle-down effect to lower-income Americans who will suffer because of this.
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If that is not bad enough, the Administration's sugar-coated plan includes a gasoline tax increase of what I understand could be included in this plan of 25 cents a gallon and some studies indicate 50 cents a gallon tax. The Administration is seemingly negotiating blindly on greenhouse-related targets and timetables without regard to the economic consequences on the American people. The absurd provision to waiver so-called developing countries from commitments to greenhouse agreements is underscored by estimates that the net greenhouse gas emissions may surpass those of developed countries in those very exempted countries in the next 7 years.
Incredibly, China alone will overtake the United States in so-called greenhouse emissions within 20 years and, by the way, we already have, as we know in this Committee, a $40-billion annual trade deficit with China. We cannot afford to give this major competitor, much less those other competitors, further advantage on a silver platter.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, I predict a tidal wave of opposition to the Administration's proposal. Already, 119 CEOs of leading businesses and corporations in the United States have written the President opposing this. The AFL–CIO has done the same. In short, the Administration is negotiating a bad deal for the American people, a bad deal for the American taxpayer, a bad deal for business, and, unfortunately, I believe it will end up being no deal for anybody because it is a bad deal.
And last, but not least, and I appreciate the comments of my chairman and my good friend, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and I hate to be the skunk at the lawn party as I usually am, but I do not buy this notion of global warming at all. I was the chairman of the Energy and Environment Subcommittee for 2 years. During that time period, I went out of my way to have briefing after briefing. I had hearings in which I made sure—unlike former hearings when the Republicans did not control this Congress—I insisted that both sides be represented and having well-educated and professional opinions being given on both sides. I think that this idea of global warming, after keeping an open mind and trying to listen to the debate, is a lot of nonsense. It is complete nonsense even with the Chairman's opening statement talking about less than a 1-degree change over a hundred years. That is absolutely absurd to think about us trying to estimate an average change of less than 1 degree over a hundred years. And, by the way, when it went before my Committee, I found out what they were talking about is less than 1 degree at night. And when I had scientists before my Committee on both sides of this, they ended up debating whether or not it was going to be global warming or global cooling over the next 20 years.
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I said in the beginning of my tenure of chairmanship of that committee which is responsible for looking into the science behind this charge that it was either unproven scientifically—at best, it was unproven scientifically—or, at worst, it was liberal clap-trap and I will repeat it. I ended my 2 years' tenure believing that global warming is nothing more than liberal clap-trap that everybody is jumping behind to be trendy. It is going to cost the American people billions of dollars and it is going to lower our standard of living. We have to be serious about this because people are going to be hurt by all this nonsense. And so, I get to be the skunk at the lawn party, but I just thought I would have my say. Thank you very much.
Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher.
Mr. Hastings.
Mr. HASTINGS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am tempted to use all of my time to try to perfume the skunk, but I shall resist. My dear friend from California, I readily understand and most respectfully disagree with almost all of his assertions.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing this morning and I want to thank all of the witnesses that have taken of their busy time to come here. And I join my colleague, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, in thanking you for permitting Harvey Ruvin, a distinguished environmentalist and a very balanced and objective viewer of Florida's environment as well as this nation. And I am glad to see my good friend with whom I have been associated over my adult career.
Mr. Chairman, I cannot think of many other issues that could have such an enormous impact on the United States as well as the rest of the world. To begin with, if I use Florida as a for-example, the average elevation of our State is 3 feet above sea level. If we should be concerned about global climate change, and I certainly think we should, then Florida is as good a place as any to start this discussion.
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Some of the panelists this morning are going to take the view that my good friend from California, Mr. Rohrabacher, takes that there is nothing to the science regarding greenhouse emissions. Obviously, others are going to take the opposite tack. All of this calls for some rather sound reasoning, I believe, on behalf of those who have a vital interest on both sides of the spectrum.
Had we, a hundred years ago, been in tune with what we were doing to the environment here in America—let me give you a for-example. When I went to college in Nashville, Tennessee in 1953, I almost had to leave Nashville the first winter because they burned coal and it caused me a very serious problem, having lived all of my life previously in, for all practical purposes, a clean-air State like Florida at that time. Those emissions I have seen since around the world; for example, in Bombay, India on a trip with colleagues from here including the speaker, to Xian, China. But I hope we do not turn the Kyoto conference and the run-up to it into a ''bashing the rest of the world'' kind of conference. I am always frightened when we are about the business, in Africa and South America and elsewhere, telling people about rain forests when, damn it, we have just about destroyed all of our rain forests in America. We did that ourselves and now we are around telling everybody else, ''Do not destroy yours.'' And what they say to us is, ''Look, we are behind you.''
When I was in Xian, I could only think of arriving in Nashville, Tennessee and knowing that those people are 50 years—that is almost how long—I went to my 40th-year class reunion—they certainly are 40 years behind where we were. What we need to be able to do at Kyoto and elsewhere is lead the world and here is where industry can come in and our economy will not sag. If we lead the world in providing the technology for cleaning up the world, we will be able to sell it.
And I can cite one more example and I will be through and that is the refrigerator. I remember hearing industry say that the sky was going to fall if they changed the emissions standards on the refrigerator. They would not last as long. I cannot even get rid of that thing that is new in my house, it has been running so well so long with all of those changes. And there are a lot of countries already that are making those changes in automobiles and our automobile industry needs to stop sitting on its butt about this problem. We are major consumers. We are major emitters. And whether it is 1 degree or no degrees, I know soil erosion when I see it and it is occurring along the coast of this country in California and in Florida and elsewhere. I know temperature changes when I see them from the 60 years of life and know that we have more flooding now than we did when we did not even have sewers. So, I can only argue that the science needs to match itself with the industry and this country should lead the world.
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Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Hastings.
We will continue with the hearing if our Members want to go over and respond to the roll and we will try to keep moving along.
Any other Members seeking recognition? If not, I would now like to introduce our distinguished Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs, Tim Wirth.
Secretary Wirth, you are always welcome back in the people's house where you ably represented the people of the Second District of Colorado before becoming one of our distinguished Senators in 1986. And while I have expressed some concerns about the treaty before us, I want to commend and thank you for all of your good work you have done supporting counternarcotics programs, family planning programs, human rights and all of which come within your large State Department portfolio. And I want to particularly commend you and the Department for your report on religious freedom. The report reflected the highest American values embodied in our First Amendment to the Constitution.
I would also like to introduce David Hales, Deputy Assistant Administrator at the Agency for International Development and Director of AID's Global Center for Environment. Before joining AID, Mr. Hales served as director of Michigan's Department of Natural Resources, Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Interior Department, and Commissioner of the Michigan Radioactive Waste Management Authority.
Gentlemen, you may summarize your statements orally. The prepared statements will be included in the record.
You may proceed, Secretary Wirth.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE TIM WIRTH, UNDERSECRETARY FOR GLOBAL AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Mr. WIRTH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and let me just begin by once again reflecting the enormous admiration and appreciation that the Administration has for the job that you have done in engaging in so many of these very, very important issues. You noted some of them—the population and human rights issues, religious freedom and counternarcotics, and your steadfast support, Mr. Chairman, has been enormously encouraging and we appreciate it. Thank you.
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Your opening statement, Mr. Chairman, you spoke of the great impact of this issue of climate change. You talked about the fact that it would touch everyone. Absolutely correct and we are very pleased that the House will be establishing an observer group and we look forward to working with that group and, as soon as that is established, Mr. Chairman, I know that you will let us know so that we can meet immediately with them and their staff and develop a system of regular consultation.
I am very pleased to be back with you in the House of Representatives to discuss today the ongoing negotiations toward next steps under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. These negotiations began, as you know, in August 1995 and are scheduled to end in December at the Third Conference of the Parties in Kyoto, Japan, with, we hope, the adoption of a new protocol or other legal instrument.
In his address last month to the U.N. General Assembly Special Session, President Clinton noted that, ''The science is clear and compelling,'' and committed the United States to strong leadership on climate change. The President committed himself to engage the American people and the Congress in a dialog to explain the real and imminent threats from climate change, the economic costs and benefits involved, and the opportunities that American technology and innovation can provide. The President also committed to, ''bring to the Kyoto conference a strong American commitment to realistic and binding limits that will significantly reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases.''
In recent weeks, interest in the negotiations has intensified, particularly in the Congress. The Administration welcomes this interest and, as I pointed out, is delighted that there will be the establishment of an observer group here. We hope the Senate does the same thing.
Today, I would like to focus on two concerns—first, how the actions we are negotiating under the Climate Convention correspond to a specific environmental objective; and, second, the need for developing nations to acknowledge more fully their role in meeting that objective. I will not repeat the science phase here. It should be familiar. I know it is to you, Mr. Chairman. We can come back to that in questions and answers, if the Committee would like.
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So, let me first just make one brief comment. Virtually all the studies on the effects of climate disruption have focused on predicted doubling of atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases. But, unless significant actions are taken early in the next century, it is very likely that atmospheric concentrations will, by the year 2100, nearly triple the pre-industrial level and rise higher than at any point in the last 50 million years.
Changes to our climate system will also continue beyond the effects that the current studies predict. The risks would increase dramatically as concentrations continue to rise. Moreover, there is no reason to believe that these additional effects would be linear. They would most likely take unpredictable and highly undesirable paths.
Let me now move to the division of responsibilities between the developed and developing countries reflected in your comments and those of other Members of the Committee in their opening statements. As I noted earlier, we know that man-made emissions have increased the concentrations by about 30 percent, from 280 parts per million in pre-industrial times to around 366 today. We know that the industrialized countries have put most of the carbon into the atmosphere and that carbon dioxide lingers there for 100 to 150 years.
We know that the United States is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases. We are 4 percent of the world's population and contribute 22 percent of the carbon. We also know that, given current trends, the developing world will pass the developed world as an emitter in about 30 years. At that point, the developing world will have about 70 percent of the world's population. China, with its 1.2 billion people, will, as you pointed out, Mr. Chairman, probably pass the United States toward the end of the first quarter of that century as an emitter of carbon dioxide.
So, action by the industrialized nations alone will not put us on the road to safe concentrations of greenhouse gases. We need action by the developing countries as well. But it is very clear from all our discussions and negotiations to date that if the developed countries with our current economic capacity, technical capability and energy-intensive lifestyle, do not go first, setting the example and reducing emissions, then developing countries will not act either. We must lead the way and we must move soon. If not, a doubling of concentrations becomes certain and we put ourselves on a road to a tripling or even higher levels of concentration, the consequences of which are uncertain but likely to be catastrophic.
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Chairman GILMAN. Secretary Wirth, I regret to interrupt you. I am going to have to go in and answer the roll call. We anticipate one of our Members will be back in. If she is back now, then we will continue. I will not have to interrupt you.
Ms. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.
Mr. WIRTH. I saw your expectant look, sitting on the edge of your chair, Mr. Chairman—a familiar stance.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN [presiding]. Thank you, Tim.
Mr. WIRTH. The United States has put forward a number of proposals which are outlined in my testimony and attachments. Perhaps most controversial is Article 16 in which we call upon developing country parties to adopt, by 2005, binding provisions so that all parties have quantitative greenhouse gas emission obligations and so that there is a mechanism or trigger for automatic application of those obligations based on agreed criteria. In urging this policy of what we call evolution, the United States is far out in front of almost all other countries and we are being criticized accordingly. For example, several developed countries believe that our proposal imposes unfair burdens on developing countries. Most countries in the developing world believe that our evolution proposal goes beyond the scope of the Climate Convention and the Berlin Mandate. We think we have the concept about right. No one should be exempt. We emit the most, so we have to act first. But others have to phase in over time.
The overall negotiation on climate change is extremely complex, the most complex that I have seen in 25 years of public life. And the evolution aspect is perhaps the most important of all. We have put forward some proposals. Some in Congress have as well. Now we have to hammer out a final proposal and negotiating position. We welcome your input, support and creativity as we work to solve this problem and look forward to hearing your ideas, questions and comments today.
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The issue is not whether developing countries, especially the big and rapidly developing ones, take on quantified commitments to limit or reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases. Clearly, it will be impossible to abate the threat of climate change unless they do. The issue is when such commitment should begin and what criteria should be used to establish them and to whom they would apply.
The Framework Convention, which President Bush signed and to which the Senate overwhelmingly gave its advice and consent, established the principle that, with respect to climate change, the world's nations have common but differentiated responsibilities and varying capabilities. Insisting that developing nations immediately accept binding emissions targets that industrialized nations are seeking to negotiate for themselves is neither realistic nor consistent with the Convention approved by the Senate. But insisting that those developing nations now responsible for a growing share of global greenhouse gas emissions should have no further obligations to act unless they have crossed some threshold of national income or emissions per capita is equally unrealistic and inconsistent with the Convention's ultimate objective.
The agreement reached in Kyoto will not solve the problem of global climate change. No matter how ambitious, it will represent only a second step along the much longer path for achieving the Climate Convention's ultimate objective. As we prepare for Kyoto, we must also prepare for further steps beyond it. In particular, we must ensure that all nations responsible for a significant share of current global greenhouse gas emissions accept the need to limit or reduce their emissions and that they begin to move in that direction.
Finally, in answer to some of the questions raised in the opening comments, what a Kyoto agreement can do is provide nations with the tools they will need to achieve significant binding greenhouse gas limitation and reduction commitments. These tools include greenhouse gas emission budgets over multi-year budget periods to help us smooth out annual fluctuations.
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They include full national flexibility in the choice of policies and measures to meet such binding emissions budgets. They include emissions trading among nations with binding emissions budgets, with the participation of the private sector in the trading regime to help lower the costs of compliance. And they include joint implementation for credit between nations with binding emissions budgets and those that do not yet have such budgets, both to lower the cost of compliance and to promote economic development and environmental protection.
Finally, Madam Chair, let me make a special request of the members of the State Authorization Bill Conference Committee. We have, as you know, released the most comprehensive economic data prepared by the Administration to date. Unfortunately, the Senate version of the State Authorization Bill contains language that places the release of our final economic analysis on an unrealistic timeframe. As you confer with your colleagues in the Senate, we will need your help to fix that language and set a more achievable timeframe for the release of that analysis and we look forward to working closely with you on that language.
In sum, we have indeed chartered an ambitious course for the months ahead. The tremendous risks to our planet demand nothing less. With your continued support and the support of other Members of the Congress, I am confident that we will obtain an outcome in Kyoto that will represent a significant step forward on the much longer path toward safeguarding the Earth's climate system for present and future generations.
Thank you very much and we look forward to exchanges with the Committee and to working with you in the weeks and months ahead. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wirth appears in the appendix.]
Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much, Mr. Secretary. It is always a pleasure to hear your excellent testimony.
Mr. WIRTH. Glad to be here. Thank you.
Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you.
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And now we will hear from the Deputy Assistant Administrator, David Hales.
Thank you, Mr. Hales.
STATEMENT OF DAVID HALES, DEPUTY ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR, GLOBAL CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENT, AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Mr. HALES. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I, too, have a longer statement which has been submitted for the record.
Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Without objection, we will enter it into the record.
Mr. HALES. Thank you very much.
I will try to summarize it and to, in the process, avoid repeating points that Secretary Wirth has made so excellently.
It is a pleasure to be here. I would be remiss if I did not also say that it was a pleasure to hear the opening remarks from Chairman Gilman about the Presidential Initiative on Developing Country Climate Change. We certainly welcome that endorsement and the language in the House Appropriations Bill as well. We look forward to working closely with Congress as we elaborate and implement that initiative.
It is a pleasure to be here today to discuss USAID's role in U.S. Government efforts to address climate change, with a particular focus on President Clinton's recent announcement before the U.N. General Assembly of a sustained U.S. effort to help developing countries achieve greenhouse gas emission reductions.
As Secretary Wirth indicated in his remarks, what happens in Kyoto only sets the stage for the actions that will need to be taken by all countries. The leadership role of the United States in enabling, encouraging and promoting those actions will be a critical determinant of the success of efforts to stem global climate change. The President's developing country initiative, along with the initiatives on technology development and ensuring that U.S. overseas investment assistance is consistent with sustainable development addresses the impact of climate change through effective long-term partnership with developing countries that engages market forces and which will produce mutual economic and environmental benefits for all involved.
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Meeting the challenges of climate change and encouraging energy sector policy reform will create significant opportunity for U.S. business and vast new markets for U.S. technology. The world market for energy efficiency technologies has been calculated at almost $1.8 trillion over the next 40 years and that is without any added incentive of a global greenhouse gas emissions cap. Likewise, the potential market for renewable energy is also vast. Incentives for cleaner production will only help to increase the promise of new markets overseas in an area where the United States is highly competitive. Among those industries that will benefit from a global focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions are renewable energy, natural gas, energy efficiency, fuel cell technologies, electric vehicle and clean coal industries.
Currently, Madam Chair, USAID has greenhouse gas mitigation programs that are creating significant opportunities for U.S. industry in many of the key climate change countries. In Indonesia and in the Philippines, for example, our work in the renewable energy field has successfully leveraged tens of millions of dollars in trade and investment opportunities. Likewise, in Mexico and India and in the Newly Independent States, the U.S. Government is assisting privatization and market reform initiatives that are helping to reduce emissions and create tremendous opportunity for U.S. firms.
For the reasons described by Secretary Wirth, stabilizing global greenhouse gas emissions will require a concerted action by both developed and developing countries. As the Secretary described, there is opposition on the part of developing countries to new binding commitments in Kyoto. Despite that, however, it is also clear that developing nations are making some progress toward reducing their emissions of greenhouse gases. A recent report by the World Resources Institute notes that developing countries are taking measures to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases, measures that have positive impact on their economies and on their environment.
In summarizing the findings of the report, WRI indicates that it ''appears that the developing countries may be achieving equivalent or greater carbon dioxide emissions savings than OECD countries in absolute terms and, since they are starting from a lower baseline, significantly greater savings as a percentage of their emissions.'' Some of the most dramatic emissions reductions have been achieved through efforts to reduce fossil fuel subsidies, to develop national energy efficiency programs and to privatize inefficient national utilities resulting in much more realistic fuel prices and in lower carbon emissions. Fostering these kinds of policy reforms has long been an integral part of USAID's approach to development.
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USAID engaged in climate change activities explicitly early in the 1990s with our submission of a report to Congress on global climate change in developing countries. The approach has consistently focused since that time on win-win opportunities to advance economic development goals while curbing greenhouse gas emissions. More efficient use of energy, renewable energy applications and sustainable forestry practices are good examples of this ''no regrets'' approach to climate change and development.
Today, the agency is funding approximately $150 million per year in climate change-related activities and energy and forestry in 44 countries with a specific focus on ten countries—India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Mexico, Brazil, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Poland, as well as Central Africa—for purposes of forestry conservation. All of our efforts are targeted at demonstrating that economic growth and global climate change objectives are mutually reinforcing. To meet this challenge, we have worked to establish market-based incentives for the application of clean technologies and practices to meet the growing demands on industrializing economies. We worked to address constraints between our energy production and use and improve natural resource management.
Our programs, we believe, Madam Chair, have already paid significant dividends both in development terms and in terms of greenhouse gas emission reduction. There are examples in the written testimony.
To strengthen partnerships with developing countries and to advance the U.S. Government's negotiating position at Kyoto, the underlying concerns that have fueled developing country opposition must be addressed. A successful developing country strategy must not only provide the tools and support necessary for meeting the requirements of the Framework Convention on Climate Change but also help address the source of opposition to additional commitments under the Convention through support for projects and activities that minimize growth in net greenhouse gas emissions while fostering sustainable development.
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The President's recent announcement at the United Nations of a 5-year, $1-billion commitment to work with developing countries includes a minimum of $750 million in grant assistance over 5 years for the promotion of ''climate-friendly'' energy and natural resource management policies and practices in developing countries. In addition, as the Chairman noted earlier, the initiative proposes that we leverage up to $250 million in funding for climate change mitigation activities through application of the development credit authority as proposed in the President's Fiscal Year 1998 budget submission to Congress and as included in the authorization bill of this Committee. We believe that this mechanism will be an invaluable tool in spurring greater market development for climate-friendly investments in developing countries.
The well managed use of credit, subject to the conditions agreed on with this Committee, will give us the ability to appropriately complement ongoing grant assistance programs with real project support while promoting U.S. and developing country economic programs.
In cooperation with other government agencies, and we hope, in cooperation with Congress (and we look forward to that cooperation), and with NGOs and the business community, we are now in the process of elaborating a comprehensive 5-year climate change action plan to implement the President's commitment. We intend to have the first draft of that strategy available in September and will share our recommendations with the Committee at that time.
Several precepts guide this effort. First, we will build on the large array of past and ongoing activities and technology cooperation, capacity building, and upon lessons learned regarding program effectiveness. We will actively engage the U.S. private sector in partnerships. Where appropriate, we will strengthen efforts to identify and implement innovative approaches for attracting and channeling private financing into clean technology markets and we will collaborate closely with international financial institutions to assure that multi-lateral resources for climate projects are targeted to best utilize the strengths of the U.S. Government and the U.S. private sector partners. Finally, we will engage other organizations and institutions that are effectively promoting greenhouse gas emissions reductions.
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In closing, let me reiterate my conviction that the positive engagement of developing countries is necessary to make meaningful progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The President's new mandate to marshall these resources for a comprehensive Developing Country Climate Change Initiative will go a long way toward promoting that positive engagement.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hales appears in the appendix.]
Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much, Mr. Hales.
Secretary Wirth, our resident skunk, Mr. Rohrabacher, in his opening statement discussed the economic impact on the U.S. jobs if this climate change treaty would go through. I understand that the Department of Energy released a report by the Argonne National Laboratories detailing some of these costs of a climate change treaty. They noted the following consequences:
All primary aluminum plants in the United States would close by the year 2010 with job losses of 18,000. Twenty to 30 percent of the energy-intensive chemical industry would move from the United States, costing up to 200,000 jobs. The aggregate job loss could total 1.2 million Americans.
R.I. McGraw-Hill estimates the decline in U.S. Growth Domestic Product to total two to 3 percent, that is $140 to $200 billion, if carbon emissions are stabilized by the year 2000 at 1990 levels. So, I think that the proper question would be that before we enter into a climate change treaty that we should know the actual costs and the Administration has reported regularly that a respected peer review study on the impact of this treaty on our economy would come from the White House and last week we understand that Janet Yellen of the President's Council of Economic Advisors stated that the economic studies are, in her words, ''uncertain and inconclusive''.
Will we have a peer review economic impact statement on this treaty before the United States signs it?
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Mr. WIRTH. Well, that is a very, very large and complicated question. Let me start at the beginning and try to give you a very specific answer.
We had attempted, after our announcements in Geneva in the summer of 1996, to take the three mainstream models related to climate change and combine them all together. We had hoped that we would be able to complete that combination and have a sensitive instrument that would be accurate and helpful early in 1997. When Janet Yellen the other day was talking about the ''failure'', it was the inability to take these three very disparate models and put them all into one predictive model that would be useful. It was like taking a piece of a Ford, a piece of a Chevrolet, and a piece of a Chrysler and creating a vehicle that would operate well. It just was impossible to take all three and put them together.
This inability to combine those three was reflected in the analysis of the outsiders who reviewed the model saying that this does not look like it is going to work, which does not mean that looking at various economic models is not helpful. There are a whole series of economic models available. You cited one of them, the WRI model. There are many others available as well and there are a whole lot of studies that are being done.
It is useful, I think, to look at a summary of all of these and I would commend to you the WRI study which was completed about 3 weeks ago and we would be very happy to submit that to you and I think it would be useful to be sure that copies of that get to all of the Members of the Committee. It is probably the best summary of what you learn and what you do not learn from all of the economic models and the summary of that WRI study is a useful introduction to the issue of cost of climate and to the models themselves.
What WRI pointed out in this study, which Dr. Yellen referred to a number of times and which we believe is a very careful and objective view of all of these analyses, that if you feed back such issues as the reallocation expenditures of any energy costs that might increase, of alternative energy issues, if you factor in joint implementation and trading, if any kind of economic instruments are recycled, if environmental benefits are factored in, then looking at the overall cost of the climate mitigation strategy would be a wash for the economy. Clearly, there are going to be some areas that are more impacted than others. But, overall, the economy is going to absorb this and absorb it very well.
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It is our belief, overall, that is the strategy that we ought to be following. One that will recycle the benefits of joint implementation. One that will use all of the flexible instruments that we have asked for and our economy will not suffer as a consequence. In fact, we believe that there are many analyses, such as that of Dale Jorgensen from Harvard, that if you do this right, in fact, you can have a real positive benefit for the economy as well as for the environment.
Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you.
Chairman GILMAN [presiding]. Mr. Hales, could you tell us what work we are doing in helping other countries to develop monitoring systems to measure their own greenhouse gas emissions?
Mr. HALES. There are several U.S. Government efforts that are key to that, Mr. Chairman. The Country Studies Program, which is an interagency effort, has made a distinct effort now to engage some 44 countries in developing their own inventories and their own capacities to maintain their greenhouse gas inventories over time. USAID has not only worked as part of that program but as part of our investment has focused very heavily on helping to create the capacity in a number of developing countries, 44 in fact, in which we are currently actively engaged to manage their own energy sector much better.
The emphasis that we have placed there is threefold. First, it is on making sure that the human capacity is there to do the job. We have trained each year for the past 4 years about 1,300 professionals from developing countries around the world. We have placed some emphasis on helping to get the legal, regulatory and administrative framework in place so the countries can, in fact, address those responsibilities. We have emphasized the importance of getting the price right and reducing subsidies that are not conducive to sustainable development and we have strongly encouraged, Mr. Chairman, as an integral part of that process the privatization of these activities and the engagement of the private sector.
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Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Hales.
Secretary Wirth, in your testimony you noted that our nation is trying to support the evolution of developing nations into the legal restrictions of the treaty. Last year, Assistant Secretary Klausen indicated that our nation would face a tough fight on this and may eventually have to cave on that point. Last week, White House representatives told our Committee staff that our nation would not sign a treaty unless developing countries were covered by future legally binding timetables before the timetables applying to our own nation became due and that way we might opt out of the treaty if the developing nations resist any legally binding commitment.
Would you comment on that policy?
Mr. WIRTH. Well, under the climate treaty, as you know, Mr. Chairman, there are two categories of countries. There are Annex 1 countries which are the developed countries who have an articulated set of obligations. There are Non-Annex 1 countries, everybody else, that have common responsibilities with us but they are differentiated based upon their developing country status. The question is, how do we develop a policy in which we, the developed world, who are responsible for putting most of the carbon that is in the atmosphere up there already, how do we reflect that obligation and our industrialized capability by moving first and then phase in the developing countries?
We have submitted a proposal, as I have pointed out in my testimony and it is obviously the Administration's proposal; we have submitted a proposal which has a phase-in capability which we do call, as you point out, ''evolution''. We were insistent upon this and we are not accompanied by a lot of other countries. The other developed countries are not, at this point, supportive or have not come out in support of our demand that developing countries have greater and more articulated responsibilities. And, at the other end of the spectrum, most of the developing countries are criticizing it. So, we are catching it from both sides, suggesting, as I said in my testimony, that we are probably about right. That what we are doing in terms of a phase-in is about right.
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Now, one way of putting this, Mr. Chairman, is to quote the metaphor used by Senator Byrd. I have used this before, but I think it is very useful. Senator Byrd says we are all in the same boat together and nobody should be excused from responsibility. We are all in the same boat. But as we row the boat, the question is who has what size oar when. At the start, the developed world begins with a bigger oar. The developing world has a smaller oar. What we have to do over a period of time is to build the developing world into having similar commitments by the time we get to, say, 2030, 2040, that way down the line and we are all working on a whole next generation of commitments under the treaty. I think that that metaphor is a useful one and, obviously, the art is going to be, where is the trigger point on phasing in and I think that is going to be the most difficult part of the negotiation in Kyoto and we are going to be very insistent on making sure that that commitment is as significant as possible.
Chairman GILMAN. So, as a coach to the oarsmen, when are we going to develop a timetable or are we going to develop a timetable, or are we going to sign a treaty if there is no timetable?
Mr. WIRTH. We have put forward proposals that make very clear what we think—examples of what the developing countries are required to do would be. There is no timetable yet. We have not put out a proposal for what we are going to do, Mr. Chairman. As you know, we have not defined the U.S. position on targets and timetables and until we define our own position, we, I think, are going to have a great deal of difficulty trying to tell anybody else what they are supposed to be doing.
Chairman GILMAN. Once we define our timetable, will we be requesting a timetable of the developing nations?
Mr. WIRTH. Well, we have a number of draft proposals on that front. One I outlined in my testimony was the idea of having a 2005 negotiation as a next step and then, if there is no commitment by the developing countries, then that would remove part of the commitments for us. That is one of the ideas in discussion now for what such a trigger mechanism might be.
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Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
Mr. Hamilton.
Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
I think I probably walked in this room this morning less informed on the question of global climate change than anybody in the room. I have learned a few things. I have learned that we have an awfully tough problem but China is to blame and I have learned that we do not have any problem at all and that it is complete nonsense. I guess I see that you have, Mr. Wirth, Mr. Secretary, a very formidable task in developing a position in the United States and then trying to bring the rest of the world along with us.
I am quite sure that if there is a problem, it is not going to be solved without U.S. leadership. That is the way most problems have to be resolved on these difficult international matters. So, I wish you well in your enormous responsibility.
Now, what I am trying to understand here is what our policy is. That is kind of a beginning point for me. So, I am going to make a few statements up here based on some papers I have in front of me which I understand to be the policy of the U.S. Government. Now, I may not state it all accurately, but if I do not, I want you to correct me.
As I understand it, the European Union, to begin in the middle, has a position of a 15 percent overall reduction in the basket of greenhouse gases by the year 2010 and some other aspects to it. My understanding is that the United States has not endorsed the EU proposal and rejects it. That the President has recommended some specific things—what Mr. Hales has testified to—the billion dollars in foreign aid to help the developing countries. The President mentioned something about installing a million solar panels. I understood the U.S. position, or have understood it, to be in support—and I guess this is a key point—of legally binding quantitative emissions limitations and reductions for a period somewhere beyond the year 2000 and that in redefining that position, the United States has underscored the need for all nations, including the developing nations, to take action to limit greenhouse gas emissions and that we have rejected proposals by some countries calling for short-term targets that we felt were not achievable or were not realistic. And we have rejected internationally harmonized policies emphasizing the necessity of flexibility and differentiation. We have stood against the imposition of common and coordinated measures, as I understand it.
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Now, tell me if I have made some mistakes here in stating U.S. policy position. Tell me what I have omitted.
Mr. WIRTH. As a summary, what you have said is all accurate, Mr. Chairman. All of the things that you suggested are accurate. Perhaps it would be useful maybe to point out how a little bit of all of these various elements fit together.
Mr. HAMILTON. Right.
Mr. WIRTH. The key issue that we face, Mr. Chairman, is the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere. As I pointed out in my testimony, we started at about 260 parts per million. We are now at about 366. We can see from a very carefully studied record going back tens of thousands of years that as carbon in the atmosphere increases, temperatures fall behind it and we are now seeing evidence of what has happened since the industrial revolution. As we have added carbon to the atmosphere, temperatures are starting to go up as well. This is the greenhouse effect. We are making the greenhouse, in effect, thicker.
Mr. HAMILTON. If I may interrupt you, you therefore see a problem.
Mr. WIRTH. Absolutely.
Mr. HAMILTON. And you see a serious problem.
Mr. WIRTH. The President says he thinks the evidence is clear and compelling. We think the problem is clear and we think the problem is compelling and in need of urgent action.
Mr. HAMILTON. And the science in support of that, you think, is solid.
Mr. WIRTH. We believe absolutely. This is probably the most carefully reviewed international science ever put together, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. More than 2,000 of the lead climate scientists from all over the world have reached a consensus. It is our judgment that one has to act upon that information.
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Now, the issue of concentration, how much carbon we can put in the atmosphere, is the long-term key issue facing us. We are not going to solve this problem overnight. It is going to take 40 or 50 or 60 years. It is a problem that is going to be solved, as many opening comments pointed out, by a significant technological revolution. We have to, over time, shift the way in which we are fueling the world's economy away from such a heavy dependence upon fossil fuels, to use what fossil fuels we do use much more efficiently, and define alternatives.
Why? Because we have to level off that level of concentration of carbon in the atmosphere. If we do not, all the historic record and evidence so far suggests that temperatures are rising now, will continue to rise, and the result, for example, as Congressman Hastings pointed out, will be sea level rise, ice caps melt, water gets warmer and it expands. We are expecting by the end of the next century, if we do not make changes, that sea levels around the world will be rising from 12 to 30 inches. A sea level rise of 12 to 30 inches for Southern Florida, for Louisiana, for the Cape, for the estuaries in the bay area and so on are just one of the very, very significant results and there are many others. I know your second panel, there are some very interesting agricultural implications of this. Mr. Kleckner from the Farm Bureau will discuss those, I am sure.
Mr. HAMILTON. Let me just ask you a question that comes to me frequently and which I am totally unable to answer. If you talk to farmers in Indiana, or it does not have to be farmers, you talk to most anybody, they all comment on the climate change in my State and I presume that is fairly widespread. Storms come in different ways. They come with greater intensity and we experience longer periods of drought and so forth. Do you see these common observations that all of us hear so much about—the weather changing in the United States—as connected to this phenomenon of global climate change?
Mr. WIRTH. I would answer that by saying this is exactly what one would expect from climate change. We cannot say with 100 percent certainty, Congressman Hamilton, that what we see in floods in the upper middle west, what we see in terms of the very disruptive climate event, are exactly correlated with climate change.
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Mr. HAMILTON. The science there is inconclusive.
Mr. WIRTH. The science there on exactly where, how much and how fast the impact of this climate change is not there yet. But the trends are very much there and this is exactly what one would expect. Consequently, we think that it is prudent for us as a nation and for us as mankind to begin to take steps now. The earlier we take steps, the easier it is going to be to mitigate this problem and the less expensive it is going to be.
Mr. HAMILTON. Final question, Mr. Chairman.
Are we going to go to the Japanese conference with specific recommendations about quantitative emissions?
Mr. WIRTH. Yes.
Mr. HAMILTON. We are.
We are not there yet, though.
Mr. WIRTH. We are not there yet.
Mr. HAMILTON. OK.
Mr. WIRTH. And that is what the President announced in his speech in New York, that he was going to launch a process going through this summer—July, August, September—to be culminated in a White House conference in early October and after that White House conference, our specific timetable will be announced. The President's first major national event is this afternoon with a panel of scientists in a round table that he and Vice-President Gore will be holding on the science and its impact.
Mr. HAMILTON. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Hamilton.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen.
Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
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Secretary, given the poor prospects for the ratification of a treaty that imposes obligations on the American people and not the Chinese people, as we had discussed in our opening statement, many have asked if the Administration plans to implement this treaty by regulation and other executive orders and not through legislation which would require congressional action. Is that true?
Mr. WIRTH. Well, let me just first of all say that I do not agree with the opening sentence of your assumption in question and you understand that, neither the poor prospects nor that we are going to do this and China will not have any obligations. But, leaving that aside, we can come back to that here or, if you would like, I would be happy to come down and talk to you about it.
Whatever we do will, we believe, either be a protocol or an amendment to the treaty. That protocol or amendment to the treaty will have to come back to the U.S. Senate for approval, first. And, second, it will certainly require, Congresswoman Lehtinen, implementing legislation and that implementing legislation will come back to either the Commerce Committee or to this Committee. I think those would be the two primary committees of jurisdiction, though I would not say those are the only ones, knowing that it would be very difficult for us to get into any jurisdictional discussions. We would certainly come back to the Congress for enabling legislation to the appropriate committee.
Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. OK. Well said.
Mr. Secretary, Dana had pointed out in his statement about the possibility of a gas increase, maybe as high as 25 cents a gallon, and the Commerce Department recently noted that capping carbon emissions at 1990 levels may require—and they said it could require—the equivalent of a 25-cents-a-gallon gas tax. It is ironic that in these days when we are finalizing with the President the details of a tax cut, the first major tax cut in so many years, that we would be thinking about enforcing a tax increase to enforce an international treaty. What is your position and what recommendations will you be making to the President about raising the Federal tax on gasoline in order to enforce this treaty?
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Mr. WIRTH. Well, as I pointed out in my response to Congressman Hamilton's question, the Administration does not yet have a specific proposal on the so-called targets and timetables position and therefore it does not have any recommendations on implementation and the question you are asking really gets to the question of implementation. There has been no Administration set of proposals yet. There will be this fall.
Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen.
Mr. Luther.
Mr. LUTHER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, panelists, for your presentation.
I think it would be helpful if we could learn more about the state of mind of the developing countries, so to speak. We heard a lot about reluctance of the developing countries to join in agreements, but I think it would be helpful to us if we could learn more about their thinking, their reasoning. What part of the total problem they represent. What we can do to encourage them over time. I think that would be helpful to the panel—certainly, it would be to me—if we could learn more about that.
Mr. WIRTH. If I might, Congressman, that goes right to the nub of this most important of all of the issues here; the relationship between the developed and the developing countries.
First of all, obviously not all developing countries are alike. Some are moving very rapidly to developed country status as we would call it, or to OECD status. We have proposed, as I noted to Congressman Gilman earlier, the treaty identifies only two classes of countries—Annex 1 countries which are developed and everybody else is a Non-Annex. So, CoAE3te d'Ivoire is the same as China. That was the original treaty in 1992.
We have proposed, Congressman, as a first step, that there be a middle ground and we are calling that an Annex ''B'' group. That would be countries like Korea, like Mexico, that are moving rapidly in their development and have been granted, I believe, OECD status. That they would not only have that status which they get in the international community but they also have concurrent responsibilities that come with that. We think that that makes sense.
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Second, we think it is obviously critical for us to be paying special attention to those nations that are very large emitters or increasingly industrialized and I will be happy to submit for the record sort of a graph of who is where on the development scale. If we are at 22 percent of the world's emissions, China is at about 12 percent of the world's emissions. India, I believe, is 6th and they are at about 4 percent of the world's emissions. Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia are other developing countries coming along very rapidly.
By the second decade of the 21st century, not long from now, the developed world will pass the developing world in terms of the total amount of greenhouse gases they are putting into the atmosphere. As a result, it is imperative that they play a role and an increasingly large role, particularly those large countries. So, the third point is what are we doing related to those large countries. We have very aggressive negotiations going on with each of them.
For example, China has been mentioned a number of times here. We have had many, many discussions with China at all kinds of different levels. China is changing very quickly, as you know, and China's awareness of this issue is also changing very quickly.
Finally, to suggest that developing countries are doing nothing is simply not the case. They are understanding that it is in their interest to clean up the air and if they are burning very dirty coal, it is not only having an impact on us in the climate change, but it is having an impact on them in terms of the health of the population.
Second, they understand that, as Mr. Hales pointed out, getting the prices right is economically beneficial for them. If they price energy, people are going to use it more responsibly. If it is treated as a free good, they are going to use it less responsibly.
Third, many—and China is probably the best example—are rapidly privatizing and, as that rapid privatization occurs, the cost of energy and the cost of doing business becomes increasingly important. So, to lower that cost of energy becomes important. So, therefore, to use it more efficiently becomes important. China is probably a case study of rapid movement toward a much better understanding of energy.
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We have a lot of programs, as Mr. Hales pointed out, working with the Chinese. We believe that working with them, with the Indians, Brazilians and so on, we can make a great deal of progress at linking what is in their interest with what is in our interest and that is ultimately going to be the trick of the treaty.
Mr. HALES. If I could add, Mr. Chairman, a couple of observations to that. While it is very difficult, as Secretary Wirth points out, to generalize about developing countries as a whole, I think there are four or five concerns that they have which are widespread. One, I believe, is that they believe that, in principle, they should not be forced by developed countries to apply different decision criteria than the Annex 1 countries used when they were industrializing.
Second, I think it is apparent that developing countries argue that their emissions growth is associated with meeting basic human needs, while increased emissions in developed countries contribute to a standard of living that far exceeds that to which most developing country citizens could realistically aspire. To support this argument, they point to the vast differences in per capita income and per capita emissions between developing and developed nations.
They also argue that those who have contributed the most in this buildup of atmospheric concentrations and who have benefited economically from those contributions should take the lead in addressing those actions. And, even though the rate of emissions will increase in developing countries, it will still be well into the next century before a majority of the concentration in the atmosphere is not derived from emissions of developed countries.
And, finally, I think while a lot of developing countries clearly recognize that their own economic development requires a sustainable approach, while they want to do things which are effective in reducing pollution and dealing with climate change in their own countries, they are concerned that binding emissions obligations, if they kick in too early, could adversely affect their potential for economic growth and development and could tie up their resources and have substantial opportunity costs.
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One of the things that we are trying to do with the President's Developing Country Climate Change Initiative is to address those very questions and those very concerns that underlie that position so that we can help get them to ''yes'' on the question and the realization that all countries have to accept obligations if we are going to solve this problem.
Chairman GILMAN. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Rohrabacher.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. So, we are going to address the concerns for long-term commitment. Isn't that terrific?
I do not know what planet you are living on, but the relations that I have had with foreigners, especially in the Third World, making agreements with the United States and then turning around a few years later and—actually, not even just in the Third World, but countries like Japan—when they finally arrive they do not open their markets. When they finally arrive, they do not do what they were supposed to do, while we have already suffered the consequences trying to fulfill the agreement that we have made.
Now, I am afraid what we are heading for in the fast lane here—and you adequately stated your sensitivity for Third World concerns—is a dramatic shift in wealth from the people of the United States, meaning the standard of living of our people, to people in China and elsewhere. I would only hope that the Administration is as sensitive to the concerns about the average American who is concerned about whether he is going to get his kids through school and whether they are going to be able to have a decent living as you are for the concerns about Third World countries being able to uplift themselves and at the same time get control of the global warming process.
First of all, let me state Judge Hastings and I are good friends. I respect everything he said. One of the premises of his argument when he was here was that he was talking about the emissions that were causing him and others to have health problems. I do not have any problem with people talking about, ''Let's set environmental policies based on health reasons. Let's take a look at what this will do to the health of the people of these various communities.'' I do not think anybody has any problem with that. I mean, after all, we do live in a confined area and what is going to be the effect on people's health permitting certain emissions, et cetera.
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But back to the basic premise. Making these same decisions based on some global theory that is based on the fact that we have had one degree change in what would have been the temperature over a hundred years is almost absurd. I mean, I am sitting here saying to myself, ''This is so absurd I can hardly contain myself.'' I mean, we have weathermen who cannot tell us next week what the weather is going to be and yet we have folks in front of us trying to tell us that we have to lower our standard of living, accept a 50-cents-a-gallon gas tax or 25-cents-a-gallon tax because of a 1-degree change in the temperature over a hundred years. And, again, in the committee that I was in when I put the experts in front of me, they ended up arguing with each other whether it was going to be global warming or global cooling. This is frightening. It is absolutely frightening to hear this discussion.
If I was an average American out there concerned about the standard of living, whether my child was going to have a decent job, whether or not we were going to suck up billions of dollars of resources and give it away to China, I would be absolutely frightened to death.
Let us go back to the premise, however, global warming. Just so people will understand, trees, when they are dying they give off hydrocarbons. So, you have old forests and you have forests and jungles down in Brazil and elsewhere. They give off hydrocarbons because they are old trees.
Young trees, by the way, if you do not have enough trees, they take in CO2 and they give off oxygen and they give off something that is beneficial. So, if you go by the global warming theory, you cut down all the old forests, eliminate all of Brazil and replant it in new plants. I mean, this is how nonsensical this theory is.
I can remember, Mr. Chairman, in my Science Committee 5 1/2 years ago, Mr. Gore, who is leading this intellectual charge of global warming, came to our Committee and, of course, there were lots of cameras in tow, and he was pounding on the table saying, ''George Bush,'' who was President at the time, ''has got to declare an ozone emergency.'' Do you all remember that? Because there was going to be this big ozone hole opening over Kennebunkport. And, what do you know, the ozone hole did not open up over Kennebunkport. It was based on an erroneous report of one environmentalist, probably a Ph.D. in a white coat from a major university, I do not know. But the fact is that it was wrong. And that was just a theory as to what was going to happen in the near future. Now we are talking about making massive policy commitments in which the Third World can get away with breaking their commitments based on something that might happen decades in the future.
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I see this as a threat to the well being of our people and there is a fundamental disagreement here and I have talked too long. I am sorry. But I will certainly let you rebut everything that I have said and thank you very much.
Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher.
Mr. Sherman.
Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I think that global warming is a serious problem and will affect many of us adversely, except for those of us who have purchased large tracts of land in Alaska.
I want to thank the President and thank the Chairman for addressing the issue of global warming. It is going to take, as my colleague from California, I think, demonstrated, an awful lot more education of the American people before we are willing to make anywhere close to the sacrifices that would be necessary to address this problem.
My first question is just a quick factual question and that is, on a per capita basis, without necessarily giving us exact numbers, can you tell us where Americans, Europeans and residents of the Third World stand in terms of creation of CO2?
Mr. WIRTH. On a per capita basis, Congressman Sherman, if we are a 10 in terms of our production of greenhouse-producing gases per person, the average European across the board—Germans would be more than Portuguese—but the average European would be something in the neighborhood of, say, 6 1/2. The average Japanese would be about a 5. The average individual in China would be someplace less than a 1. It would be probably difficult to find the noise for the average individual in India.
That is approximate. I have all those numbers on a chart. I will be happy to give them to you.
Mr. SHERMAN. So, under this allegedly unfair and oppressive regime put forward by the Europeans, we would have to cut ourselves back to an 8.5, which would still mean that, per capita, we are producing eight and a half times as much greenhouse gases as those who reside in China and considerably more than each European even before they cut back by 15 percent. Is that correct?
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Mr. WIRTH. Well, that would be on a just one-point-in-time basis. In fact, the European proposal will not get us nearly as much as suggested in your question. It is comparing apples and oranges a little bit, but it is close.
Mr. SHERMAN. I was focused on the ratio rather than the effect it will have on total greenhouse gases.
Mr. WIRTH. As a general proposition, you are right.
Mr. SHERMAN. Even if we accepted the Europeans' proposal, we would be producing far more greenhouse gases than anyone else in the world.
Mr. WIRTH. Absolutely.
Mr. SHERMAN. I am a bit surprised to see the Europeans be generous. I have not seen that as a characteristic of their behavior in trade negotiations, et cetera. Can you explain why the Europeans are willing to let the Third World off the hook, at least for now, and impose upon themselves and ourselves the obligation to reduce or at least limit greenhouse gases?
Mr. WIRTH. We asked ourselves that question, too, Congressman. I do not want to say what the Europeans mean. I can only make some guesses. One, they are not going to step up to our proposal until we have put our targets and timetables on the table. So, they are kind of saying, ''Well, we are not going to give you the benefit of the doubt, Uncle Sam, on anything until you put what you are going to do on the table,'' and we are going to do that in October. So, I think that is one part of it.
A second part of it is——
Mr. SHERMAN. If I can interrupt for a second. It is not the United States versus Europe that I am talking about here. It is the Europeans as part of the First World are saying, ''Let's let the Third World off the hook for a while.''
Mr. WIRTH. I think when we get to Kyoto we will all be—the Annex 1 countries, the developed world countries—we will all be speaking of a similar voice. But I think that they are just keeping everything back in terms of approving any of our positions in order to try to push us for as strong a position as they can achieve. There are a number of other reasons that one can think about, but I think that is the primary one. I think it has to do with a lot of the process right now.
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Mr. SHERMAN. OK.
My colleague from California put forward a theory that we really cannot trust the Japanese and the Europeans to adhere by whatever agreements we get them to sign and, while I share his skepticism in some of the trade areas, have there been significant violations of environmental treaties by nations in the First World, the Annex 1 nations, that would lead you to wonder whether the Europeans, the Americans or the Japanese can be trusted to adhere to specific provisions of environmental treaties?
Mr. WIRTH. No, Congressman, there have not been and probably the greatest success, for example, is the Montreal protocol focused on the reduction of chlorofluorocarbons in terms of ozone depletion and the cooperation around the world has not only been almost complete with the exception of one plant in Russia, but the acceleration of the buy-out among the developed countries and, I might add, among the developing countries—China has also accelerated its buy-out of chlorofluorocarbons—has been a triumph of good environmental agreements. Quite remarkable.
Mr. SHERMAN. I would point out that I do not think this is a coincidence. There will be people in each country that actually enjoy and support a situation where that country gets an advantage in a trade agreement by cutting a corner. Each country is promoting its own trade position. But when it comes to environmental treaties, I do not think the people of Germany or Japan will smile if somehow their country is able to evade or avoid or cheat on an environmental treaty. I think that when it comes to environmental treaties, we have literally millions of enforcement advocates around the world and, that being the case, we cannot extrapolate from trade treaties and come to the conclusion that an environmental treaty is not worth the recycled paper it is printed on.
I see my time has expired. Thank you.
Mr. WIRTH. Thank you, Congressman.
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Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, gentlemen.
We are involved in a vote. We will try to continue through the vote.
Mr. Capps, would you want to start or——
Mr. CAPPS. Well, we are involved in a vote here. As you well know, I need to run in a minute. But I just wanted to say, even though I got here late, I will study these documents with real care because I do not believe that global warming is a hoax. I mean, I know it is a fact.
The evidence that I have is being among native peoples in northern Norway. I had the privilege of lecturing at Thompsa University in northern Norway and spent time with the Sami people and I have high regard for the ability of native peoples, indigenous peoples, to know that something is happening in the natural world. This was at a time when I was running for office, had not been elected yet, and they took me aside and they said, ''If you get elected, No. 1 priority for you has to be to look into global warming,'' because they have evidence of it there and this is not based on sophisticated scientific research. But they just know that the world has changed and they think the ramifications of that are profound. So, I appreciate the work that you are doing and you certainly have my full cooperation, Mr. Wirth.
Mr. WIRTH. Thank you very much, Congressman.
Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Capps.
We will recess just for a few minutes until we come back from the vote. One of our Members, Mr. Campbell, is hurrying back so we can continue the vote. The Committee will stand in recess for a few minutes.
[Recess.]
Mr. CAMPBELL [presiding]. Thank you very much.
Secretary Wirth and Administrator Hales, the Chairman has asked me to continue and I will do so. I understand there was a bit of confusion. I apologize if this is inconvenient, if you need any more time for personal reasons.
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All right. Then let us reconvene and there will be other Members returning. My own time now occurs and, on my own time, let us start it up. Soon there will be somebody knowledgeable in the system of the lights who will come here and set it at green.
I wanted to pursue the question that my colleague from California did regarding global warming. I was not able to hear your responses because I went over to vote. But it seems to me, and I will just offer this to both of you, that the Congressional Research Service, in their report prepared for this meeting, said, and I quote, ''There is broad scientific consensus that there is evidence greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide, emitted in the burning of hydrocarbons,'' and dotting a few points here, ''are increasing in the atmosphere and that the temperature of the Earth has warmed by about 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 100 years.''
They go on to say that there is uncertain evidence as to the modeling effect for the future and Secretary Wirth's testimony says that, too. But that, as I understand Secretary Wirth's comments, based on these warming trends and based upon projections of future climate change on complex climate models, the prediction of flooding might occur.
I would like to give you both a chance to elaborate on that, if need be, but also address this point. It seems to me that whether or not global warming is predicted to be of such a nature as to cause flooding, there is a strategic interest in the United States and in the world in developing renewable energy. That is to say, moving away from fossil-based fuel has a tremendous advantage, given that fossil-based fuel will sooner or later run out, and that if an effort is undertaken to move away from fossil-based fuel and more toward renewable energy, that is desirable whether or not we have a predicted rising of sea levels of ''X'' meters. Those are the two premises.
First of all, if you would like to elaborate in response to my colleague from California, I would like to hear your response. And then, second, my comment about whatever the projection might be, is it not desirable to get some international movement as well as in our own country on renewable, as opposed to fossil-based?
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Mr. WIRTH. Thank you, Congressman. Why don't I take the first part of it and ask my colleague, Mr. Hales, to comment on the renewables and particularly the efforts that we are undertaking here and around the world.
On the issue of temperature increases or temperature changes, Mr. Rohrabacher referred to the absurdity of a 1-degree change. I think the easiest way to reply to that is to remind ourselves that at the height of the Ice Age, when there was 1 1/2 miles of ice halfway down the North American continent, it was on average 5 degrees colder than it is today. So, 5 degrees has a very significant impact. Not a perfect parallel, by any means, but certainly instructive.
Second, if you look at the record, the ice core record, going back and understanding as we can measure with no debate—I mean, no debate—about the accuracy of these measurements, about our understanding of the concentrations of carbon in the atmosphere, and about the temperature record which follows right behind that concentration's carbon level, we can see that as carbon goes up, temperatures go up; when carbon goes down, temperatures go down. No debate. That is a very clear consensus and there may be some people, but—the overwhelming, 99.99 percentage of scientists, would agree that that correlation exists.
Now, think about what we are doing. In a very short period of time, we are putting a huge amount more carbon in the atmosphere. If we extrapolate from what has happened in the past, even if we do not know exactly how the climate system works or exactly where the impact is going to be, if we extrapolate from past history that when carbon went up, climate goes up and we can measure that so well, then wouldn't we say to ourselves, ''If we continue to increase carbon, temperatures are going to continue to increase''? I mean, any basic statistics student or anybody who reads a newspaper looking at graphs and trends is going to understand that. Now, that is the simplest way to understand this and I would be happy to leave behind or come up and talk to you about this record and what it looks like.
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Mr. CAPPS. I would very much like you to put it in the record so that my colleagues could share it. I need less convincing on this point.
But maybe one quick followup might help. For the prediction in your testimony about the rises in your testimony based on these warming trends, which I assume you are using the average because you say ''an average increase greater than any seen in the last 10,000 years,'' then you have the flooding effect, what was the, if you can remember—if not, just perhaps submit it for the record—what was the estimated increase in average temperature? You say that a rise of another 2 to 6 1/2 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100. So, it is between 2 and 6 1/2. Do you happen to remember what the mean was?
Mr. WIRTH. Well, that is the range and the range of sea level rise would be between 12 and 30 inches. So, you can correlate those two and get a sense that at the lower end of the scale, we would anticipate that sea level rise would go 12 inches. At the higher end of the scale, we would project that it would go 30 inches.
Mr. CAPPS. And the only followup I had was if you happened to remember what the mean expected increase in temperature was.
Mr. WIRTH. I will look for that. I do not think that there is one. I do not think that anybody picked a mean because the ranges give you a chance to say that there is a lot of uncertainty. Mean, people jump on that and say, ''Well, it did not quite happen,'' or whatever. So, that is why ranges are used. But I will look and, if there is one, I will submit it.
Mr. CAPPS. The ranges are useful, thank you. They do supplement your testimony wherein you say an additional 1 1/2 feet is the expected. But now to know—if I am putting words in your mouth, correct me—would you say that it is in the nature of a 95-percent confidence interval of between 12 and 30 inches? Is that the sort of expectation that you are predicting?
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Mr. WIRTH. No, I would not speak to that percentage confidence level. Let me get back to you.
Mr. CAPPS. OK, fine.
Mr. WIRTH. I do not want to speak for scientists and when they say a 95-percent confidence level——
Mr. CAPPS. Just useful for me.
Mr. WIRTH [continuing]. the consensus would be that that is where we go. I will get that back——
Mr. CAPPS. My colleague is not here, which I regret, but I did wish to tweak him just a bit about his comment about Ph.D.s from major universities.
Mr. Hales.
Mr. HALES. Thank you, Congressman.
Contained in your question is the essence of the ''no regrets'' strategy, the win-win strategy that has been a major fundamental underlying point of what we have been doing since 1994. The idea really is very simple, that most of what we do, the vast majority of what we do in the climate change area, is worth doing for benefits that are not associated with climate change. In the area of renewable energy, in the area of energy efficiency, there are profits to be made. It makes good business sense. It makes good economic sense. It makes good sense in terms of local environmental and health effects. And it makes good sense in terms of its potential impact on the emission of greenhouse gases.
Likewise, wise management of forestry resources and parks makes good sense from a wide range of perspectives, from ecotourism to watershed management. But it also makes good sense in terms of a benefit as a place for carbon sequestration and the removal of greenhouse gases from the air. The opportunities that are available to us and to developing countries to pursue those are perhaps not unlimited but as close to it as I can imagine. As we look at that, that also goes to the question of trust, if you will, about folks meeting their commitments.
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One of the things that we have learned in building these programs is that as we build them in partnership with the private sector here, the private sector in developing countries, the government in that developing country and other donors, then what we usually find is a common basis of interest. When folks are pursuing their own interests, usually you can rely on the fact that that will continue.
Mr. CAPPS. I appreciate the answer.
We will turn to my colleague from Florida next, but I had one quick question perhaps for which an answer could be equally quick.
I know you are not today advocating an increase in the gasoline tax. I know, however, it is a suggestion that does come up in this context. I also am on record, just so you know I am not laying a trap, in favor of an increase in the gasoline tax for environmental reasons and for budgetary reasons. What I do not quite understand is where the money would go under the proposal. If you are prepared to say, my own sense of the 25 cent, if that is the number that we are talking about, per gallon for the environmental purpose, would it go to restoration, would it go to environmental purposes, or would it go to deficit reduction?
Mr. WIRTH. Well, first of all, there is no Administration proposal for a tax increase. I would refer you, if I might, again, to the WRI, World Resources Institute, study which talks about a number of models of reflow of any kind of funds like this. There is some argument that such a reflow of funds go in particular areas within the tax code to shift the taxes from taxing good things to bad things. You have heard the arguments from taxing pollution. You should be doing that.
There is a lot of data in the WRI study and I would commend that to you. It is just a superb piece.
Mr. CAPPS. At present, there is no Administration position.
Mr. WIRTH. There is no Administration proposal for a tax.
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Mr. CAPPS. Thank you.
Mr. HALES. If I might add to that, I am not an economist and it has been a while since I read the interagency team report but, as I recall it, the 26-cent-per-gallon figure did not refer to a tax but to a cost increase that was based on other assumptions that were in the model. Now, my memory could well be faulty on that, but it may be something we could respond to further and more accurately.
Mr. CAPPS. Very well. I think that question might come down to whether the present price of petroleum reflects the true cost, the social cost as well as the marginal cost of bringing up the petroleum from the ground.
I yield to my colleague from Florida, Mr. Hastings.
Mr. HASTINGS. I thank the distinguished Chair from California for yielding to me.
Mr. Chairman, to be expeditious in light of the fact that we have other panelists waiting, I will forebear questioning in light of the fact that I am sure the witnesses have covered pretty much the questions that I would have asked. My staff has informed me that you answered all of my questions in my absence. But I want to thank the Secretary and the Administrator and have them clearly understand that at least one Member is fully supportive of Kyoto and that being just one of the second stages of what I would hope we would be about and the ultimate objectives that will be expressed there. So, I thank you both and I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. WIRTH. Thank you, Mr. Hastings.
If I might add briefly, Mr. Chairman, we had a fascinating town meeting called by a number of individuals in Florida. I was privileged to speak at it. Mr. Ruvin was there. The record that was developed on that for the impact of climate change on South Florida was very, very impressive and I would commend that to you. You probably already have it, but it was a very, very impressive and in many ways a very moving set of presentations about the relationship of a lot of people to potentially significant catastrophe.
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Mr. HASTINGS. I have that information, Mr. Secretary, and I had a global warming conference a week before that one.
Mr. WIRTH. You did?
Mr. HASTINGS. Yes, I did.
Mr. WIRTH. Thank you.
Mr. CAPPS. Thank you, Mr. Hastings.
The gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Blunt.
Mr. BLUNT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I know we are going to move toward other panelists and I may reserve some questions for them. I may have to send them to you in writing if we do not get them answered later in the panel. I might come back in a second to the predictive model on the warming and weather. I just want to go back, Mr. Secretary, to what you had to say about the predictive model of economic impact. Are you beginning to feel comfortable with your economic impact numbers? Are you back to zero in terms of starting that predictive model again? The three efforts that were working together, I think you mentioned earlier, you want to talk about that just for a second?
Mr. WIRTH. Thank you for the question. We are comfortable with the fact that the toolbox contains a whole lot of different models and a whole lot of different ways of looking at this issue. The Council of Economic Advisors is running all of these through the process. There is a lot of very good information out there. Ultimately, it is going to be judgments you make, that the Chairman makes, that Congressman Hastings makes, that all of us make as to where we think the balances are going to be. There is going to be no perfect guru in the way of a mechanical model that is going to tell you what exactly the impact is going to be.
I remember, Congressman Blunt, in the 1980s we were, many of us, deeply engaged in the clean air debate. I believe Congressman Campbell was involved in that. During that time, many came in and told us that the models would suggest that the cost of reduction of sulfur was going to be something in the neighborhood of $2,000 a ton and it turned out that the figure was about $100 a ton. I mean, that was a myth of a significant gap in terms of costs and environmental regulation.
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Well, what happened along the way was that we figured out what kind of flexible financial instruments to use. We developed a strategy that really was sensitive to the problems in some parts of the country that were going to be especially impacted and gave them a break. It worked out, contrary to what many of the initial models said. I remember the sort of searing intensity, the beating up, that many of us got because the economic impacts were going to be so enormous and we were more right than the people who were beating us up were right.
Mr. BLUNT. I guess I just have some concern that maybe all of the predicted models, including the weather models, are wrong. Based on what we know about the economy over the last hundred years, for certain, compared to what we know about weather over the last 10,000 years, we are really looking at a couple of different models both of which, as I think you would agree, have to be taken into consideration with each other.
On the general, the Administration figures, I think, for economic impact between now and the year 2000, which would put some of these in effect, would be 1 percent of GDP?
Mr. WIRTH. Well, the WRI summary points out, and I just jotted down their summary, they said if you do not do any of the smart things to do, if you do it dumb, if you do not do joint implementation, if you do not recycle whatever funds are engaged, if you do not take into account the health benefits, WRI said that their summary of all of the studies that were done is that the economy in 2020, projected to be 74 percent bigger than it is today, will only be 70 percent bigger. That is doing it dumb. There will be a difference of 4 percent by the year 2020.
Now, that is doing it without taking into consideration all of the other things that one would rationally do. I mean, that is a very, very small difference and that is, without joint implementation, without looking at energy costs, without looking at the recycling of funds, without looking at trying to identify health benefits, without looking at environmental benefits. I would commend, again, the WRI piece to you because it is probably the best summary of all of the models around.
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Mr. BLUNT. I think just the Administration analysis on policy changes supported by the Administration in this decade, the decade of the nineties, they are looking at a reduction in GDP of 1 percent as a result of those changes. Is that right?
Mr. WIRTH. Well, we have not made a determination yet, Congressman, on the targets and timetables that the Administration is proposing and so, consequently, we do not have a package of implementation measures. We do feel, however, that looking at all of the economic literature, to assume that there is going to be automatically a diminution of employment or a diminution of economic activity is not correct. We believe that the economic literature on a whole believes that if you do this thing right, that our economy is going to be able to absorb the changes that we believe have to be made for environmental purposes and that the economy will be able to absorb those.
Mr. BLUNT. Did you say earlier that in the second decade of the next century, which would be 2010 to 2020, that the emissions from the developing nations would at that point exceed the various emissions from——
Mr. WIRTH. Yes, about that time. I think I could give you the numbers on it. It is about the year 2020 that we think that they are going to pass us.
Mr. BLUNT. Then I think you also said that part of this would be the result of building these economies between now and 2020 or 2040. The developing world would be building so they could be a greater participant——
Mr. WIRTH. They would be building. We would be working their commitments in. For example, our first draft proposal starts with them meeting their commitments from Rio now. That is from the 1992 conference. They would have to meet those. We would have another draft, another set of commitments to them, in 2005 and moving through that they would phase in over a period of time so that by the time we get to some year like 2040, their commitments are the same as ours.
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Mr. BLUNT. OK. I guess we have some people later who are going to talk, Mr. Chairman, about building those economies at whose expense and what expense and I will save some questions for that point.
Mr. CAPPS. Thank you, Mr. Blunt.
On behalf of the entire Committee of International Relations of the House of Representatives, I want to thank you, Administrator Hales and Secretary Wirth, for your testimony and your courtesy to us this morning.
Mr. WIRTH. Thank you very much for your attentiveness. We look forward to working with you and, again, we thank the Committee for the Chairman's statement that there would be an observer group being created for Kyoto and we hope that that observer group will be broadly representative of the House of Representatives and we will look forward to working with you. Thank you very much.
Mr. CAPPS. We will take that up with the Speaker.
Mr. WIRTH. Thank you very much.
Mr. CAPPS. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
The second panel is composed of Mr. Dean Kleckner, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, and the other two I am about to describe, Mr. Jasinowski and Mr. Smith. So, would the three please approach while I give the introductions?
The president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, Dean Kleckner, is a hog farmer from Rudd, Iowa. He has been the Federation's president for over a decade. He has advised the U.S. Government on GATT Uruguay rounds, appointed by Presidents Reagan, Bush and Clinton to the U.S. Trade Advisory Committee.
We welcome you, President Kleckner.
Mr. KLECKNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am Dean Kleckner. I am a farmer, as you said. I am from north central Iowa.
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Mr. CAPPS. Pause just for a moment because I am going to do all the introductions and that way we can go——
Mr. KLECKNER. OK. Thank you.
Mr. CAPPS. We will next hear, then, from president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, Jerry Jasinowski, a familiar and friendly face at this Committee and others in the capital. Mr. Jasinowski has been president of NAM since 1990, representing 14,000 companies making 85 percent of all U.S. manufactured goods.
Welcome, President Jasinowski.
And Mr. Smith is the AFL–CIO's director of public policy. David Smith, prior to joining the American Federation of Labor, Congress and Industrial Organizations served as commissioner of business development for the city of New York and also as an aide to Senator Edward Kennedy.
Mr. Smith, you are most welcome.
Mr. Kleckner, you may proceed.
STATEMENT OF MR. DEAN KLECKNER, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN FARM BUREAU FEDERATION
Mr. KLECKNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am Dean Kleckner. I am a farmer from north central Iowa, growing corn, soybeans and hogs, as you indicated. Also president of the American Farm Bureau, which is the country's and the world's largest farm organization. We are very concerned that the interest of farmers and ranchers are not being considered in these international negotiations on climate change, but farmers who are aware of the climate change treaty are very concerned about the controls which may be imposed on the farms to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
We are concerned about higher costs for fuel and all energy, vehicles, equipment, new burdensome regulations, about threats to our competitiveness in the world market. That has not been talked about very much yet this morning.
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We now export a third of our crops, one third of what we produce total in agriculture goes overseas. Some farmers are aware in the last decade or so that there has been discussion by some scientists that greenhouse gases, the three, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, are contributing to increases in average global temperatures that could cause adverse impacts on the world's climate. Boy, have we heard that this morning. But there is still a legitimate debate, despite what we have heard, about the magnitude of those changes, their significance and the relative contribution of natural versus human causes including agriculture production.
Many farmers who have followed this important issue believe that the Administration is acting hastily and prematurely in leading international efforts for immediate, legally binding, enforceable caps on greenhouse gas emissions. First, I think—and many other people in addition to myself think—it is unclear that we even have a problem. Now, I recognize that we heard this morning we all agree to that. That is not true, including the scientific community.
Second, I would say even if there is a problem, we do not know the extent of agriculture's contribution to it and I am representing farmers. I am one.
Finally, we do not know what practices or programs farmers are likely to encounter as a result of the international agreement, irrespective of the first two points of do we have a problem and even if we do.
The bottom line is that we must have more information and I mean by that valid, peer-reviewed scientific research, before we make major policy decisions that will, we think, define the very structure of U.S. agriculture in the future.
The Administration's proposal will restrict farming practices. It will disrupt livestock and crop production and increase farm energy costs. We farmers like to think of ourselves as good guys, but we are being portrayed as villains when it comes to greenhouse gases. Supposedly, cattle and sheep produce methane. Crop tillage produces both methane and carbon dioxide. Nitrous oxide comes from fertilizer and the burning of crop residue. The one, two and three practices or entities that lead the world in methane production—No. 1, rice production; wetlands is No. 2. Wetlands are good. They are No. 2 in the world in the problem of methane creation. Ruminants, No. 3. As long as you have cattle and sheep, I guess you have methane.
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Led by our own Administration, international negotiators are pressing for strict, binding limits on emissions. If such limits are adopted, the United States will be forced to consider laws and regulations to meet those legally enforceable reductions. For agriculture, we see new taxes on fuel and fertilizer, forced higher mileage requirements for light trucks and other motor vehicles, controls of planting, cultivation and harvesting practices and, last but not least, limits on the number of livestock per acre. These controls and practices that have been proposed to treaty negotiations are in a report that you have which has been submitted with my statement.
I am a farmer. Farm operations could be severely disrupted. Restrictions on planting, cultivation, harvesting would interfere with our management plans which have been designed and are getting better to reduce production costs, maximize yields, conserve farmlands.
Fuel and energy cost increases resulting from this treaty could deal farmers an especially heavy blow. The American Petroleum Institute estimates that the climate agreement could increase prices for gas, diesel fuel and electricity by 50 percent or more, depending on the emission targets that are prescribed. The Administration estimates have been lower but it has already been pointed out the Commerce Department recently agreed that capping carbon dioxide emissions at 1990 levels could require the equivalent of a 25-cent gas tax.
Fuel cost increases at these levels, even at the lower levels estimated by the Commerce Department, would impose a huge hardship on U.S. farmers, and let me divert a minute. That is why we at Farm Bureau fought so hard for the defeat of the highly unfair BTU tax a few years ago.
We are concerned that this climate treaty proposed by the Administration provides an opportunity to resurrect that BTU tax under a different name but with the same results—higher production costs for U.S. farmers, higher food costs. You might say that it is a back-door BTU tax.
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Perhaps most important of all, I think this is the most important, agriculture's critics in the climate change debate have focused on agriculture's contribution to greenhouse gases and overlooked our most important role and that is feeding and clothing a growing hungry world. Little if any consideration has been given to the climate agreement's impact on our ability to meet future world demands for food and fiber. That is never talked about, for some reason.
The Administration's proposal would disadvantage U.S. agriculture producers in world trade because it means higher production costs. I have been very active in GATT and NAFTA over the years and I cannot stress how uncompetitive that we believe this would make U.S. farmers. It sets no binding requirements for developing countries. We have heard that this morning. Some of them are our strongest competitors for world markets of agriculture commodities. Countries exempt from controls include Mexico, China, South Korea, Chile, India, Argentina, and many of those already have lower labor and production costs and so this change would give them even a new major competitive advantage.
I was listening to the earlier debate. It talked about European Union saying that giving support at the 1990 level by 2005. Why is that? That is easy. They are phasing out coal over there. In fact, they are well on their way. They are meeting those 1990 standards now. They are increasing nuclear power, phasing out coal. They are going to meet the 1990 standards and do it easily. That is why they are not objecting.
The proposal makes no sense, in our view, this overall proposal, from either an environmental or an economic standpoint. By the Administration's own projections, carbon dioxide emission increases in developing countries will soon outpace those of the United States and other developed nations.
I heard some of the early testimony. Senator Byrd and Senator Hagel's committee saying that in 7 to 10 years, not some time way out a couple of decades later than that, in 7 to 10 years, developing nations will be ahead of the United States and the other 30 or so nations that are in the OECD that are in the category of developed and will have to comply where they will not.
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Let me hurry on. Last November, the Farm Bureau and 17 other agricultural farm groups expressed strong concerns to the President relating to this climate change agreement, potential impacts on agriculture. They have not been refuted by the Administration.
This March, Chairman Lugar and a bipartisan group of 13 Members of the Senate Agriculture Committee requested an analysis by the Administration of several issues: the potential effect of climate changes on ag; estimated emissions and sequestration of greenhouse gases by agriculture; actions or controls likely to be implemented; and the economic impact. The senators requested that this be done by the Administration in advance of the August treaty negotiations in Bonn and the final ones in Kyoto in December. To our knowledge, they have not been addressed by the Administration.
Last week, Senate Res. 98 by Byrd and Hagel, co-sponsored by 60 Members in the Senate, was reported out of the Committee. So, there is great concern there.
Let me conclude. We support three things, the following three administrative of legislative actions relating to the climate agreement, and these are also supported by those 17 other farm groups that I mentioned who will sign the letter to the President in November.
No. 1, the Administration should withdraw support for legally binding, enforceable caps on greenhouse gases, point one. Until peer-reviewed scientific research can verify the connection between greenhouse gases and agriculture, the Administration should be very skeptical about applying any controls to U.S. agriculture. If they are justified in the end after more study, and they may be—we question it, but they may be—they should be accomplished voluntarily and all countries should be bound. We should not let them off the hook.
No. 2, there must be a full and informed public debate which involves agriculture and agriculture policymakers. A full and open debate we are calling for with agriculture producers, leaders, organizations. We think that has to include the agriculture people in the Congress and both Houses and USDA.
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Final point, the final climate change agreement schedule for Kyoto in December should be delayed. The Administration must not accept the final agreement without complete analysis and full and open public debate which includes, obviously, us in agriculture and my colleagues, I think, will make their points about their industries as they see fit. We do not think that this treaty can realistically be completed, then, before the scheduled final negotiations.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kleckner appears in the appendix.]
Chairman GILMAN [presiding]. Thank you, Mr. Kleckner.
Mr. Jasinowski, I would welcome, if you could summarize your statement. Your full statement will be a part of the record. We have another panel following this. Thank you.
Mr. HASTINGS. Mr. Chairman.
Chairman GILMAN. Yes.
Mr. HASTINGS. Before he begins, may I make a unanimous consent request?
Chairman GILMAN. Yes, by all means.
Mr. HASTINGS. Thank you so very kindly.
Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent that the statement of Mr. Michael Marvin, the executive director of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy, be inserted in the record at this point.
Chairman GILMAN. Without objection.
Mr. HASTINGS. Thank you, sir.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Marvin appears in the appendix.]
STATEMENT OF MR. JERRY JASINOWSKI, PRESIDENT AND CEO, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MANUFACTURERS
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Mr. JASINOWSKI. Mr. Chairman, thank you for your leadership on this issue. I will not refer to my statement at all, but simply try to respond to what you and Secretary Wirth and my co-panelists have said in a brief time so that I can join the issues as best I can.
Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, and your full statement will be a part of the record.
Mr. JASINOWSKI. Let me state, first of all, that we obviously oppose moving forward with the treaty in December and I associate myself with everything that Mr. Kleckner has said about its deficiencies. Having said that, I sat here for 2 hours today listening to everybody so that I could keep an open mind as to what the real issue is.
I was impressed with your statements, Mr. Chairman, as well as Mr. Hastings. Mr. Hastings said, and I think it should be the criteria for all of us, we should try to reason on this and I think it should be done on a bipartisan basis. If Mr. Hastings can persuade me of anything further, I would like to be persuaded.
I also listened to Secretary Wirth and I thought he said a number of positive things. Those were that this is an issue of concern and none of us suggest it is not an issue of concern. We do not know precisely how greenhouse gases affect the atmosphere, but we think it is an issue of concern.
Second, he put a lot of emphasis—and Mr. Hales was even better on it—in terms of emphasizing the importance of what we have already done in terms of partnership, how technology can in fact be to our benefit. I mean, we have an extraordinary export market out there where we can export pollution reduction equipment and I think, Mr. Campbell, your point went to that as well. There are reasons why we ought to try to become more energy-efficient than we are. We have reduced greenhouse gases by over a percentage point a year for a couple of decades now and if we are going to be competitive, we have to continue to do that and we should export our technology and we should have joint implementation and so on and so forth. So, I think those were positive things.
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Having said that, I would have to say that the notion of rushing forward with a treaty, an international treaty, Mr. Chairman, by December is the poorest thought out public policy package I have witnessed in 20 years, and I have been associated with doing analysis in addition to representing business for that 20 years. Let me highlight, Mr. Hastings and others, where the reasoning is not adequately there.
First of all, I listened very carefully to the scientific evidence and Mr. Wirth used the words ''compelling evidence''. I have debated this issue before. I went back and re-read after my last testimony the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which he referred to, the 2,000 scientists, and in the foreword it gives some very qualified statement that there may be a relationship between industrial activity and global warming. But the entire report is filled with caveats and qualifications and many members of the panel itself, Mr. Chairman, have said, ''We do not have compelling evidence.'' The most you could say, the best case you could put on with scientific evidence is that it is suggestive of a possible problem.
Second, I think that we have to recognize that even on the carbon issue, carbon is only one of these greenhouse gases and we have many other gases and the treaty is all focusing on carbon as if it is everything. It does not even focus on methane. So, even what we are focusing on here is unclear.
Third, on the economics, I listened again very carefully to Secretary Wirth. He did not answer the question that was raised on the Argonne study, which is pretty damning in terms of its negative impact. He simply did not answer it at all and that talks about a million jobs lost, four or five of our industries going offshore, a loss of competitiveness that is quite enormous, and he did not address it at all. He referred, instead, to the WRI study, which I am very familiar with because I testified with a representative of that group on the Senate and it is a very good study and he is right to cite it. But the study assumes an almost perfect world which has assumptions that are quite unrealistic.
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The whole notion of joint implementation is not being considered now as a part of this treaty and I remember the colloquy back and forth between myself and the WRI person on competitiveness. He assumed that this increase in the energy prices would not have a major effect on international competitiveness. Now, I tell you, if you raise your prices by 10 cents today, you lose markets and we are talking about a 25-percent increase in energy prices, a 50-cent increase in gasoline. So, I assure you, there is nothing in the WRI study which would give you an answer on the economic front. In fact, Janet Yellen, who has looked at the Administration's models, has come to the conclusion that many unanswered questions exist about the biophysical systems, potential threshold and economic impact. She said, in short, if anybody tells you that he or she has the definitive answer to the cost and the benefits of particular climate change policies, I would suggest you raise your collective eyebrows.
Secretary Wirth sat here and said, ''We do not need to worry. There is no cost. This is almost costless. We may have benefits.'' Now, I think there are going to be benefits, but the notion that this is costless and that we know all the answers does not jive with all the other studies that have been done, including WRI and Charles River Associates.
To go to my third point, the developing country point is clear and everybody on the Committee is already aware that it is a flaw in the treaty. But what most people do not focus on is that by excluding developing countries from the terms of the treaty, we will actually increase the amount of greenhouse gases in the globe, not decrease. So, instead of achieving an environmental goal at a high economic cost, we do not achieve the environmental goal.
Finally, the fourth point in my testimony, which I cannot go into in the detail I would like to at this time, is a question that goes to Mr. Hamilton's question on what is the policy here. What is the management regime? What is the concept for dealing with the greenhouse gas problem? The fact is, Mr. Chairman, we have no American policy on this. You made some suggestions about important initiatives that we should take with respect to providing assistance to developing countries, encouraging technologies. But we do not have a goal. We do not know what kind of regulatory regime is going to, in fact, achieve the goal. We do not have any idea of how the compliance of monitoring is going to occur. This is an empty black hole and, let me tell you, I have looked at the treaties that we have had before carefully.
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I have looked at the analysis of Dr. Richard Cooper, who has done the same. We have never tried to do a treaty like this before. The closest thing that comes to it is the fisheries treaty. Most of our treaties are between governments, and all you have to do is influence another government, like we are trying to do with China on the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty. Here, we are trying to get governments to influence millions of their citizens to change their behavior. Now, it is a worthwhile goal. We should certainly do that. But the notion that we are going to be able to do that without specifying the regime, I think, is again an example of where we do not have the answers. So, whether or not it is the science, the economics, the developing countries or the management system, Mr. Chairman, we do not have adequate answers on how this treaty would go forward. For the United States to formally approve a treaty and to formally approve that treaty by December, we need time, analysis and the careful reasoned judgment that I know this Committee will bring on a bipartisan basis to this issue, which is probably the most important domestic policy issue that Congress will face for the next several years.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Jasinowski appears in the appendix.]
Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Jasinowski.
Mr. Smith, if you would be kind enough to try to summarize your statement. We will put the full statement in the record.
STATEMENT OF MR. DAVID SMITH, DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC POLICY, AFL–CIO
Mr. SMITH. I will try to do that, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the time constraints that you and your colleagues operate under. I will try to be brief.
Let me begin by associating myself with a lot of what Dean and Jerry have said. I would like to emphasize three or four points.
The AFL–CIO does not oppose any treaty. But it does oppose a treaty that we rush into where a lot of the work has not been done. The most striking thing that Secretary Wirth said this morning, I think, was, ''Well, we will not have our economic analysis done in time to prepare for Kyoto. I will refer you to the WRI study.'' The WRI is an interesting study. It is an important piece of work; but the notion that the U.S. Government would enter into a binding multilateral agreement in December of this year without having done the most complete and exhaustive examination of the important economic questions that Jerry and Dean raised is quite frightening.
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There is no rush. Take the most dramatic description of this problem. It has built up over the period of the industrial era. We have been contributing greenhouse gases to the atmosphere for 150 years. I think the science may not be compelling but it is surely suggestive of a problem—a problem that we share with all of the nations in the global community—and we ought to begin to address it. But we ought not to address it because we said we would meet in Kyoto on December 8. We ought to address it when we have a full understanding of the consequences of the policy regime that will be required to meet those undertakings, and a full understanding of the consequences of the economic changes that will be required as industry mix and fuel mix change, and most importantly, a full sense of what our undertakings do to the level of concentration in the atmosphere.
The issue is not U.S. emissions or even Chinese missions. The issue facing the global community is the level of concentration. The notion that we would undertake an economically disruptive domestic policy regime without assurances, binding and enforceable assurances, that at the end of the day the atmosphere which we share with the rest of the peoples of the world will, in fact, have stabilized greenhouse gas concentrations strikes us as preposterous. Let me summarize, Mr. Chairman, three points.
First, we cannot imagine a treaty that meets that last objective which is not inclusive, which does not impose and propose to enforce binding obligations on the entire world community. Those obligations obviously will reflect stages of development and economic circumstances, but we believe they must be binding, otherwise we cannot achieve our global objectives.
Second, we need a full understanding of the domestic economic consequences. Even the most modest of the studies that have been done are suggestive of almost a million jobs lost, of severe disruption in high-energy consuming industries, of a serious change in the domestic coal industry. Those questions need to be fully understood. A transition regime that assures the working men and women of this country that they will not pay an inappropriate price for moving in this direction is absolutely essential.
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And last, Mr. Chairman, I would try to pick up something quickly that Jerry said. We do not want to create a situation where it becomes economically rational to export both jobs and pollution. It would be the worst of all possible worlds. We would lose American jobs. The atmosphere would not be better off. Our country would be weaker and our environment would not improve a bit.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith appears in the appendix.]
Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Smith.
Mr. Campbell.
Mr. CAMPBELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would address this question to Mr. Jasinowski and Mr. Kleckner, although, Mr. Smith, you may wish to speak to it as well. The measurement of the economic impact of the proposed treaty is based, I take it, on an expectation or a model that there will be a net shifting of economic activity out of our country and into those countries not bound by the treaty. Is that correct?
Mr. JASINOWSKI. I think that is true of most of the models, Mr. Campbell. Yes, sir.
Mr. CAMPBELL. And perhaps I am wrong, actually, in not directing this to Mr. Smith as well and I mean to. Do you have some sense of the dimension of what shift that will be caused by this treaty moving to the countries that would not be bound? And the reason I ask, those are, by definition, the underdeveloped countries and I am not sure they are in a position to actually be the recipient of that kind of economic activity.
Mr. JASINOWSKI. Well, I think a stab I would take at it is to suggest that the Argonne study indicates that five industries, including aluminum, coal and petroleum, would be shifting in large measure abroad. I do not have the numbers on it but we are talking about a very substantial part of the GDP of the United States and associated with that, about a million jobs. So, I think there is a figure I have in my testimony, $200 billion. So, I suppose that is one way to summarize the amount of shift that is going abroad. That is maybe less than that because we would, of course, be exporting high technology stuff. So, something between $100 and $200 billion.
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Mr. CAMPBELL. And Mr. Smith.
Mr. SMITH. Mr. Campbell, one of the interesting things about the study that Secretary Wirth referred to, the attempt to use the three models and come up with a predictive model, is that it explicitly did not look at the question of the export of either American capital or American jobs. The study that Jerry is referring to were done by the Argonne National Laboratories and looked at five industries. They are suggestive of a very substantial export of American jobs in energy-intensive industries. But the Administration has not asked that question and I believe they ought to.
Mr. CAMPBELL. I appreciate that. The point of view expressed in my question was whether your study, and particularly Argonne, which I have not read—I apologize, it is just a fact of my life that I cannot read the reports before every hearing that I would like to—whether that took into account the fact that the recipient country may not be economically developed. And the theory here is that we are not going to bind these Third World or the countries—China being the biggest one—that, by that same token, makes it, to my mind, unlikely that they would be as ready to accept the exported jobs as if we were speaking of Japan. So, to your knowledge, does the Argonne study take that factor into account?
Mr. JASINOWSKI. No, I do not think it does and I think that that is a factor in some very underdeveloped countries. But if you look at countries like India and China, I would suggest they have the infrastructure in place, generally, to accept this.
I should mention, Mr. Campbell, that I did not take into account the extent to which the price increases would increase the prices of all products and services, including agriculture. And, therefore, there is a secondary effect on the jobs lost because of higher energy prices. In the case of manufacturing, I can tell you that many manufacturers would move some of their activities abroad in order to avoid the cost of that to their input.
Mr. CAMPBELL. And I follow the point. But, by the same token, if the country to which they move those jobs was bound by this treaty, this Kyoto treaty, then they would not have a comparative advantage. It would only accrue if they were moving to a country not bound by it.
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Mr. SMITH. I think that is the point we have all tried to make.
Mr. JASINOWSKI. That is right. And one other point, Mr. Campbell, which is that our strength is technology know-how and all of that and Secretary Wirth is correct to emphasize the positive aspects of that. We could go forward in all of that, though, which accounts to about $500 billion and do that without a treaty, while we come to some better understanding of the need for a treaty.
Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. Kleckner, I wanted to give you a chance to speak to one point that has been brought to my attention and that is the ambiguity of agriculture's role regarding carbon in the atmosphere. This sounds like a leading question, for which I apologize, but I am told that agriculture may actually serve a function of taking carbon out as readily as putting it in. Could you speak to that for a moment?
Mr. KLECKNER. Yes, very quickly. We think that is true. I do not have any figures on it. I think we can probably get you some figures on it, Mr. Campbell. But growing plants through photosynthesis pulls it back out. To my knowledge, that was not taken into consideration at all. Only the negative impact. We use a lot of fuel on the farms, carbon. So, it was a one-sided effort at understanding it.
Mr. CAMPBELL. Well, I would welcome receiving from the Farm Bureau Federation that kind of point, particularly if it was not taken into account in the studies that have been cited.
Mr. KLECKNER. Could I respond real quickly to the point the other two did?
Mr. CAMPBELL. Sure.
Mr. KLECKNER. I agree completely with my two colleagues to my right. Agriculture is a bit different. We cannot pick up and move. I think under the Argonne study, aluminum, they said, would leave the country completely. There would be no aluminum industry left. You do not take California farmland or Iowa farmland and move it to somewhere else.
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But I repeat, a third of what we grow is exported. If our costs are higher and they believe they will be higher, and we are moving toward a more free market economy where we are going to have to export even more to stay—it is our life blood. It is life and death agriculture.
I do not know what we are going to do because we do not have the option of picking up and moving. It is going to be a poor American agriculture result and I am not talking—I think the big guys are going to figure out a way to do it. We are talking about family farms that are going to be under the real pressure if this treaty goes into effect down the road just a few years.
Mr. CAMPBELL. Thanks, Mr. Kleckner. I take the point. And gentlemen, all, thank you. You raise serious points and I particularly welcome being further informed as the lines of my inquiry suggested.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for your courtesy.
Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Campbell.
We are on a vote. We will continue for a few more minutes.
Mr. Kleckner, I understand Senator Lugar has requested a detailed analysis that the effect of the treaty will have on agriculture. Has that been answered, do you know?
Mr. KLECKNER. No, sir, it has not. To our knowledge, he has gotten no answer.
Chairman GILMAN. I wonder why we are not getting any response. If there are any Administration folks here, I hope that they would make certain that we get that for our Committee as well as for Mr. Lugar.
Mr. Jasinowski, your statement noted that the treaty is based on the poor analysis with over 97 percent of greenhouse gases produced naturally, not by man. The Administration quickly reserved the Bush Administration policy of voluntary measures to combat climate change. Can you review for us the record of voluntary measures that may have been taken?
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Mr. JASINOWSKI. I cannot altogether, Mr. Chairman. I am happy to provide that for the record.
Chairman GILMAN. Would you do that?
Mr. JASINOWSKI. In my testimony, I indicated a number of companies and what they were doing, including BP and others. I would simply say that it is overwhelmingly in the interests of American manufacturing to reduce their energy use and to make efforts to deal with CO2 emissions on a voluntary basis. We have reduced CO2 over the last couple of decades by 1.3 percent per year. That is not all in response to the earlier requirement and I think that we have not done as well as we could and we need to do still better.
Chairman GILMAN. I appreciate that.
All the panelists, 2,500 IPCC scientists predicted a warming of 2 to 6 degrees over the next century and they note that there is already a 1-degree increase. How do you justify the comment that you do not think there is any major impact on global warming?
Mr. JASINOWSKI. Two points, Mr. Chairman. One, I have read that study. In the foreword to the study, there is one sentence which says there are possible impacts from manmade sources. But in the study as a whole, there are a host of caveats and qualifications. That is point No. 1.
Second, if you look at satellite and other data apart from the computer models, you actually see a decline in temperature. So, I think that there is enough evidence to be suggestive of a problem but the notion that it is compelling scientific evidence is not the case.
Chairman GILMAN. Thank you.
Mr. Smith, not long ago in Texas, a Mitsubishi metal plant had organized labor and the local community along with the State government strongly supportive was actually terminated in a town with nearly 10 percent unemployment. The reason was endless licensing delays over clean air and water standards, even though the Japanese emissions control technology was far above the current state-of-the-art. We understand the plant was later built in Japan on an estuary. In fact, all in less time than it took to get the few permits that the plant needed in Texas when the proposed investment was ended. Is this situation helpful as we try to develop well-paying jobs here? Is there some suggestion that you have?
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Mr. SMITH. Mr. Chairman, I am not familiar with the particular plant that you are talking about, but the story is suggestive of a problem that we think we face in this discussion that we have addressed unsuccessfully in our trade negotiations by creating an opportunity for countries to compete by further degrading their environment, by further reducing pay and benefits to workers, by further reducing environmental protection and health and safety protections, we create a perverse incentive to move jobs out of this country or to locate them out of this country.
A climate change treaty that mirrored those perverse incentives by subjecting American industry and American workplaces to a stricter regime, to a ''more difficult to comply with'' regime, than over the border in Matermora or in other Maquiladoras would create an incentive which would mean that story would be told over and over again.
Chairman GILMAN. I am going to have to recess just for a few minutes. One of our Members has gone over to vote and will be right back and we will continue. I have to go to vote, so the Committee stands in recess for a few minutes.
[Recess.]
Mr. BLUNT [presiding]. We are getting some work done today. Most of those trips actually do mean a vote to do something other than adjourn, and so we will get back and get started again.
Mr. Kleckner, would you talk about the impact on the U.S. economy, particularly the agriculture and food segment of it, of a 25-cent gas tax increase?
Mr. KLECKNER. Mr. Chairman, we will get you some figures on that. At the time of the BTU tax issue of 4 or 5 years ago, we had some great studies done and we had individual farmers that wrote in, were writing to their Members of the Senate and to the House, saying, ''This is the way to fix me on my 500-acre farm in Iowa,'' or ''my 2,000-acre wheat farm in Kansas,'' or wherever it was, of the BTU tax.
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Fuel costs, both diesel, which is the predominant fuel that we use on our farms now, gasoline and certainly electricity energy, we are huge users of energy. If you raise that by 25 cents a gallon or 25 percent or 50 percent, you are talking about thousands of dollars per farm. Energy and energy-related costs are either No. 1 or No. 2 in costs on most farms in this country.
A Michigan dairy farmer told me yesterday—his wife told me, she keeps the books on their 450-cow dairy operation—their electric bill for a month is $3,300 on their dairy farm in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. Start adding 25 percent or some figure to that. Now, this was per month, $3,300. And then adding this onto your diesel fuel cost to farm their 1,500 acres that they farm. You would probably be talking in the area of $20 to $30,000 a year increase in costs on that farm and you can just translate this across the country. Total figures for the country, I do not have and we will try and get them for you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. BLUNT. That would be helpful. If you can even put together some projections on agriculture and food figures, that would be good.
Mr. KLECKNER. OK.
Mr. BLUNT. I am sure you are looking at some cost figures, Mr. Jasinowski.
On the WRI study that the Secretary told me he thought was the best study at this point to rely on——
Mr. JASINOWSKI. Right.
Mr. BLUNT [continuing]. did I understand from your testimony, does that presume joint implementation or not?
Mr. JASINOWSKI. It does not. I think it has a scenario that does and one that does not, but in talking at the Committee hearing in the Senate, there was the suggestion that you can reduce the cost enormously if you have joint implementation. We are not going to get joint implementation in the current go-around in the treaty and, as you know, joint implementation is where we help with our technology in some developing country for them to be more energy-efficient and we get credit for that in the scheme associated with reducing greenhouse gases. That is not going to happen.
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If that was in there, that would be one reason for us to be more positive. But it is not.
Mr. BLUNT. And I guess, in terms of your point that the proposed treaty, everybody would agree, would actually increase greenhouse gases and other environmentally dangerous activities is based on the fact that companies essentially move to countries where they do not have the environmental infrastructure. Do you want to expand on that just a little bit?
Mr. JASINOWSKI. Well, yes. What you have is two factors cause increased world air and water pollution and a continued increase of greenhouse gases. In other words, China and India and others become larger and larger contributors of CO2 emission as their populations continue to grow and the countries industrialize.
The second thing is that we are going to, in fact, shift some of our less energy-efficient activities to those countries. We are doing, overall, the best job. That is to say, the industrialized world. Some parts of Europe where they have nuclear power are doing better than us, but we are doing pretty well, too. But what we are going to do is to, in fact, shift our less efficient activities abroad and that is going to increase world pollution.
There is one other thing, Mr. Blunt, on the economics that I think is awfully important and that is, with respect to the WRI study, it assumes, and this was my major point, that these big increases in energy prices do not affect international competitiveness in any major way. In fact, it does because, like with agriculture, as Mr. Kleckner pointed out, the United States is not going to be able to export. You and the Committee should know that in recent years, one third of our GDP growth is from exports. Manufacturing now looks at exports as its most important market, too. If you increase by just a few cents the cost of some production, you will lose the market to it. If you increase prices by 25 percent, you can be very sure that you will lose most of those markets on an export basis at the same time you are having companies shift abroad.
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Mr. BLUNT. We have dramatic export growth, and particularly in agriculture. The margin, as Mr. Kleckner understands, is not very big. It does not take much to eat that margin up.
We very seldom have on the same panel in substantial agreement the AFL–CIO and the National Association of Manufacturers.
Mr. Smith, on that million-job loss, 900,000 to a million jobs lost, are you comfortable with that number if we use that number as a number that would be lost under this treaty?
Mr. SMITH. I think it is the low end of the plausible range.
Mr. BLUNT. You think it is the low end of the range?
Mr. SMITH. The low end of the range.
Mr. BLUNT. What do you think the high end of the range is?
Mr. SMITH. Perhaps twice that. The earlier Administration modeling work that was released a little over a year ago suggested job loss in the 1.7 million range. The difference between the 1996 work and the 1997 work largely has to do with assumptions about the rate of increase in domestic energy efficiency. It is a highly speculative subject. It is plausible, but it is far from certain. So, we could be facing somewhere between 1 and 2 million jobs lost during the implementation period required to stabilize emission levels.
Mr. BLUNT. So, that would be by when? Two million jobs lost, potentially, by the year——
Mr. SMITH. By the middle of the first decade of the next century.
Mr. BLUNT. And, of course, I guess one of your significant points on this would be that the manufacturers may have some other options. The American workforce is here.
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Mr. SMITH. That is right. Like Dean's fields, we do not have the option of moving to Brazil or to India.
Mr. BLUNT. Thank you.
Mr. Hastings.
Mr. HASTINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate, Mr. Blunt, the opportunity to dialog with our witnesses and I thank you all, especially for your clarity. Perhaps I am not going to ask as many questions, but I would like not to be in any way pejorative but to preface any question that I may ask with the following—I, too, am happy that the three organizations that are represented are at the table. I will be happier and will fight for that table to be enlarged and not impaneled that will include the Administration in this dialog, not just in presenting to us, as this format allows for, and your and other organization's similarly situated as well as scientists and environmentalists.
Somewhere along the line, and this is criticism of Congress, we developed over years this habit of being up here and the witnesses down there and the testimony offered and the people that probably could ask the more relevant and germane questions are seated waiting on another panel when an exchange might bring us to some common views. I am hopeful that we will be able to develop that format and I will encourage this Chair, as well as others, from time to time that we do that.
Mr. Kleckner, I want to say something to you because this may come as a little bit of a surprise to you. I do not know how much of my biography is even important to you. But let me give you just a little bit of reference. I represent a district, and I do not like to talk about that because I really represent America, but I do represent a district that grows 50 percent of all of the winter vegetables in the United States of America. I also represent a district that holds within its confines one half of all of the cane sugar that is grown in the United States. I also am the repository of about a quarter of the citrus industry that remains in the State of Florida, not to mention florists and dairies as well. So, while I look like an urban congressman, I do have a rural component and a farm component to my activities.
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For Mr. Jasinowski, I learned the week before last that my district received the highest number of grants from the Federal Government in the small business arena. I represent 95 miles of the I–95 corridor in Florida in addition to that rural portion that I just talked about. I have the third largest number of small businesses. One third of them are manufacturing. Soft industry, mostly biomedical, biotech. Some related to the space industry. But I offer that to show that we are not very far apart.
Of course, Mr. Smith does know my biography and recognizes my strengths and the weaknesses that I have offered in trying to bring people together and I enjoy the support of those who are working men and women in this country and will vigorously pursue their position on a continuing basis.
Having said all of that, I want to talk about the notion of taxes because it gets to be an ''us'' versus ''them'' kind of thing. You see, Mr. Kleckner, I just came back from taking a very hard vote. I voted for tobacco. Later today, I am going to vote for sugar subsidies. And later today, I am going to vote for peanut subsidies. Some people in certain communities think that that is almost absurd for me to do that. What I am saying to you is, I am flexible and what all of us have to do in this debate is be flexible. We have to recognize the strengths of other points of view. It is not an ''us'' versus ''them'' proposition. It is an American proposition and we need to then come to the table fair-minded and as best we can with the cleanest of hands that we can.
I do not notice, in reading your full testimony, a lot of flexibility. It is as if you are right and everybody else is wrong. I am talking to you, Mr. Kleckner, and I am not uptight about that. I am just asking you and the Federation to bend a little bit more and to be receptive to the notion that it is not cockeyed and cockamamie that somebody thinks that global warming a hundred years from now, none of us will be here, but some few of our grandchildren will and somebody has to have a continuing concern about that. If we had taken that view over the long haul that none of us were going to be concerned about the future, then we would still be in the Dark Ages. We cannot do that to ourselves. We are a better country than that.
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Those are taxes that I voted for of yours and mine to go to farmers. Well, farmers have to be mindful that some of their taxes have to go some places that do not always go to farms. I ain't got no farm. You understand what am I saying to you? And I do not own a business. But I am concerned about farmers and businesspersons and working people and the environment and I do not see that as inconsistent. Until such time that we come to the table that way, then we are going to always see it as ''us'' versus ''them.''
Kyoto is just a beginning. It is not the ''end all, be all''. There are going to be a lot of discussions. There are going to be a lot of mistakes. They are going to be made by a lot of people in the future. But it is a necessary beginning and that is all I would argue to and I have extended way beyond my time and did not get to ask a question. I will in the next round. Hopefully, this will open dialog with all of you gentlemen.
Mr. Smith, I know I will see often. I do not know whether I will see you, Mr. Jasinowski, or not. But I, too, am open to being persuaded, as are you. The American Farm Federation had better look out for who some of their new supporters because they are taking a different tack.
Thank you very much.
Mr. KLECKNER. Mr. Hastings, I have been in your district a number of times. I guess what I realize in your district, as I visited farms, both sugar and the citrus and winter vegetables in Florida, you have a great district. I do not know the boundaries of it. I think we are more flexible, perhaps, than you have indicated. You made a great statement, let me say that, and I want to sit down with you some time, come to your office when you have 10 minutes, and let us talk about this.
Chairman GILMAN. I want to thank our panelists for being patient and being here today and giving us the benefit of your thinking.
We will now call our next panel. Thank you, gentlemen.
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Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. JASINOWSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. KLECKNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman GILMAN. We will next hear from Sierra Club's director for global warming, Mr. Daniel Becker. Before joining the Sierra Club, Mr. Becker served with Ralph Nader, on Mark Green's congressional campaign, the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group and Environmental Action. Mr. Becker was also appointed by President Clinton to the Advisory Committee on Personal Motor Vehicle Greenhouse Gas Reductions.
Welcome, Mr. Becker.
In addition, we will hear the World Wildlife Fund's program officer for Climate and Energy, Peter DeBrine. Before joining the World Wildlife Fund, Mr. DeBrine worked for biodiversity support programs.
Welcome, Mr. DeBrine.
Finally, we will hear from the clerk of Dade County, Mr. Harvey Ruvin. Mr. Ruvin will represent local government at the upcoming negotiations in Kyoto and brings a unique local government perspective not normally included in hearings on this topic.
Welcome, Mr. Ruvin.
Gentlemen, you may summarize your prepared statements. Since we are running late and may have to vacate our room, we welcome if you could summarize your statements and put your full statement in the record.
Mr. Becker.
STATEMENT OF MR. DANIEL BECKER, DIRECTOR OF GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY PROGRAM, SIERRA CLUB
Mr. BECKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Members of the Committee.
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I appreciate the opportunity to present Sierra Club's views on behalf of our more than half-million members. I will try to summarize my statement and I have also brought some background materials for inclusion in the record.
Chairman GILMAN. Without objection, we will submit your additional statements if you will identify them for the record.
Mr. BECKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The human race is engaged in the largest and most dangerous experiment in history, an experiment to see what will happen to our health and the health of our planet when we make drastic changes to our climate. It is not part of some deliberate scientific inquiry. It is an uncontrolled experiment on the Earth and we are gambling our children's future on its outcome.
At the outset, let me quote from the chief executive officer, British Petroleum. ''The time to consider the policy dimensions of climate change is not when the link between greenhouse gases and climate change is conclusively proven...but when the possibility cannot be discounted and it is taken seriously by the society of which we are a part. We in BP have reached that point. It is an important moment for us, a moment when analysis demonstrates the need for action and solutions.'' That gives a sense of how much the issue of global warming has evolved.
The energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies we need to curb global warming could be an economic boon to the United States, or they could be an economic boon to our trading competitors in Europe. That all depends on whether we begin now to take the all-important first steps toward curbing global warming.
Over the last hundred years, we have increased the concentrations of key global warming pollutants in our atmosphere. CO2, the primary global warming gas, is up 30 percent. By burning ever increasing quantities of coal, oil and gas, we are literally changing our atmosphere. The results of global warming pollution are already significant. Many regions of the world have warmed by as much as 5 degrees Fahrenheit and physicians at Harvard and Johns Hopkins Medical Schools and others have issued grim assessments that global warming may already be causing the spread of infectious diseases and increasing heat wave deaths.
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Increased flooding, storms and agricultural losses could devastate our economy. Sea level rise threatens to inundate a third of Florida and Louisiana, and entire island nations. If we do not curb global warming pollution, our children and grandchildren will live in a world in which the climate is far less hospitable than it is today.
In summary of what we believe should happen, Sierra Club urges the United States to take a leadership role in curbing global warming. We should take cost-effective domestic measures to curb emissions and we should negotiate an international treaty that will ensure that we protect our children's health and planet from dangerous climate change. We must take the lead by reducing emissions domestically. With only 4 percent of the world's population, as Secretary Wirth said, we emit more than 20 percent of the world's global warming emissions. The following steps will allow us to reduce this pollution:
The biggest single step we can take to curb global warming is to raise the miles per gallon or CAFE standards for our cars and light trucks. We can switch our utilities to cleaner burning fuels like natural gas. We can use renewable energy sources and improve the efficiency of our buildings, industry and homes. We can export energy efficiency and clean technologies to help developing countries develop more cleanly.
We also have to take the lead in negotiating a treaty that will prevent a global warming of more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit. It has to have legally binding targets and timetables. It must result in real pollution reduction. It has to start us down a path of protecting the planet from dangerous climate change by adopting a 20-percent reduction in CO2 emissions below 1990 levels by 2005 as called for by the island nations most at risk of inundation from rising seas.
A disturbing series of climate-related events offers us a taste of what global warming may have in store. The ranges of infectious diseases are spreading. Dengue fever-infected victims in Texas in 1995 and in recent years, malaria has spread to northern States like New York and Michigan.
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Major shifts in temperature are already being felt. The average temperature of the entire planet has risen by 1 degree Fahrenheit. In 1995, after unusual warming in Antarctica, a 22-by-48 mile chunk of Antarctica collapsed. Last year, a second one broke off of similar size. This year, British Antarctic survey scientists discovered huge new crevices indicating that more of the ice shelf may soon fall. Sea levels have risen an average of 4 to 10 inches over the last century, destroying beaches and wetlands around the world and flooding coastal areas. We are experiencing more common and severe floods, storms and summer droughts.
More than 2,500 of the world's leading scientists participating in the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change examined this and other evidence. They concluded that, ''The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.'' They projected that during our children's and grandchildren's lifetimes, global warming will raise the world's average temperature by 2 to 6 degrees Fahrenheit. By comparison, temperatures are only 5 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit warmer today than they were 10,000 years ago at the end of the last Ice Age.
Global warming's effect on human health may be its most serious consequence. The IPCC warns that, ''Climate change is likely to have wide-ranging and mostly adverse effects on human health with significant loss of life.'' The major threats to human health are spreading infectious disease, heat stress, extreme weather events and worsening smog associated with cardiovascular and respiratory disease and premature death.
IPCC scientists conclude that global warming will likely put as much as 65 percent of the world's population at risk of infection, an increase of 20 percent. That is infection of malaria.
The serious health threats global warming poses caused the World Health Organization to conclude that ''a wait and see approach would be imprudent at best and nonsensical at worst.''
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Where does this all come from? Well, global warming is a pollution problem. Gas-guzzling cars and light trucks are major sources of this pollution. That is because, over its lifetime, the average vehicle on the road today will spew 50 tons of carbon dioxide pollution out of its tailpipe.
Global warming pollution also comes from the burning of coal and oil and, to a lesser extent, gas in our power plants.
The good news is we can curb global warming and eventually stop it. But we must act now. We can do this by strengthening the U.S. economy and creating jobs with energy efficiency steps. The key to curbing global warming is energy efficiency. Our cars and light trucks, homes and power plants can all be made much more efficient simply by installing the best current technology.
As much CO2 spews out of the tailpipes of our cars and light trucks as from all sources in all of the entire nation of Japan. The single biggest step we can take to curb global warming is to make our cars and sport utilities go farther on a gallon of gas by raising CAFE standards to 45 miles per gallon for cars and 34 for light trucks. The United States will cut 140 million metric tons—more than any other step we know how to take—per year by doing that. Higher CAFE standards will also save three million barrels of oil a day, cut our dependence upon imported oil, curb our trade deficit, a third of which goes for oil, cut urban smog and save consumers money at the gas pump.
We need to clean up our electric power plants as well. Most electric utilities still use coal to produce electricity, spewing pollution into the air. The part of the problem that we can solve by converting these plants to cleaner natural gas is a major one. We can also improve our home and office buildings and use more energy-efficient lighting and heating and cooling systems in those.
The United States is now already emitting 9 percent more pollution than we were allowed to under the Global Warming Treaty that President Bush signed at Rio in 1992. That is because the Administration's plan being implemented since 1993 relied mostly on asking polluters to reduce their emissions voluntarily. So, we have learned that when it comes to cutting global warming pollution, voluntary measures do not cut it.
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The Administration is seeking to extend its voluntary approach with something that they call joint implementation and trading. I am almost done.
Chairman GILMAN. Let me just mention to the panelists, we are being asked to wind up our hearing by 1:30, so if you could all summarize we would welcome it. Thank you.
Mr. BECKER. About 1
more minute.
I have discussed cost-effective steps that we should take—''we,'' the world—in taking action on global warming. But leading should not include trading away our obligations to other countries with risky pollution trading and joint implementation schemes. These schemes provide polluters with a right to pollute a certain amount and if a polluter wants to emit more, they can buy credit from another polluter, which would promise to emit less. Or it could plant a forest of saplings in Guatemala and say that those saplings will absorb the emissions.
Under some joint implementation proposals, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus would receive credits for what they were emitting in 1990, even though they are emitting far less now. Enforcement and monitoring thousands of these trades would be extremely difficult and sham transactions would be unavoidable.
Steps to reduce greenhouse emissions also reduce smog and acid rain. So, allowing the United States to trade away our greenhouse reductions to other countries will mean more of those pollutants at home.
Deploying technology in the United States will improve our energy efficiency and reduce our reliance on OPIC oil. Making cars get 45 miles per gallon or improving the efficiency of our power plants will not send a single job to China. Not one. In fact, we can create many more jobs by using energy efficiency.
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The time to act to curb global warming is now. Even major oil companies and skeptical scientists are coming around to the need for action. The IPCC scientists tell us that our children and grandchildren are facing a very serious threat. They warn that global warming threatens our health with disease and heat waves, our coasts with rising seas, our agriculture with drought and extreme weather, and our river communities with flooding. We can and must take action to protect our children's future.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Becker appears in the appendix.]
Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Becker.
Mr. DeBrine.
STATEMENT OF MR. PETER DEBRINE, PROGRAM OFFICER FOR CLIMATE AND ENERGY, WORLD WILDLIFE FUND
Mr. DEBRINE. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee. My name is Peter DeBrine and I am the Climate and Energy program officer at the World Wildlife Fund. I appreciate the opportunity to address the Committee and I will limit my statement today to a recently released report by WWF that reviews the current state of scientific knowledge on the impact of global warming on our national parks and protected areas worldwide.
Chairman GILMAN. We will be pleased to put your full statement in the record. Please proceed.
Mr. DEBRINE. Yes, thank you.
Unfortunately, prior commitments prevented the authors from being here today.
Last month, WWF released a report on the climate change impact to the national parks and protected areas worldwide. In the United States, the study was the first time that the threat from global warming to our national parks and protected areas has been reviewed. The resulting report represents a startling picture not just of changes to come but visible changes already in our landscape.
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Alarmingly, many of America's and, indeed, the world's most cherished national areas are clearly feeling the effects of global warming. The beautiful subalpine meadows, wildflower meadows of Mount Rainier National Park and Olympic National Park are being invaded by trees as the temperature warms. Detailed monitoring in Montana's Glacier National Park shows it already lost some of its smaller glaciers during the past 30 years and massive melting has already been recorded for the larger Sperry and Grinnell glaciers. A strong warming trend in the Arctic is leading to the melting of the permafrost that underlies ecosystems in many places including Alaska's Denali National Park.
As a conservation organization, WWF is obviously deeply concerned about the potential impact of climate change on biological diversity. Boreal forests, coastal wetlands, coral reefs and alpine ecosystems will all suffer from global warming, as will many other types of ecosystems and arable lands. There is no doubt that the rate of species extinctions will increase as the climate warms. Rare species, fragmented ecosystems, and areas already suffering from human-induced stresses such as pollution or deforestation will be among the most vulnerable.
Measures to prevent these extinctions are extremely limited and many existing protected areas and national parks will fail to protect species and habitats from the impact of climate change. This means that it is all the more important to take heed of the scientific evidence and predictions to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere ''within a timeframe sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change.''
The climate change threat to America's national parks is repeated in virtually every country in the world. We must not lose our gains in protecting wildlands and wildlife now to misplaced anxieties about the costs of preventing global warming.
I would like to commend the report to the Committee. Please read the report and take heed of the alarm signals it sends. Only strong leadership from the Congress can ensure that an effective agreement is reached at the upcoming Kyoto summit.
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Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. DeBrine appears in the appendix.]
Chairman GILMAN. Thank you very much, and we have the report. We certainly will look it over with a great deal of interest. Thank you, Mr. DeBrine.
Mr. Ruvin.
STATEMENT OF MR. HARVEY RUVIN, METROPOLITAN DADE COUNTY CLERK
Mr. RUVIN. Mr. Chairman, I want to first of all express a very sincere thank you for inviting me to be here today. I am an elected official of Dade County. I have been so for 29 years. I have served as past president of the National Association of Counties and I am very proud of Dade County in a number of ways. I am certainly very proud of the contributions that we have to this Committee on both sides of the aisle. As I gaze up at that beautiful portrait of a dear friend, probably a friendship shared by many of you, Dante Fascell shared this Committee for several years.
Chairman GILMAN. He was highly respected by the Committee and you have sent a good representative, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who spoke very highly of your testimony.
Mr. RUVIN. Thank you very much. She is a dear friend as well, as is Alcee.
I have chaired the Dade County project for CO2 reduction since its inception. I want to tell you a little bit about how that began.
In the early nineties, Dade County, particularly because of our vulnerability which has been referred to a number of times, we are a low-lying coastal community. Frankly, my home is just about at sea level and any rise would mean, for Florida—probably not just South Florida, obviously—but Florida might end up being an island somewhere in Jacksonville. So, there is some real concern of the people in Dade County and when I say ''the people'', I refer to the businesses, both agricultural and manufacturing, that exist there as well. So, we got involved in this project and there were 14 communities—five in the United States and nine others around the world, some in developing countries—that joined together to work for 2 years to develop local action plans because although we are talking at the national and central government level in Kyoto, many of the powers that are needed to put in place the measures that we talked about are vested in local governments.
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It is really local governments that determine the land use functions and zoning functions, what the pattern of settlement is which dictates energy use, which dictates so many things that affect greenhouse gas emissions. They handle solid waste. They handle the whole transportation and public transportation arena, electrical production and use. All of these things are vested at the local level, so we began by working out an action plan that would get us where our commitment was and our commitment was to achieve a 20-percent reduction over 1988 levels by the year 2005. This is not legally binding, but it certainly is something that our county has committed itself to and each year we do an update on that plan. I am going to submit for the record, with your permission, sir, a copy of the plan as well as the most recent update.
Chairman GILMAN. Without objection, that will be made part of the record.
Mr. RUVIN. And what it basically says, not just in Dade County but in the other communities that originally participated in this plan and now several hundred other communities that are receiving a mentoring of those plans to be adapted to their communities and to their needs, in a growing arena and constellation of local governments that are innovative and see real benefits not just in environmental and livability standards, but in an economic sense as well, that it is not rhetoric and it is not theoretical that reductions can, in fact, be achieved without the drastic horror stories that we have heard here today.
I might just comment a little bit about some of those things that I have heard here today because I have heard them in the last 6 months, an intensifying echo which I think basically is one of the most interesting, probably the most insipid diabolic disinformation campaign that I have ever come across. The only comparison that I can make with it is perhaps the tobacco industry in denying the addictiveness of tobacco.
But we see all kinds of misinformation, all kinds of so-called scientific statements being made, which are in real conflict with the peer-reviewed thoroughness of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We hear people talk about, ''Well, it is only 1 percent average.'' When you hear the word ''average,'' you should know that somebody is trying to pull the wool over your eyes. If I told you that I would give you twice the oxygen you need for 1 hour and then no oxygen for 1 hour, you would have a pretty good average but you would not survive. Clearly, that is part of the misleading campaign.
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So, we look at what is going to occur from the emissions level, we are looking merely, when you talk about climate change, you are not talking about just raising the temperature and isolated events. We are talking about extreme weather events.
Now, Dade County has had some experience with extreme weather events and it relates directly to the cost projections that you have heard. We had an extreme weather event referred to as Hurricane Andrew 4 1/2 years ago that had a price tag on it of $20 billion when we look at how many jobs are going to be gained or lost, and I think that is a reasonable discussion here. The Secretary talked about it being a wash in the economy. We have heard other reflections about a million jobs being lost. Has anybody talked about the potential of jobs being lost because of global warming? The potential for the economy is devastating.
The chairman of the Board of Cannon in this week's Harvard Business Review, and he is actually a poster boy for the worldwide global business community, made the clear statement that you cannot have a healthy global economy without a healthy global environment. So, the two are inextricably tied together.
So, in conclusion, let me say that we in local government are going to go to Kyoto to clearly point out that reductions, quantifiable reductions, are not only possible but are, in fact, being achieved right now. But we cannot do it alone. We need the Federal Government to be the leader. We need the United States to fill the void in global leadership, as Congressman Hastings referred to before.
Locally, the Sierra Club just talked a little bit about the need for CAFE standards. When you look at where the emissions are coming from, in Dade County, 45 percent of our emissions come directly from the local sources, from transport. It is clear there that we need to do something about efficiency because we are not going to be able to supplant the use of fossil fuels in automobiles with alternative fuel vehicles without a massive effort in a very short time. I do not see that beginning.
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So, the Dade County Commission some 4 years ago called upon Congress to look at increasing the standards to 45 miles per gallon. I think that is a measure that certainly should be looked at. It is a way for Congress to act to really effectively impact this area.
Chairman, I thank you very, very much for the opportunity and I will submit the other documents I referred to. Again, I just want to accent that there are tremendous countervailing costs here—the costs of not taking action.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ruvin appears in the appendix.]
Chairman GILMAN. I thank our three panelists. Thank you, Mr. Ruvin.
Mr. Hastings.
Mr. HASTINGS. Mr. Chairman, I recognize the time and I will be very brief. I was going to ask of the World Wildlife Federation the question regarding their scoring of the G–7 nations and the United States winding up last and I would be interested in your analysis and if you would submit that to me in writing, I would deeply appreciate it.
As a followup to the comments that were made by my dear friend, Harvey Ruvin, and Mr. Becker, I do not know if we want to learn the lesson of the seventies. But I do know this. Others who learn that lesson will get ahead of us. Honda, for example, and Toyota are particularly about the business of reducing their CAFE standards and, I might add, if they hold to what they say, Toyota Corolla is going to put something out that will have less carbon dioxide emissions by half that will cost under $17,000 a year. They beat us before, they will beat us again.
Thank you very much.
Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Hastings.
To our three panelists, I want to thank them.
Just one question before we wind up, and very briefly, each one of you. What is the most important thing our nation can do to assist in the global climate problem?
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Mr. Becker, just very briefly.
Mr. BECKER. The biggest single step we can take that will save more emissions than anything else is to raise CAFE standards to 45 miles per gallon per car and 34 for light trucks.
Chairman GILMAN. Thank you.
Mr. DeBrine.
Mr. DEBRINE. I think the biggest thing that can happen right now is that every American needs to be educated on what they can do and what industry can do to become more efficient.
Chairman GILMAN. Thank you.
Mr. Ruvin.
Mr. RUVIN. I would echo both of those comments and put them together by saying that education is going to lead us all to see the real light. We stand right now on the cusp of a very precarious future and there are many people, many industries, particularly focusing in the coal and oil lobbies, that would have us trade that future for short-term gains. Do not let them do that.
Chairman GILMAN. Thank you.
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen for any closing comments.
Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Well, thank you so much, Mr. Chairman and on behalf of Mr. Hastings and myself, we would like to thank you again for having Harvey Ruvin as one of our witnesses. He has been a real leader on the environmental front in our communities and has represented our State, a State that cares so much and depends so much on the preservation of our national resources. Certainly, he has represented us well at all of the international forums and I know that he will be going soon to represent our State as well as in the upcoming one.
I wanted to ask you, Harvey, on the local level, how can our local governments throughout the Nation get more active on this issue of climate change? What role is available to them at the local level?
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Mr. RUVIN. Thank you, again, so much for your very kind words and inviting me to be here today to the Chair.
Local governments really are moving forward and are achieving reductions. The most innovative and creative local governments have joined forces. In the United States there are some 62 local governments that are part of an organization called, ''Cities for Climate Protection'', which is constantly holding workshops looking at the transportation, solid waste, land use and other local sectors, including information technology, which is another area—telecommuting and those kinds of things that can help reduce vehicle miles traveled.
We have the models. Those models were developed by 14 communities around the world and are now mentorable across the United States and across the world and I might add that there are local governments in developing nations who are very, very active in these efforts and the trickle-up theory perhaps is relevant here. The local governments sort of take the lead.
Another former great Member of this great body once said that all politics is local and Tip O'Neill knew what he was talking about because when you go home, you hear what it is. Local governments, I think, are going to play out their role here to be an ally to central government to help achieve these reductions. Keep reminding everybody of the great motto of the 20th anniversary celebration of Earth Day, which was to think globally but to act locally.
Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Ruvin, and thank you, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.
Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, Mr. Ruvin, and thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman GILMAN. The Committee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:33 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
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