U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change
Floor Speech
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Mr. MARKEY. I thank Bishop Carper--I mean Senator Carper as I continue preaching to the choir. There is no one who does it better than you do, and we have to continue to do this insistently, persistently, and constantly to make sure this message is heard. We thank you for all of your great leadership, Senator Carper.
Senator Merkley will be joining us out here on the floor. We have so many other Members who are completely committed to this issue. It is absolutely essential that we make progress in 2019 and 2020 on this issue.
We are speaking on the floor today about the just-concluded international climate negotiations in Poland--also called COP24. That means conference of parties. That means every nation on Earth. Twenty- four. The 24 times that every nation on Earth met to preserve the Earth, to make sure that this great gift God gave us is, in fact, passed on better than we found it and not potentially at great risk because we did not act.
Unfortunately, given the focus of the Trump administration at the climate conference, you could say that we are here on the Senate floor not for a colloquy but for ``coal-oquy''--a discussion about the role of coal in our society.
In a shameful moment for our country in the history of international climate negotiations, the United States formed a gaslighting group with Kuwait, Russia, and Saudi Arabia to downplay the findings on climate change while at the talks in Poland.
Despite the fact that in the IPCC's special report--the U.N.'s special report--on 1.5 degrees Celsius, the world's scientists tell us that coal without carbon capture must be completely eliminated as a source of power by the year 2050, the United States, unfortunately, held an official event celebrating dirty fossil fuels, with no solution to the problem.
That is the Trump administration. President Trump, I think, got his degree in climate science from Trump University, and the diplomas were handed out by the Koch brothers. This is the problem. It is not the coal miners. We have to make sure that we take care of the coal miners. We have to make sure that they get the healthcare they need, the pensions they need.
There is a revolution going on. It is a renewables revolution, and it is an all-electric vehicle revolution. This administration has been trying as hard as it can to stop it, to slow it down, even as the planet gets dangerously warm.
Fortunately, for the planet, the international community set the rules of the road for implementing the Paris climate agreement despite the misinformation being peddled by the Trump administration. The global community was in agreement in its belief in the science of climate. Now we have a new rule book based on the international consensus for making progress toward the goals outlined in the Paris climate agreement.
What happened in Poland was an important milestone for the planet. When Donald Trump announced that the United States would withdraw from the Paris Agreement, he defied the wishes of the majority of Americans and of many of our biggest business leaders because they know that being a part of the Paris Agreement makes America more competitive. It will create new jobs, open up new markets, catalyze economic growth, and reduce business risks. The Trump administration's decision to pull the United States from the Paris accord continues to be a grave, unforced error that will have massive implications for our economy, for our security, for our public health, and for our future.
The new Conference of the Parties' rule book--the new meeting of every country in the world--makes the Paris Agreement stronger than ever, but the United States wants the rules to simply allow us to sit out the game. By the ``United States,'' I mean the Trump administration, representing the Federal Government. Yet it doesn't represent the people. It doesn't represent the States. It doesn't represent the cities. It doesn't represent all of the businesses in our country that are moving on renewables, that are moving on this dramatic change.
Recently released scientific studies make clear that as one of the world's greatest polluters, the United States cannot sit on the sidelines. You cannot preach temperance from a bar stool. You cannot tell the rest of the world to do something while you yourself are allowing all of these emissions to go up into the atmosphere. Of the 17 hottest years on record, 16 have occurred since the year 2000. At the rate we are warming, the world is on course to breach 1.5-degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels by the year 2030.
The National Climate Assessment warns that the Northeast will warm faster than any other region in the United States, breaching 2-degrees of warming above preindustrial levels of 2035. In other words, the Gulf of Maine--Massachusetts Bay--is the second fastest warming body of water on the planet after the Arctic. That is dangerous. What it means is that we could have a total loss of coral reefs, the doubling in loss of plant and animal species, a loss of up to one-tenth of U.S. GDP-- more than double the losses of the great recession by 2100.
Senator Carper already laid all of this out in graphic detail for the Members to see and for the American people to see. When asked about the conclusions from his own administration's scientists on climate change, President Trump said: I don't believe my own scientists on climate action.
The world no longer sees the American President as Commander in Chief; it sees a climate denier in chief sitting in the Oval Office.
Thankfully, America's climate scientists are fighting for us. The world's scientists are fighting for us, and we must fight for them. We must fight efforts to censor their research. We must fight the efforts to ax their budgets. We must fight for them because the work they do is essential to our planet's future.
One only has to look at the litany of sins perpetrated by the Trump administration on climate science and climate action to see how big of a fight we have. The list of this administration's efforts to weaken climate action, public health, and environmental rules is so long that Senator Whitehouse and I had to publish a report to capture all of the ways Donald Trump has already come to lead ``The Most Anti-Climate Administration in History.''
This is the report. It just goes on. It is page after page of actions that the administration has taken to undermine the progress we should be making on climate. We just issued this report this week. There are more than 114 climate actions that President Trump and his Big Oil all- star team, at the Cabinet level in this administration, have put in place. That has been, literally, one attack per week over the past 2 years.
During his tenure, President Trump nominated Andrew Wheeler, a member of the coal industry's hall of fame, to run the Agency that is tasked with protecting our environment. He has moved to freeze fuel economy standards at 2020 levels rather than pushing for the economically and technologically achievable goal of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. While in the White House, the President, day by day, tries his best to make sure that no progress is made.
Here is what I know. We went all the way from 1975 until 2007 with no new law being passed on fuel economy standards. In the House and in partnering with Members over here in the Senate, I was able to pass the increase in 2007 for fuel economy standards. That was the first increase in 32 years. President Trump has proposed a clean powerplant replacement that would kill 1,400 more Americans every year and emit 12 times more carbon dioxide. This list goes on and on. The only thing longer than the list of anti-climate and environmental actions taken by the Trump administration might be the number of investigations of the Trump administration.
Unfortunately, in the absence of leadership from Trump's Federal agencies, people wonder what is happening. Is there a reason for hope? The answer is yes. Our towns, our cities, our States haven't missed a step. There are 22 States, 550 cities, and 900 companies with operations in the United States that have climate commitments in place. These pledgers could get us within striking distance of our original commitment in the Paris climate agreement.
After the Waxman-Markey bill passed on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives and when President Obama went to Copenhagen, the promise he made was the 17-percent reduction by 2020, which was in the Waxman-Markey bill. That is the pledge, that 17 percent in the Waxman- Markey bill. We are still capable of coming very close to that, but we know that even the U.S. commitment in Paris of up to 28 percent in the years after that would be insufficient to limit the warming to 1.5 degrees by midcentury, so we need to be thinking beyond that.
We need to get to net zero emissions by 2050. To get there, we will need to take unprecedented action. We need to supercharge our investments in a clean energy economy, and we need to do that at the Federal level. Globally, we need to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. We need to invest in energy efficiency solutions to reduce the total energy demand by one-third. We need to transform our transportation system because as much as 65 percent of energy used in transportation will need to come from low-emission sources. At the same time, in the power sector, we need at least 75 percent of our electricity to come from clean sources by 2050.
Getting there will not be easy, but we have the technologies that are necessary for this to be possible. We have the momentum in the markets to get renewable energy to every corner of this country. We are ushering our power sector into a clean energy future that is good for our environment and good for our economy, as Senator Carper said. In the early 2020s, it could be cheaper to build new renewables from scratch than to continue operating old, dirty, coal-fired power plants. That is not a conspiracy; that is called competition.
Adam Smith is smiling in his grave, looking at this competition unfold. The cost of solar has fallen 50 to 60 percent over the last 5 to 6 years. In fact, wind and solar are generally cheaper than coal and nuclear energy right now. That is not just happening here. Half of all electricity installed around the world last year was renewable. Let me say it again. Last year, half of all new electricity on the planet was renewable. Renewable energy deployment around the world has increased by 8 percent a year for 7 years in a row, and there is no likelihood that it is going to change.
Globally, more than 330 billion dollars was invested in clean energy just last year. This is a global clean energy race. It is a global job creation race, and we cannot let nations like China and India and others win that race. We have to push ourselves harder. Right now, we have more than 50,000 megawatts installed in the United States. By the end of 2022, we could have over 250,000 megawatts of wind and solar installed if we would just continue at the pace on which we are right now and don't allow Donald Trump and his cronies to roll back those advances.
We now have five times as many workers in the solar industry as we do in coal mining in the United States. In 2016, we added as many jobs in the solar industry as exist in the coal mining industry. By 2020, we will have 500,000 Americans working in wind and solar. Who are these workers? They are electricians. They are roofers. They are carpenters. They are blue-collar workers all across this country. We have unleashed a blue-collar job revolution in this country. There are hundreds of thousands of people working in it with there being a direct assault from the White House going against those workers every single day. Blue-collar workers are workers who, right now, are five times larger in number than are the coal miners in our country. It will be machinists to build advanced fuel-efficient vehicles. It will be American electricians retrofitting energy-efficient buildings. It will be American roofers installing solar panels. Clean energy is the greatest force for blue-collar, high-wage job creation in a generation.
While we have a responsibility to protect the livelihoods of the millions of Americans who work in energy efficiency, clean energy, clean vehicles, and clean fuels, we need to make sure that those working in fossil fuel industries are supported throughout this clean energy transition.
I thank Senator Merkley. I thank Senator Carper. I thank all of the Members who have worked on these issues that move us toward a 100- percent renewable future. We need a green new deal for our country. Now we just have to exert the political will to make it a reality.
I thank everyone for all of their work on this issue. In 2019, we are going to raise every one of these climate issues in the context of a massive job creation effort. We are going to save all of creation by engaging in massive blue-collar job creation in our country.
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