On Monday, U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and 14 of her Senate colleagues, including Majority Leader Harry Reid (D – NV), sent a letter to Yvo de Boer, the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), detailing recent developments in the U.S. Congress aimed at combating climate change.
The letter urged conference participants in Bali to take encouragement from the actions in the U.S. and suggests that the stance presented by the Bush administration will not hold.
The text follows.
Dear Mr. de Boer:
High level ministerial meetings will begin shortly at the United Nations Climate Change Conference that is taking place in Bali, Indonesia. We share your hope that these meetings will produce a roadmap for a new international agreement to curb manmade global climate change. Like you, we believe it is important that the new agreement enter into force before the end of 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol will cease requiring additional reductions in its members’ greenhouse gas emissions.
We feel that forestalling catastrophic global climate change requires the United States to begin emerging now as a leading participant in the post 2012 international effort to reduce global warming pollution worldwide. Fortunately, we can report to you and the conference delegates in Bali that the federal government in Washington is finally moving forward on global warming policy.
On December 5, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee voted to send the Lieberman Warner Climate Security Act to the full Senate for consideration. This historic vote signals a rapidly growing commitment, in Congress and across America, to cap the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions and steadily reduce that cap. The bill has grown stronger at each step of the legislative process, and we look forward to its consideration by the full Senate early next year.
The Congress is also working on an Energy Bill that would make a significant contribution toward reducing the United States’ carbon footprint. Action has also been taken to support the science of climate change in the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee.
The building momentum for strong, effective action on global warming is also supported by progress in the United States outside the federal government. From coast to coast, U.S. cities, states and counties are adopting aggressive goals and plans for dealing with their own greenhouse emissions. Coalitions of America’s largest corporations are calling for mandatory cuts and a program to put a market price on carbon emissions. And diverse constituencies from municipal officials to public health experts to religious leaders are calling on the federal government to act now.
As the participants in the Bali discussions consider the future of the global effort to avoid dangerous climate change, we urge you all to take encouragement from these recent developments in our country. Change is happening now, and even bigger changes are on the horizon.
Sincerely,
HARRY REID
BARBARA BOXER
JOSEPH LIEBERMAN
JOHN KERRY
JOSEPH BIDEN
CHRISTOPHER DODD
JEFF BINGAMAN
BILL NELSON
FRANK LAUTENBERG
JACK REED
BERNARD SANDERS
AMY KLOBUCHAR
BENJAMIN CARDIN
SHERROD BROWN (CHUCK SCHUMER
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