Transcript
NIGEL PURVIS: Let me turn now to the policy context that brings us here today. "The report of my death was an exaggeration," Samuel Clemens's famously wrote. So was the Bush administration's 2001 obituary for the Kyoto Protocol on Global Warming, which, after seven years in critical condition, enters into force on February 16th, albeit without the United States. Kyoto will be a reality, but its legacy will be uncertain. Our aim today is to avoid past debates about whether Kyoto is fatally flawed in fundamental ways. Instead, we intend to look forward, examining lessons from the Kyoto process for the future, reflecting on Kyoto's implications for the United States and its foreign policy, exploring new ideas on American leadership on global warming.
Perhaps Kyoto's entry into force demonstrates that other nations are proceeding over America's objections, defining international aspects of the agenda without us. The Bush administration's refusal to refusal to reduce emissions at home or offer an alternative international blueprint may have contributed to a false caricature of the United States as a nation that rejects international cooperation and ignores global challenges. For several years, the Senate has called on the Bush administration to re-engage in international climate talks. While Kyoto remains controversial, perhaps the need for new ideas in the United States is less so.
At the same time, Kyoto's entry into force obscures temporarily the poor health of the Kyoto negotiating process. Few nations are prepared to extend Kyoto's system of legally binding greenhouse gas emission targets beyond 2012, when they expire. Moreover, neither Japan nor, to a lesser extent, Europe are on track to meet their Kyoto commitments and many other nations seem reluctant to act in the Kyoto mode.
Like Washington's cicadas, Kyoto's took years to hatch, received enormous attention, and may, as things stand today, be short-lived. Answers are needed now about what will follow Kyoto. A new international arrangement could take years to finalize, and advance planning would greatly reduce the cost of action. In Buenos Aires two months ago, diplomats agreed for the first time to begin later this year discussing post-2012 options. Other nations stand ready to give any new American ideas a fair hearing. Regrettably, so far the Bush administration has no concrete objectives for those talks. But fault lies also with the progressive community that seems unwilling to consider alternative approaches outside of the Kyoto framework, approaches that might stand a better chance of bringing China and India on board. Fortunately, there is a growing agreement in the United States that our nation can and should forge a bipartisan approach on climate change.
No consensus exists yet, but that's why our talks today hold such promise. We will hear from two of the Senate's most knowledgeable leaders on global warming as well as from four former climate change negotiators. A more distinguished group of speakers on this topic is difficult to imagine. Samuel Clemens also said, "A great, great deal has been said about the weather but very little has ever been done about it." That's true of global warming as well. We have an opportunity today to consider how the United States can help break that pattern.
Remarks made by Senator Chuck Hagel and Senator John Kerry (PDF—94kb)
Panel discussion (PDF—161kb)