WASHINGTON, Sept, 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In advance of a global
warming conference this week, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority
Leader Harry Reid released the following letter to President Bush today,
calling on him to announce his support for mandatory national and
international limits on the pollution that causes global warming.
"Our legacy to the many generations that will follow us will depend
upon how we handle the climate crisis and whether as a nation and as a
world community we can take real action in time to avoid the worst effects
of global warming," Pelosi and Reid wrote.
Below is the text of the letter:
September 24, 2007
The President
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Mr. President:
On Thursday and Friday, representatives of the world's largest
greenhouse gas emitting nations will meet in Washington at your invitation
to discuss their roles in combating global warming. We call upon you to use
this occasion to announce your support for mandatory national and
international limits on the pollution that causes global warming.
The overwhelming body of scientific evidence, including the
authoritative work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
clearly demonstrates that human industrial activity is the major cause of
the global warming now occurring. Climate change is already having profound
effects on human and biological systems; to avoid catastrophic climate
impacts, we must start cutting global warming pollution immediately. A
further increase of approximately two degrees Fahrenheit above today's
global average temperature will risk triggering the eventual loss of major
ice sheets and sea level rise affecting hundreds of millions of people.
To stay below this two-degree threshold, we need to reduce worldwide
emissions by at least 50 percent by the middle of this century. The U.S.
and the world's other developed countries, which are responsible for most
of the carbon dioxide now in the atmosphere and have the greatest
technological capability, will need to achieve reductions on the order of
60 to 80 percent.
The world is coming to a crossroads. Most of the countries represented
at the Major Emitters Meeting - as well as most countries that will not be
present - are working under the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol to reach agreement on legally-binding
emission limits for industrialized countries and on measures to achieve
greater emission reductions from emerging economies under a robust,
expanded carbon market. Such a system can provide us with a fair chance of
staving off catastrophic warming, while supporting sustainable development
and adaptation for all countries.
Your Administration has been pursuing an alternative approach based on
purely aspirational targets and non-binding pledges of national action, as
was evident at the recent summit of Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation
(APEC) countries. This voluntary approach, Mr. President, cannot succeed in
staving off catastrophic climate change impacts. If we are to preserve our
world as it exists today, we must take effective action now, both here at
home and in cooperation with other nations. We ask for your support of the
mandatory measures included in the energy bills passed by the Senate and
the House of Representatives which, when enacted, will be a down-payment on
preventing global warming. An effective domestic program, however, requires
mandatory, market-based global warming legislation covering the full
spectrum of U.S. emissions, and we ask you to join us in enacting such
legislation in this Congress.
Likewise, an effective international regime must be based on mandatory
limits for developed nations and creation of a global carbon market that
enables enhanced participation by large developing nations. As your
Administration acknowledges, we have had 20 years of success under the
Montreal Protocol, the highly acclaimed treaty to protect the ozone layer.
The history of the ozone treaty demonstrates that we can successfully
construct a binding global regime under which developed countries take the
lead and developing countries follow. The ozone treaty averted a genuine
global catastrophe. Now we must do the same to stop global warming. We urge
you to embrace this effective model in lieu of voluntary approaches that
will not work.
Finally, we ask for your commitment that the Washington meeting will
not start a separate process competing with negotiations under the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, to which the U.S. is a
party, and which is the world's recognized forum for hammering out the
international response to global warming. It is particularly important to
recognize that the most vulnerable nations, which will be hit hardest by
global warming, are not represented at the major emitters meeting.
Our legacy to the many generations that will follow us will depend upon
how we handle the climate crisis and whether as a nation and as a world
community we can take real action in time to avoid the worst effects of
global warming. We look forward to your response.
Sincerely,
HARRY REID -- Senate Majority Leader
NANCY PELOSI -- Speaker of the House
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SOURCE Office of the Speaker of the House and Office of the
Senate Majority
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CONTACT:
Brendan Daly and Nadeam Elshami of the Office
of the Speaker of the House, +1-202-226-7616; Jim Manley or
Rodell Mollineau of the Office of the Senate Majority Leader,
+1-202-224-2939
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