Wilmington – Earlier this month, I asked the member of my staff who handles environmental and clean air issues to attend an annual climate change conference.  Attended by people from throughout the world, this year’s conference was held in Poland. She accompanied a delegation led by my friend Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) that included staff members from the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, of which I am a member.  Their goal was to show the world that starting in January 2009, the United States is going to get serious about tackling global climate change and clean air, which is particularly important to me. Earlier this week, she shared with me some of what she learned at the conference. Now, I’ve asked her to share her experience with you as well and to talk about our goals moving forward to address climate change in the New Year. Here’s what she has to say.

Senator Carper asked me to go to Poland to attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Poznan to not only observe negotiations, but also to bring a positive message to the rest of the world – that the U.S. will again be a global leader on the issue of climate change.

The UN Climate Change Conference occurs every year as part of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Over 191 countries, including the United States, members of the European Union and China, among others, participate in the Convention. These conferences, like the one held in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, provide a forum for countries to negotiate global efforts to mitigate climate change.

Out of the 1997 meeting, the Kyoto Protocol was developed, which put binding greenhouse gas emission targets on 36 developed countries. Although a good start towards global action on climate change, it did not put binding targets on developing countries like China or India, and was not agreed to by the United States, which is the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter. And in 2012, the Kyoto Protocol expires. That does not give much time for the global community to formulate a new agreement!

At last year’s meeting in Bali, Indonesia, countries agreed to a road map towards a post-2012 Kyoto Protocol. The goals laid out were two-fold: To garner commitments from countries not currently bound by the Kyoto Protocol (including the United States, China and India), and to find common ground that countries could agree on by the 2010 Climate Change Conference.

The meeting I attended in Poznan was meant to lay out the groundwork for tough negotiations ahead and to address important process issues for the upcoming debate. But that means the hard work is left to the incoming Obama Administration - a challenge I know they are ready to tackle.

I was struck by the outside interest in the conference. These meetings not only bring government leaders from around the globe together, but also bring together the world’s leading thinkers on the issue – thousands of people from industry, environmental groups and universities – all converging in one place to discuss solutions to one of our toughest global challenges. I was amazed to learn about all the technologies already in development that will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate climate change. While I saw so many opportunities for our U.S. manufactures and businesses, I was also surprised that many smaller countries far surpass U.S. actions at this time.

I took away from the conference a sense of urgency. The rest of the world is looking to the U.S. for leadership on global climate change and we cannot hang back. In short, what and how we negotiate in Copenhagen in 2010 – and what we bring to the table in terms of binding targets – will absolutely effect how the rest of the world approaches the negotiations. That is why it is vital that Congress start moving on climate change legislation now, in order to give our negotiators direction in future meetings.

Some of you may wonder how this conference and these discussions around climate change impact your life in Delaware. Unfortunately, as a coastal state, Delaware could be greatly impacted by small changes in global temperatures. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that unless global warming is controlled, sea levels will rise by as much as 2 feet over the next 50 years. For island nations and coastlines that could mean entire cities and beaches under water. For Delaware in particular, these rises in sea level could cause the state to be almost completely underwater. In addition to losing our land, a rise in ocean temperatures would dramatically impact the fish and wildlife many Delawareans depend on for survival. Impacts like these will devastate our economy and our way of life.

Since 2002, Senator Carper has been fighting for legislation he wrote to address greenhouse gas emissions from the power utility sector. He also is a strong supporter of the comprehensive climate change legislation that came before the Senate floor in June of this year. In the 111^th Congress, beginning in January, Senator Carper and I will work closely with Chairman Barbara Boxer of the Environmental Public Works Committee and the Obama-Biden Administration to address this issue that is so important to Delaware, to our nation, and to the world.

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