Mr. AKAKA: Mr. President, climate change is a topic that is very important to Hawaii, Pacific islands, and coastal states in general. I have served on the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources since I joined the Senate in 1990. The Committee has held hearings on global change almost every year since then, regardless of which party held the majority. It has become clear that an omnibus energy bill must address the production of carbon dioxide and methane, the two most prominent greenhouse gases, because 98 percent of carbon dioxide emissions are energy-related.
For more than 20 years the National Research Council, the International Panel on Climate Change, and Federal agencies, including the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Department of Energy, have been investigating climate change to broaden the scope of our understanding of the interactions of the oceans and the atmosphere, and the modeling of terrestrial and coastal impacts of climate change. Fifteen years ago, scientists were uncertain about the effects of global warming. Today, nearly 95 percent of scientists say that global warming is a certainty.
Most recently, the national academies of science of 11 nations joined together in a Joint Science Academies statement on the need for a global response to climate change. Among the prestigious scientific bodies signing the statement was our nation's National Academy of Sciences, the Chinese and Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Science Council of Japan. The signatories urged all nations to take prompt action to reduce the causes of climate change and ensure that the issue is included in all relevant national and international strategies.
I believe that the relatively small cost of taking action now is a much wiser course of action than forcing States and counties to bear the costs of severe hurricanes and typhoons, and replacement of bridges, roads, seawalls and port and harbor infrastructure. In my part of the world climate change will result in a phenomenon that strikes fear in the hearts of many island communities. This phenomenon is sea level rise. Sea level rise, storm surge, shoreline degradation, saltwater intrusion into wells, and increasing flooding will impose very high costs on island and coastal communities, but these costs, which are real and are happening already, are not being addressed.
Mr. President, I would like to describe some disturbing recent information that relates to sea level rise. Scientists at the 2004 Climate Variability and Predictability program, also known as CLIVAR, under the auspices of the World Climate Research Programme, have offered evidence that global warming could result in a melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet much more rapidly than expected.
The World Climate Research Programme is an international group of renown scientists that focuses on describing and understanding variability and change of the physical climate system on time scales from months to centuries and beyond. The research has important implications for islands and low-lying areas and communities worldwide, from native communities in Alaska along the shores of the Bering Sea, to the Pacific nations of low-lying atolls, to the bayous of Louisiana and the delta regions in Bangladesh.
Using the latest satellite and paleoclimate data from ice cores of the Greenland Ice Sheet, the world's largest ice sheet, studies indicate that the last time the ice sheet melted entirely was when the temperature was only three degrees Celsius higher than it is today. At first this puzzled scientists because it didn't seem that such a modest temperature rise could melt so much ice.
However, recent expeditions have revealed large pools of standing water which feed enormous cracks in the ice sheet, over a mile deep. Scientists believe the water falls down the cracks all the way to the bottom of the ice sheet and could easily enable the glacier to slide more rapidly into the sea. They believe the ice sheet could break up at a much lower temperature than previously thought. Current projections for warming due to greenhouse gases indicate that our temperature could rise three degrees Celsius in less than 100 years, almost guaranteeing the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet.
Complete melting of the ice sheet would result in a six meter, or about 18-foot, sea level rise, inundating many coastal cities and causing small islands to disappear. The effects are expected to be felt in high-latitude regions earlier than others. In 2004, the Senate had field hearings in Alaska, where native villages are experiencing the effects of sea level rise. Continental ice sheets, or their disappearance, are driving sea level change. It is time to connect the dots with respect to global warming.
I am particularly concerned for islands in the Pacific. There are changes in our islands that can only be explained by global phenomena such as the buildup of carbon dioxide. Globally, sea level has increased six to fourteen inches in the last century and it is likely to rise another 17 to 25 inches by 2100. This would be a one- to two-foot rise. You can imagine what this might mean to port operators, shoreline property owners, tourists and residents who use Hawaii's beautiful beaches, and to island nations and territories in the Pacific whose highest elevation is between three and 100 meters above sea level. A typhoon or hurricane would be devastating to communities on these islands, not to mention the low-lying coastal wetlands of the continental United States.
I am alarmed by changes in Hawaii. The sandy beaches of Oahu and Maui are eroding. In addition, we have lost a small atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands is an archipelago of atolls, shoals and coral reefs that are a two-day boat trip or four-hour plane flight from Honolulu. They are known to be one of the most pristine atoll and coral reef ecosystems left in the world and are currently in protected status as a marine reserve.
Whale-Skate island at French Frigate Shoals was an island with vegetation and thousands of seabirds nesting on it. It was a nesting area for sea turtles, and many Hawaiian Monk seals pupped there, according to a wildlife biologist who wrote her thesis on French Frigate Shoals. Today, it is all water except for one-tenth of an acre. The 17 acres of habitat for Monk seal pups, nesting birds and turtles that has been there since the turn of the century, is virtually gone. Although atolls and shoals can lose their land area from seasonal storms and erosion, this one is almost entirely gone and has been "downgraded" from an island to a "part-time sand spit." Similar fates face communities located on low-lying Pacific islands.
The residents of the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu are considering relocation from their homes. Rising sea level has turned their wells salty and filled their crop-growing agricultural areas with sea water. The impacts of even a relatively small sea level rise on Pacific nations and atolls, some with maximum elevations which are less than ten feet above sea level, can be severe. In the Pacific, cultural activities are interwoven with the conservation of the environment. These traditions in the past allowed the survival of dense populations on small land areas. Today, the global issue of climate change extends beyond our borders and threatens the livelihoods of these nations. Climate change is an important challenge and high priority for immediate action in the Pacific.
Mr. President, we must take a first, cautious step to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. If we fail to address the issue of climate change now, the U.S. may have to face catastrophic and expensive consequences. A relatively small investment today is far wiser than spending vast amounts in the future to replace destroyed homes and infrastructure, restore altered ecosystems, and reinvest in collapsed agricultural and fisheries industries. Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology conducted a study that analyzed the proposed costs of the Lieberman-McCain amendment and estimated the cost to be less than $20 per household per year. The Energy Information Administration, part of the Department of Energy, estimates the loss in consumption to be around $40 to $50 per household per year in 2010. The analysis also shows that the impact on real gross domestic product to be minimal, that is, not changing it from the baseline reference. The European Union (EU) has adopted a mandatory cap and trade program with a carbon dioxide reduction target of eight percent by the year 2012. The compliance costs of the EU greenhouse gas reduction program are expected to total less than 0.1 percent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The EU predicts a minimal effect on their economic growth even under a rigorous approach.
The United States has the technological capabilities and intellectual resources to lead the world in an effort to reduce future greenhouse gas emissions. Mr. President, I thank Senators Lieberman and McCain for recognizing the importance of climate change and taking the lead on legislation to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions in the 108th Congress and this Congress. I also greatly respect the amendment developed by the Ranking Member of the Energy Committee, Senator Bingaman, in cooperation with the National Commission on Energy Policy. Both of these amendments demonstrate to the nation and the international community our serious commitment to move on carbon emissions.
Mr. President, it is clear that piecemeal, voluntary approaches have failed to reduce the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Now is the time to send a strong message that the U.S. is serious about the impacts of climate change. A policy of inaction on climate change is not acceptable and will cost the United States more than preventive policies. I firmly believe that we can have economic growth while protecting coastal communities in the Pacific, Gulf of Mexico, Alaska, Louisiana, and other low-lying, vulnerable, coastal areas.
It is time to reduce carbon emissions. For the last five years we have debated how to do it using market mechanisms, through trading systems that capture the value of allowances, credits, or permits, and generate revenue through auctions. Many industries have already accepted this challenge and most, including utility giant American Electric Power Company, according to a 2004 Business Week article, have seen cost savings and business benefits. The Pew Foundation for Global Climate Change reports that most industries have been able to meet their self-imposed goals through efficiencies alone, without requiring heavy capital investment. This is an opportunity to unleash the talent of businesses, engineers, and the nation's entrepreneurial spirit to create efficiencies in fuel processing and to develop carbon-limited fuels.
Mr. President, the time to act on carbon dioxide is now. The McCain-Lieberman amendment is a step forward and a symbol of the nation's commitment to the world to reduce our carbon emissions. The amendment uses markets to determine how to manage specific emission reductions, a positive combination of bipartisan policy principles to establish a mechanism that will benefit the nations around the world. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.
Mr. President, I request that my full statement be printed in the Record.
