Press Releases
Brendan Daly/Nadeam Elshami
202-226-7616
09/24/2007
Pelosi, Reid Call on Bush to Support Mandatory Limits on Greenhouse Gases
“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
Dear Mr. President:
On Thursday and Friday, representatives of the world’s
largest greenhouse gas emitting nations will meet in
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
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
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
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
Speaker of the House