“While the language the Senate unveiled today contains some
improvements over the House bill, it fails to commit the US to
meaningful, science-based greenhouse gas emissions reductions
needed to protect us from runaway climate change. This proposal
meets neither the needs of science nor those of the international
community, which is currently negotiating the landmark climate
treaty.
“This proposal comes as climate science increasingly suggests
that global warming is advancing even more quickly and more broadly
than predicted. A UN report released just last week projects the
planet is on track to warm beyond 2 degrees Celsius, a threshold
climate scientists say would create an unacceptable risk for a
global climate catastrophe. Despite this urgency, the legislation
only proposes to cut emissions by 7 percent below 1990 levels by
2020 while the Nobel Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change indicates that developed countries must cut
emissions at least 25% – 40% under 1990 levels by 2020.
“The threat of runaway global warming has prompted countries
such as Japan, India, Indonesia and China to commit to increasingly
ambitious emissions reductions in recent weeks. The Alliance of
Small Island States (AOSIS), low-lying island nations whose very
existence is threatened by sea level rise, urged world leaders last
week to preserve their countries’ livelihood and survival by
ensuring that global temperatures be kept as far below 1.5 degrees
Celsius as possible.
“For years there has been scientific consensus on the perils of
global warming. Now there is increasingly international political
consensus on the need for bold, immediate, and coordinated action
by world leaders. Unfortunately, what is still missing is a plan
from the U.S. that matches our historic responsibility to address
the crisis and the scale of the threat we all face. With the
deadline for action at the Copenhagen Climate Summit fast
approaching, we urge President Obama to assume leadership for
global warming policy and to commit to negotiate a fair, ambitious
and binding treaty in line with the science and not the demands of
the fossil fuel industry.”
CONTACTS: Damon Moglen, Greenpeace USA global warming campaign
director, 202-352- 4223; Joe
Smyth, Media Officer, 831-566-5647
###
Notes: Unlike the standard 1990 baseline used by scientists and policymakers around the world, the draft Senate bill uses a 2005 baseline to measure emissions reductions. To avoid the worst impacts of global warming, scientists have established that the United States and other developed nations together must achieve emission cuts of at least 25-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and 80-95 percent by 2050. Using the 2005 baseline of the Senate legislation, needed emission reductions should be 35-48% by 2020.
The United Nations Environment Program on September 24 released a Climate Change Science Compendium review of the latest climate science since the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report in 2007: http://www.unep.org/compendium2009/
Greenpeace, with a coalition of six NGO’s and a group of 47 NGO experts from around the world, has written the Copenhagen Treaty – a blueprint for what we want to see world leaders agree when they meet at the Climate Summit in Copenhagen in December. http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/international/press/reports/ngo-copenhagen-treaty-legal.pdf
Greenpeace’s Energy [R]evolution is a practical blueprint for how the US and the world can cut emissions, phase out nuclear power, save money, create jobs and maintain global economic development without fueling catastrophic global warming. https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/press-center/reports4/energy-r-evolution-a-sustain
