Hillary Clinton has a "Harrison Ford moment"

Hillary Clinton’s Remarks at Major Economies Forum on Energy, Climate - April 27, 2009 (America.gov)

Climate change is issue for health, economics, energy, security

Well, I’m delighted to welcome all of you to the State Department for this very consequential meeting. As I look around the table, I think I have met in bilateral forums with all of the countries here, if not in multilateral forums, over the last nearly 100 days. And at each and every one of those meetings, global warming, climate change, clean energy, a low-carbon future has been part of our discussions. And I’m very pleased to welcome the personal representatives of 17 major economies, the United Nations, and observer nations to this first preparatory meeting of the major economies on energy and climate.

I think it’s significant that this discussion is taking place here at the State Department, because the crisis of climate change exists at the nexus of diplomacy, national security and development. It is an environmental issue, a health issue, an economic issue, an energy issue, and a security issue. It is a threat that is global in scope, but also local and national in impact. I’m delighted that our Special Envoy for Climate Change, Todd Stern, will be working with you, as will Mike Froman, who sits at that nexus in the White House between the National Security Council and the National Economic Council.

You know the details or you would not be here. There is much going on in the world today that challenges us, and it is remarkable that each of your nations has committed to this because we know that climate change threatens lives and livelihoods. Desertification and rising sea levels generate increased competition for food, water and resources. But we also have seen increasingly the dangers that these transpose to the stability of societies and governments. We see how this can breed conflict, unrest and forced migration. So no issue we face today has broader long-term consequences or greater potential to alter the world for future generations.

So this morning, I would like to underscore four main points. First, the science is unambiguous and the logic that flows from it is inescapable. Climate change is a clear and present danger to our world that demands immediate attention. Second, the United States is fully engaged and ready to lead and determined to make up for lost time, both at home and abroad. The President and his entire Administration are committed to addressing this issue and we will act.

Third, the economies represented here today have a special responsibility to pull together and work toward a successful outcome of the UN climate negotiations later in the year in Copenhagen, and I’m delighted that Denmark could join us because they are going to host this very important meeting. And the Major Economies Forum provides a vehicle to help us get prepared to be successful at that meeting.

And fourth, all of us participating today must cooperate in developing meaningful proposals to move the process forward. New policy and new technologies are needed to resolve this crisis, and they won’t materialize by themselves. They will happen because we will set forth an action plan in individual countries, in regions, and globally. It took a lot of work by a lot of people to create the problem of climate change over the last centuries. And it will take our very best efforts to counter it.

First, I want for the American audience principally, but also for international audiences, to underscore what I said here just a few weeks ago when we had the meeting of the Antarctic consultative group. Some of the countries were represented here. The science is conclusive. The evidence and impact is getting more dramatic every year. Facts on the ground are outstripping worst-case scenario models that were developed only a few years ago. Ice sheets are shrinking. Sea levels are rising. Oceans are becoming more acidic, threatening coral and other life forms. So the imperative is clear. We are called to act, and future generations will judge us as to whether we do or not.

Second, the United States is no longer absent without leave. President Obama and I and our Administration are making climate change a central focus of our foreign policy. We are, as Todd has often said, back in the game. We don’t doubt the urgency or the magnitude of the problem. This forum is not intended to divert attention from working towards solutions, but to assist us in creating those solutions. And we are moving quickly. On April 17th, in a decisive break with past policy, our Environmental Protection Agency announced its finding, that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions threaten public health and welfare. This move will open the door for more robust tailpipe emission regulations.

President Obama has proposed a broad, market-based cap on carbon pollution that would include a mandatory national target through the year 2050, when emissions would be cut by 80 percent. A market-based cap will encourage game-changing private investments in clean energy and improvements in efficiency, streamlining our regulatory process, stimulating new jobs and growth, and setting us on the road to a low-carbon economy. We, with our stimulus package of just a few months ago and our continuing emphasis will make significant, direct investments in clean energy technology and energy efficiency. And our EPA is paving the way for more stringent auto emission standards.

Now, we are well aware that some see the economic crisis as an excuse to delay action. We see it in an exactly opposite way, as an opportunity to move toward a low carbon future. So we work on that internally and we look forward to working with all of you.

We believe that the $80 billion in President Obama’s recovering plan, which includes funding and loans for clean energy development, targets to double our country’s supply of renewable energy over the next three years. And we also are working very hard on programs to make homes and buildings more energy efficient. We think this is something that all countries can do in this immediate economic crisis to make this a green recovery, and some of you are far ahead in doing that. We are also reengaged in the UN framework convention negotiations and looking forward to working throughout this year.

Third, as major economies, we are responsible for the majority of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. We may be at different stages of development and we certainly may have different causes of the emissions that we are responsible for, but we think coming together and working to address this crisis is comparable to the G-20 nations addressing the global economic crisis. That is why I want to assure you that the United States will work tirelessly toward a successful outcome of the UN Framework Convention negotiations.

There is no sense in negotiating an agreement if it will have no practical impact in reducing emissions to safer levels. The math of accumulating emissions is clear. So we all have to do our part, and we need to be creative and think hard about what will work in order for us to achieve the outcomes we hope for.

It is going to be both a national and local responsibility, as well as a global one. I believe that this forum can promote a creative dialogue and a sense of shared purpose. Of course, each economy represented here is different. And some, like mine, is responsible for past emissions, some responsible for quickly growing present emissions. But people everywhere have a legitimate aspiration for a higher standard of living. As I have told my counterparts from China and India, we want your economies to grow. We want people to have a higher standard of living. We just hope we can work together in a way to avoid the mistakes that we made that have created a large part of the problem that we face today.

And it will be harder, not easier, if we fail to meet the challenge of climate change for all countries, particularly developing countries, to continue the growth rates that they need to sustain the increase in standard of living that they’re looking for.

And finally, I would hope that we could develop through this mechanism concrete initiatives that leaders of the major economies can consider when they meet in Italy in July. We have to come up with specific recommendations. Breakthroughs can and should come from anywhere and everywhere. That’s why creative diplomacy and genuine collaboration is called for. And I think proposals for transformational technological changes, creating markets for such changes, subsidizing them on a declining basis so that we can get those new technologies into the market, whatever combination of incentive and mandatory requirements that will accomplish this change in the short run, should be considered.

Being good stewards as we must be of this fragile planet that we inherit together, requires us to be pragmatic, not dogmatic. We have to be willing to embrace change, not just repeat tired dogma. And I think we have to be ready to do whatever it takes and whatever the earth demands to succeed in addressing this common danger to our future.

Rep. Henry Waxman: Only in America

Tavis Smiley Website (April 13, 2009)

Climate Science for Real Dummies

Waxman: Well, there have been scientists brought together to see if they could figure out the science and make it clear whether this is a danger or not, whether it's a danger that's a great one or one that we can postpone for a while, and the overwhelming consensus of all the leading scientists that have looked at this issue is there is a warming of the planet, it's manmade, caused by our burning of carbon fuels, and it's happening faster than anybody ever thought it would happen.

We're seeing the reality of a lot of the North Pole starting to evaporate, and we could get to a tipping point. Because if it evaporates to a certain point - they have lanes now where ships can go that couldn't ever sail through before. And if it gets to a point where it evaporates too much, there's a lot of tundra that's being held down by that ice cap.

If that gets released we'll have more carbon emissions and methane gas
in our atmosphere than we have now. We see a lot of destruction happening because of global warming, climate change problems, so we've got enough warning signals and enough of a scientific consensus to take this seriously.

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[Ed - This is not a joke. Rep. Henry Waxman has represented California since 1975. In January, 2009 he became chair of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, which has oversight of various functions, including energy policy, consumer protection and interstate and foreign commerce. A longtime champion of environmental and public health protection, Waxman introduced the first bill in Congress (in 1992) to stabilize the climate. Prior to his election to Congress, the Los Angeles native served three terms in the California State Assembly.]

Robert Manne: Foundation Member

The Weekend Australian - April 25-26, 2009 (pg. 24)

Cheerleading for zealotry not in the public interest

Last week, The Weekend Australian published three pieces enthusiastically welcoming the publication of Ian Plimer's new anti-climate science book, Heaven and Earth - Global Warming: The Missing Science: an overwhelmingly favourable editorial, a lengthy interview with the author and a column by Christopher Pearson of gushing praise. In these three pieces not one word of criticism of Plimer was to be found.

It might have been supposed that the editors of this newspaper would wonder about the capacity for fair-mindedness of a geologist who describes the entire climate science community as "the forces of darkness"; who recently told Adelaide's The Advertiser that his book would singlehandedly "knock out" not one or several but "every argument we hear about climate change"; and who, in earlier work, had spent considerable energy trying to prove that Noah's Ark was a myth, the intellectual equivalent of a zoologist seeking to dispose of the belief that the serpent in the Garden of Eden could really have spoken to Eve.

Yet apparently, despite such obvious signs of zealotry, the editors of this newspaper experienced no doubts.

For The Weekend Australian to welcome the publication of a book as self-evidently extreme as this, on a topic of such significance, in a manner so comprehensively uncritical, raises serious questions about the responsibility of newspapers. I am genuinely grateful for the opportunity to discuss them here.

On the question of human causation of climate change, the central point that Plimer challenges, there are among the scientists two broad camps.

In one camp are the tens of thousands of climate scientists in many discrete disciplines who, despite differences of emphasis and interpretation on many questions, regard it as now beyond doubt that, through the release into the atmosphere of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses, human beings have been responsible for post-industrial global warming. The work of these scientists has been summarised in four cautious reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In the most recent, the IPCC argued that the evidence for human causation of climate change was unequivocal.

[Ed - "tens of thousands of climate scientists"? - see the IPCC Fact Sheet, wherein the IPCC states that "More than 800 contributing authors and more than 450 lead authors were involved in the writing of the AR4." Al Gore and the IPCC only ever claim "2,500 scientists" at most.]

In the other camp are a few dozen scientists who are best described as global warming pseudo-sceptics. Most do not publish in the refereed climate science academic journals. Some have been financed by greenhouse gas-emitting industries and provided with moral support by anti-global warming lobby groups.

Many regard the work of the tens of thousands of climate change scientists as fraudulent and the IPCC as a sinister and vast international conspiracy. Plimer is a typical member of this camp.

Over climate change, citizens face an apparent acute dilemma. The question of the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on the Earth's future is by far the most important issue our generation faces. Yet those of us who are not trained scientists are in no position to make independent judgments on the fundamental scientific issues for ourselves.

This dilemma is relatively easy to resolve. In regard to the science of climate change, as Clive Hamilton has put it, the only decision citizens have to make is not what to believe but who. We can place our trust either in the tens of thousands of climate scientists whose work has been published in the relevant scientific journals and summarised by the IPCC, or in the few dozen pseudo-sceptics who dismiss mainstream climate science as a politically correct, rent-seeking hoax.

Precisely the same logic applies to the editors of newspapers. They are not climate scientists. It is incumbent on them, or so it seems to me, to accept that just as citizens cannot evaluate independently the scientific arguments and rationally choose to believe the conclusions of a handful of scientific pseudo-sceptics rather than those of the tens of thousands of the scientists researching and publishing in this field, nor can they.

To avoid misunderstanding, one additional point needs, however, to be made. The consensual views of the climate scientists are our only reliable guide to the causes of global warming or what the impact of greenhouse gas emissions is likely to be. However, they cannot tell us what, given this knowledge, we must do. This is a decision that citizens must make within the framework of the democratic political process.

If the scientists are right, humanity is at present marching, with eyes wide open, towards disaster. The future of the planet now depends on whether human beings are capable of rising to the challenge of global warming.

Many industries that rely on fossil fuel emissions are working hard to safeguard their interests by convincing citizens of nations such as Australia to delay the tough decisions that must now be made.

Pseudo-sceptical scientists such as Plimer, who falsely help to convince citizens that the scientific knowledge in this field is fiercely disputed and basically unsettled, are among their most valuable assets.

It goes without saying that Plimer has every right to publish whatever it is he believes. However, for the editors of this newspaper to give books such as his the kind of enthusiastic welcome hundreds of others published in this country every year cannot dream of receiving and, even more, to treat their publication as important events, seems to me a grave intellectual, political and moral mistake.