III 

116TH CONGRESS 

1ST SESSION S. RES. 404 

Expressing the sense of the Senate that the United States should work 

in cooperation with the international community and continue to exercise 

global leadership to address the causes and effects of climate change, 

and for other purposes. 

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

OCTOBER 31, 2019 

Mr. CARDIN (for himself, Ms. COLLINS, Mr. MENENDEZ, Mr. SCHATZ, Mr. 

MARKEY, Mr. WHITEHOUSE, Mr. UDALL, Mr. BLUMENTHAL, Mrs. SHAHEEN, Mrs. GILLIBRAND, Mr. DURBIN, Mr. REED, Mr. COONS, Mr. BENNET, Mr. BOOKER, Ms. WARREN, Mr. LEAHY, Mr. BROWN, Mr. CARPER, 

Ms. STABENOW, Ms. HIRONO, Mr. KAINE, Mrs. FEINSTEIN, Ms. KLOBUCHAR, Ms. HARRIS, Ms. BALDWIN, Mr. MERKLEY, Mr. MURPHY, Ms. 

SMITH, Mr. VAN HOLLEN, Mr. SANDERS, Mr. WARNER, and Ms. HASSAN) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations 

RESOLUTION 

Expressing the sense of the Senate that the United States 

should work in cooperation with the international community and continue to exercise global leadership to address the causes and effects of climate change, and for 

other purposes. 

Whereas the consensus among climatologists and scientists 

studying the effects of atmospheric change, including the 

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the National Academy of Science, the United States Geological 


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Survey, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and other agencies within the 

United States Global Change Research Program, have 

determined that the impact of climate change will include 

widespread effects on health and welfare, including increased outbreaks from waterborne diseases, more 

droughts, diminished agricultural production, severe 

storms and floods, heat waves, wildfires, and a substantial rise in global sea levels; 

Whereas the objective of the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is to 

stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere 

at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference 

with the climate system; 

Whereas, under the UNFCCC, the United States is obligated 

to report its progress on reducing emissions; 

Whereas the Senate provided its advice and consent to the 

UNFCCC by division, with two-thirds of Senators 

present voting in the affirmative, on October 7, 1992; 

Whereas, in 2011, at the 17th Conference of the Parties 

(COP 17) to the UNFCCC in Durban, South Africa, parties agreed to negotiate an agreement by the end of 2015 

to reduce emissions in the post-2020 period; 

Whereas the UNFCCC calls on parties to submit intended 

nationally determined contributions outlining voluntary 

individual targets for emissions reductions by the time 

parties convened in Paris on November 30, 2015, for the 

21st Conference of the Parties (COP 21) to the 

UNFCCC; 


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Whereas, prior to completing the multilateral Paris Agreement on international cooperation to address climate 

change, done at Paris December 12, 2015, 187 nations, 

representing more than 97 percent of global greenhouse 

gas emissions, voluntarily submitted nationally determined goals and plans to reduce their greenhouse gas 

pollution; 

Whereas, according to research and data analysis conducted 

independently by NOAA, NASA, the Met Office Hadley 

Centre for Climate Science and Services of the United 

Kingdom, the Japan Meteorological Agency, and Berkeley Earth, each of the years 2014 through 2018 rank 

among the five warmest years on record; 

Whereas, according to NASA, 18 of the 19 warmest years on 

record have occurred since 2000; 

Whereas, according to NOAA, 2019 will likely be the second 

warmest year on record, making the last six years the 

warmest years on record; 

Whereas the United States-China Joint Announcement on 

Climate Change of November 2014 included a United 

States goal to reduce its emissions by 26–28 percent 

below 2005 levels by 2025 and a Chinese goal to peak 

emissions output by 2030 and increase the use of nonfossil fuels to 20 percent of its overall energy portfolio by 

2030; 

Whereas, under the United States-India Joint Announcement 

on Climate and Clean Energy of January 2015, the two 

countries pledged to increase cooperation on clean energy 

financing and development and India committed to phase 

out use of hydrofluorocarbons and increase promotion of 


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energy efficiency tools and reaffirmed its commitment to 

add 100 gigawatts of solar capacity by 2022; 

Whereas small island states, whose people are among the 

most vulnerable to climate change, are threatened with 

partial or virtually total inundation by imminent rises in 

sea level and increased intensity and frequency of storms; 

Whereas United States international leadership on the global 

stage throughout the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s 21st Conference of Parties 

process resulted in unprecedented international cooperation and engagement on the development of the Paris 

Agreement; 

Whereas the Paris Agreement received consensus approval 

from the more than 190 delegates to the United Nations 

Framework Convention on Climate Change’s 21st Conference of Parties; 

Whereas the Paris Agreement reached its thresholds for entry 

into force faster than any other multilateral international 

agreement of comparable size and scope; 

Whereas, as of the date of introduction of this resolution, 187 

of the 197 parties to the Paris Agreement have officially 

joined the agreement, demonstrating the urgency and importance the global community places on addressing climate change; 

Whereas studies conducted by the NASA Earth Observatory 

determined that as the oceans have warmed, polar ice has 

melted and porous landmasses have subsided, global 

mean sea level has risen by 8 inches (20 centimeters) 

since 1870, and the rate of sea level rise is faster now 

than at any time in the past 2,000 years, having doubled 

in the past two decades, putting 55 to 60 percent of 


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United States citizens who live in counties touching the 

Atlantic or Pacific Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, or the 

Great Lakes at risk from the effects of sea level rise; 

Whereas the Department of Defense has identified climate 

change as a ‘‘threat multiplier’’ that will increase global 

instability and conflict, with the potential to increase terrorism; 

Whereas the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review states that 

‘‘[t]he impacts of climate change may increase the frequency, scale, and complexity of future missions, including defense support to civil authorities, while at the same 

time undermining the capacity of our domestic installations to support training activities,’’ and notes that— 

(1) climate change may exacerbate water scarcity 

and lead to sharp increases in food costs; 

(2) the pressures caused by climate change will influence resource competition while placing additional burdens on economies, societies, and governance institutions 

around the world; and 

(3) these effects are threat multipliers that will aggravate stressors abroad such as poverty, environmental 

degradation, political instability, and social tensions— 

conditions that can enable terrorist activity and other 

forms of violence; 

Whereas the Department of Defense report, ‘‘National Security Implications of Climate-Related Risks and a Changing Climate’’— 

(1) states that global climate change will have wideranging implications for United States national security 

interests over the foreseeable future because it will aggravate existing problems, such as poverty, social tensions, 

environmental degradation, ineffectual leadership, and 


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weak political institutions, that threaten domestic stability in a number of countries; and 

(2) identifies four general areas of climate-related 

risks: persistently recurring conditions such as flooding, 

drought, and higher temperatures; more frequent and 

more severe extreme weather events; sea level rise and 

temperature changes; and decreases in Arctic ice cover, 

type, and thickness; 

Whereas the Director of National Intelligence’s 2017 Global 

Trends Report determined that— 

(1) changes in the climate will produce more extreme weather events and put greater stress on humans 

and critical systems, including oceans, freshwater, and 

biodiversity; 

(2) these changes, in turn, will have direct and indirect social, economic, political, and security effects; and 

(3) extreme weather can trigger crop failures, wildfires, energy blackouts, infrastructure breakdown, supply 

chain breakdowns, migration, and infectious disease outbreaks, and will be more pronounced as people concentrate in climate vulnerable locations, such as cities, 

coastal areas, and water-stressed regions; 

Whereas the Department of Agriculture has determined that 

climate change is likely to diminish continued progress on 

global food security through production disruptions that 

lead to local availability limitations and price increases, 

interrupted transport conduits, and diminished food safety, among other causes; 

Whereas, according to the World Bank, approximately 

1,600,000,000 people currently live in countries and regions with absolute water scarcity and the number is exVerDate Sep 11 2014 22:50 Oct 31, 2019 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\SR404.IS SR404

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pected to rise to 2,800,000,000 people by 2025 due to 

the effects of climate change; 

Whereas a 2018 special report of the Intergovernmental 

Panel on Climate Change on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and 

related global greenhouse gas emission pathways found 

with ‘‘high confidence’’, in the context of strengthening 

the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty, 

that— 

(1) human activities are estimated to have caused 

approximately 1.0 degree Celsius of global warming above 

pre-industrial levels, with a likely range of 0.8 degrees 

Celsius to 1.2 degrees Celsius; 

(2) global warming is likely to reach 1.5 degrees Celsius between 2030 and 2052 if global warming continues 

to increase at the current rate; and 

(3) climate-related risks for natural and human systems are higher for global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius 

than at present, but lower than at 2 degrees Celsius; and 

Whereas the Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4) 

completed in November 2018, developed by the United 

States Global Change Research Program, in collaboration 

and cooperation with 13 Federal agencies, ‘‘to advance 

understanding of the changing Earth system and maximize efficiencies in Federal global change research’’— 

(1) concludes that— 

(A) the evidence of human-caused climate 

change is overwhelming and continues to strengthen; 

(B) the impacts of climate change are intensifying across the United States; 


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(C) climate-related threats to the physical, social, and economic well-being of the United States 

are rising; and 

(D) ‘‘[t]he impacts and costs of climate change 

are already being felt in the United States, and 

changes in the likelihood or severity of some recent 

extreme weather events can now be attributed with 

increasingly higher confidence to human-caused 

warming’’; and 

(2) includes summary findings that— 

(A) the quality and quantity of water available 

for use by people and ecosystems across the United 

States are being affected by climate change, increasing risks and costs to agriculture, energy production, 

industry, recreation, and the environment; 

(B) impacts from climate change on extreme 

weather and climate-related events, air quality, and 

the transmission of disease through insects and 

pests, food, and water increasingly threaten the 

health and well-being of the people of the United 

States, particularly vulnerable populations; 

(C) climate change increasingly threatens the 

livelihoods, economies, health, and cultural identities 

of indigenous communities by disrupting interconnected social, physical, and ecological systems; 

(D) the aging and deteriorating infrastructure 

of the United States is further stressed by increases 

in heavy precipitation events, coastal flooding, heat, 

wildfires, and other extreme events, as well as 

changes to average precipitation and temperature; 

and 

(E) without adaptation, climate change will 

continue to degrade infrastructure performance over 


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the rest of the century, with the potential for cascading impacts that threaten the economy, national 

security, and essential services of the United States 

and the health and well-being of the United States 

people: Now, therefore, be it 

1 Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that the 

2 United States should— 

3 (1) work in cooperation with the international 

4 community and continue to exercise global leader5 ship in our shared responsibilities, including holding 

6 parties accountable for meeting their commitments, 

7 and address the causes and effects of climate 

8 change; 

9 (2) remain party to the Paris Agreement and 

10 the UNFCCC; 

11 (3) reassert strong leadership in implementing 

12 the Paris Agreement; 

13 (4) as acknowledged in the Nationally Deter14 mined Contribution submitted by the United States 

15 to the UNFCCC in 2015, take action to substan16 tially accelerate the current pace of greenhouse gas 

17 emission reductions in order to achieve, or surpass, 

18 the emissions reduction target of the United States; 

19 (5) ensure that the development of the policies 

20 and procedures prescribed by the Paris Agreement 


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1 achieve maximum benefits for the United States; 

2 and 

3 (6) implement its commitments under the Paris 

4 Agreement and the UNFCCC. 

Æ 


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