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EXAMINING THE INTERNATIONAL 

CLIMATE NEGOTIATIONS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

NOVEMBER 18, 2015 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Environment and Public Works 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma, Chairman 

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana 

JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

MIKE CRAPO, Idaho 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama 

ROGER WICKER, Mississippi 

DEB FISCHER, Nebraska 

MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota 

DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska 

BARBARA BOXER, California 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont 

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island 

JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon 

KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, New York 

CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey 

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts 

RYAN JACKSON, Majority Staff Director 

BETTINA POIRIER, Democratic Staff Director 

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C O N T E N T S 

Page 

NOVEMBER 18, 2014 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

Inhofe, Hon. James, U.S. Senator from the State of Oklahoma .......................... 1 

Capito, Hon. Shelley, Moore, U.S. Senator from the State of West Virginia ..... 4 

Carper, Hon. Thomas R., U.S. Senator from the State of Delaware ................... 5 

WITNESSES 

Maurice, Julian Ku, A. Deane Distinguished Professor of Congressional Law 

& Faculty Director of International Programs, Maurice A. Deane School 

of Law at Hofstra University .............................................................................. 7 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 10 

Cass, Oren, Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, Inc. ........ 19 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 21 

Eule, Stephen, Vice President of Climate and Technology, U.S. Chamber 

of Commerce Institute of 21St Century Energy ................................................ 32 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 34 

Response to an additional question from Senator Whitehouse .................... 57 

Waskow, David, Director, International Climate Initiative, World Resources 

Institute ................................................................................................................ 65 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 67 

Jacobson, Lisa, President, Business Council for Sustainable Energy ................. 106 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 108 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL 

Articles: 

Elloitt Negin; ExxonMobil is Still Spending Millions of Dollars on Climate 

Science Deniers ............................................................................................. 225 

SourceWatch; Manhattan Institute for Policy Research ............................... 230 

Office of the Press Secretary; Fact Sheet: United States Support for 

Global Efforts to Combat Carbon Pollution and Build Resilience ............ 239 

(1) 

EXAMINING THE INTERNATIONAL CLIMATE 

NEGOTIATIONS 

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2015 

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS, 

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:33 a.m. in room 406, 

Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Shelley Moore Capito (chairwoman of the committee) presiding. 

Present: Senators Capito, Inhofe, Barrasso, Crapo, Boozman, Sessions, Wicker, Rounds, Carper, Cardin, Whitehouse, Merkley, 

Gillibrand, Booker, and Markey. 

Senator CAPITO. The hearing will come to order. 

We have some unusual circumstances. I am not the chairman of 

the full committee; the chairman is sitting to my right, as you 

know, Chairman Inhofe. He is on the conference committee for the 

highway reauthorization, so he has asked to make some statements 

and then he is going to go to his meeting. So, with that, I will recognize Chairman Inhofe. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES INHOFE, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA 

Senator INHOFE. I thank you, Madam Chairman. We actually 

have three members of the conference, the highway conference. I 

already talked to the witnesses and explained to them. It is very 

significant what is going on. We are actually going to have a formal 

conference on the highway reauthorization bill. That hasn’t happened since 2005, so we are very excited about it. And I am sure 

that another conferee is Senator Fischer, so I am sure we will all 

be wanting to go over there. 

But she has graciously allowed me to make a brief opening statement, which I will do now, and I am sure that Senator Carper 

won’t mind if I go ahead and make my statement. 

Senator CARPER. I object. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator INHOFE. All right, good. 

Well, let me start by saying that all of our prayers are with the 

people and what has been happening in Paris. It is so regrettable. 

I thank the witnesses for being here today to discuss the international climate negotiations. Despite President Obama’s constant 

rhetoric about transparency, we are a week and a half away from 

the start of the United Nation’s twenty-first session of the Conference of Parties. This is the twenty-first year that we have had 

2 

this, and several of us on this panel up here have had different 

ideas about what is to be accomplished there. My idea is nothing. 

I just sent a letter in July seeking information relating to the 

President’s intended nationally determined contribution. Now, that 

is where he is supposed to be able to document what he wants, and 

he did send information in that he is going to be reaching between 

a 26 and 28 percent reduction in emissions, but failed to say how 

he is going to do this. So we tried to have a conference. We tried 

to have a meeting in this committee and asked the EPA to attend, 

and they refused to attend. 

Now, this is the first time in my experience in the years that I 

have been here, 8 years in the House and 20 years in the Senate, 

that the committee of jurisdiction making a request that someone 

appear and they don’t appear. So I think there is a reason: because 

they don’t know how the calculation of 26 to 28 percent was working. 

Together we are especially here to discuss the potential legal 

form of the COP 21 agreement. I think that goes without saying. 

There have been a lot of things published about is it legal, is it 

binding. Until yesterday, when we had, in the Financial Times, 

Secretary Kerry announced that there would be no binding agreement from COP 21. No binding agreement from COP 21. Now, that 

incurred the wrath of President Hollande of France, along with several other people. Anyway, that was an honest statement because 

there won’t be any. 

When it comes to the financing, I know that a lot of people over 

there, the 192 countries would assume the Americans are going to 

line up and joyfully pay $3 billion into this fund, but that is not 

going to happen either. 

So, anyway, this is going to be very similar to the other 20, so 

I am sure there will be many on this panel who will be attending. 

I don’t plan to attend. 

Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Inhofe follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES M. INHOFE, U.S. SENATOR

FROM THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA

Let me start off by saying my prayers are with the city of Paris 

and all those who have been impacted by the attacks last Friday. 

We are a week and a half away from the start of the United Nation’s 21st session to the Conference of Parties and have yet to 

hear directly from this administration on the president’s international climate agenda. This is not due to a lack of outreach on 

our part, but rather a continued disrespect for the rule of law and 

on obstructionist approach to Senate oversight. 

I invited the EPA, CEQ and State Department to testify before 

the committee and provide missing information related to the 

president’s 26 to 28 percent greenhouse gas emission reduction target (by 2025). According to our last expert panel on the subject, 

which included former Sierra Club Climate Counsel, David Bookbinder, the president’s plan simply does not add up. Even Senator 

Boxer’s witness from the World Resources Institute admitted that 

additional actions will have to occur for the targets to be met, 

3 

which will likely come from the refining, cement and agriculture industries, among others. 

EPA and CEQ’s response that they lacked involvement and relative expertise is not only counter to public records and press accounts, but completely unbelievable. Recently released agency documents related to the Keystone XL Pipeline decision further confirm 

that Administrator McMarthy has an authoritative role in State 

Department actions, especially when they concern the president’s 

climate agenda and international perceptions. Just last week, it 

was reported (in Climatewire) that Administrator McCarthy meets 

weekly with White House staff alongside Secretary Kerry and Secretary Moniz to ‘‘prepare for Paris’’ and is likely going herself. 

If as Secretary Kerry recently stated, the administration does not 

have a problem with congress reviewing the Paris agreement, then 

I expect an affirmative response to testify from EPA, CEQ and the 

State Department in the new year. 

Primarily from press accounts, we know the presidents alongside 

international bureaucrats intend to produce an agreement of some 

form that commits countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 

over certain time periods. We have seen this type f agreement before, most recently with the Kyoto Protocol and there was never a 

question that if President Clinton wanted to make the United 

States a party to that agreement, the Senate had to be involved. 

With the formal submission of various countries ‘‘intended nationally determined contributions’’ (INDCs), we know the structure 

of emission reduction commitments has changed from a top-down 

Kyoto-style approach to a bottoms-commitments has changed for 

President Obama is the application of the 1992 UNFCCC ratification agreement and its express limitations. Specifically, the caveat 

included in the Foreign Relations Committee report the ‘‘[A] decision by the Conference of Partied to adopt targets and timetables 

would have to be submitted to the Senate for its advice and consent 

before the United States could deposit its instruments of reification 

for such and agreement.’’ 

If the president wished to produce something substantive from 

the Paris negotiations - and presumably stronger than Kyoto - 

there is no way around the Senate. However, if the president heeds 

the advice of other COP 21 participants and wished to bypass congress, then he will be limited to making a non-binding, political 

commitment with no means of enforcement, accountability, or longevity. 

Beyond the process, there is the financing element of these negotiations for the Green Climate Fund. The president would like to 

shut down livelihoods and ship American jobs overseas while imposing a cap and trade energy tax on the American people so he 

can pay for his international climate legacy that hinges on cooperation from rent-seeking developing countries lining up for a piece of 

the president’s multi-billion dollar slush fund. 

This administration has shown time and time again that political 

perceptions carry more merit than any expert assessments, especially when they include technical or economic inconveniences. Beyond diplomatic grand-standing and a few good press releases, the 

only certain outcome of the Paris negotiations is increased global 

CO2 emissions. 

4 

The president’s so-called ‘‘Climate Action Plan’’ has never been 

about saving the environment or the world from impending global 

warming doom. It is about making up for the embarrassment of Copenhagen and solidifying his environmental legacy. I, along with 

my Republican colleagues, am not willing to let him or any other 

United Nation’s bureaucrat circumvent the Constitution in an attempt to imbed climate change policies whose net effort will do 

nothing more than undermine America’s outlook for success. 

I thank the witnesses for being here today and look forward to 

their testimony. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA 

Senator CAPITO. I thank the chair and we wish good luck and 

quick work on the conference committee, because I think we are all 

anxious to have that piece of legislation before us. So I will go 

ahead and open, if that is OK with you, for my opening statements. 

I want to welcome the panelists, first of all, and the members, 

the senators here. Much of what Senator Inhofe has said is contained in my opening statement, but I think some of it bears repeating. 

Just yesterday we passed two bipartisan resolutions under the 

congressional Review Act, one of which I sponsored. And I brought 

those up because, in my opinion, they are inextricably tied to the 

upcoming climate negotiations. President Obama cannot meet his 

goal of 26 to 28 percent reduction of CO2 emissions without the full 

implementation of this regulation, and we believe that that stands 

on shaky legal and political ground. The Senate has now formally 

rejected these rules and we expect the House to do the same, and 

then the President will have a chance to make his opinion known. 

But over half our States, 27 to be precise, have now sued the EPA 

to block these rules. 

Last week, as Chairman Inhofe said, it was reported that Secretary of State insisted that the international climate agreement 

expected to be reached in Paris was ‘‘definitely not going to be a 

treaty,’’ and Chairman Inhofe mentioned that he said there would 

be no binding agreement. 

This prompted French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius to suggest that Secretary Kerry was ‘‘confused.’’ The French president 

then weighed in: ‘‘If the agreement is not legally binding, there 

won’t be agreement,’’ as did the European Union, whose spokesperson was quoted as saying, ‘‘We work on the basis that the Paris 

agreement must be an internationally binding agreement.’’ 

If major participants in the upcoming COP 21 negotiations cannot agree on the legal status of any forthcoming agreement, no 

wonder those of us here today have questions. Will this agreement 

be legally binding or not? If so, will it be submitted to the Senate 

for ratification, as required by the Constitution? 

Chairman Inhofe, as he mentioned, too, invited the EPA, the 

CEQ, and State Department to testify before the committee and 

provide missing information related to the President’s 26 to 28 percent greenhouse gas emissions target. EPA and CEQ have thus far 

demurred, saying they lack involvement and relative expertise. 

5 

I share the chairman’s hope that the Administration will reconsider and allow witnesses to come before this committee in the 

coming year, particularly given press reports such as last week 

when Climate Wire reported that EPA Administrator McCarthy 

meets regularly with White House staff, alongside Secretary of 

State Kerry and Secretary of Energy Munez to prepare for Paris 

and is likely going herself. 

The legal status of an agreement is one issue that negotiators 

must resolve. Financial payments demanded by developing countries from the United States and other countries are another, and 

I hope we will touch on those today. The President has pledged to send $3 billion to the Green Cli- mate Fund. He included a $500 million request in his Fiscal Year 

2016 budget. The House and the Senate, State and foreign appropriators, I am on the appropriation committee, have allocated zero 

dollars. It is important to make clear, I think, to the rest of the 

world, as climate talks approach, that Congress has the power of 

the purse. 

I look forward to hearing from our distinguished panel of witnesses. Again, I thank them for coming and that we have a robust 

discussion, as we always do on this committee. I have learned that 

in the short time I have been here. 

And I would like to recognize Senator Carper for an opening 

statement. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS R. CARPER, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE 

Senator CARPER. Thanks, Madam Chair. It is a pleasure to have 

a couple of West Virginia kids up here leading the charge on this 

important day. Thanks for pulling this together and thanks to all 

of our witnesses for joining us on what is a much welcomed hearing. 

Today we are here to discuss, as we know, our Country’s efforts 

to fulfill a promise that was made some 23 years ago, in 1992, to 

address global climate change. George Herbert Walker Bush was 

our president at that time, as you will recall. But in 1992, the 

United States and other countries around the world agreed to a 

treaty that established the United Nations Framework Convention 

on Climate Change. The goal, to find a way to limit global climate 

pollution and limit the impacts of climate change to preserve and 

protect our environment for future generations. 

In 1992, President Bush signed the treaty and the Senate subsequently ratified it. Today, there are 196 countries that are part of 

that treaty. 

Over the past 23 years, the United States and our treaty partners have held meetings, usually each year, to address these goals, 

and later this month the twenty-first meeting will take place in 

Paris. These negotiations are critical because to effectively address 

climate change we cannot act alone. We cannot do this alone. We 

have to work cooperatively with our neighbors around the world. 

There are a host of scientific studies that underscore the urgent 

need for action, but, for me, the most compelling factor in supporting efforts to address climate change is more personal. I live 

in the lowest lying State in America. We see every day the ravages 

6 

of climate change and sea level rise. I have children, someday I 

hope to have grandchildren, and I want to make sure they have a 

real bright future in Delaware and other places throughout our 

Country and, frankly, around the world. 

The science is clear. Our future generations face no greater environmental threat. We face a lot of threats, but no greater environmental threat than the threat of climate change. We know the 

price of action pales in comparison to the cost of doing nothing. 

This is why I believe we have an absolute duty to fight to change 

our behavior, continue to change our behavior not only in Delaware 

and across the Country, but also around the world, to help stem 

the tide of climate change. 

When it comes to global challenges, the United States doesn’t 

just sit back and wait for someone else to lead. We lead. This 

should be no different. When the challenge was fascism, when the 

challenge was communism, today terrorism, cyberattacks, the U.S. 

has led as the world has risen to face those challenges. 

Climate change is real. Global warming is real. Sea level rise is 

real. We see it, again, happening every day in my own State. We 

see it every day happening in Ben’s State, over here, my neighbor 

to the east and to the south. The U.S. cannot do it alone, but we 

can provide leadership, and somebody needs to do that, and that 

should be us. 

Since the current Administration has retaken a leadership role 

on this issue, others have followed. Countries like China and 

Brazil, that have been hesitant before to make carbon reductions, 

have changed their tune. I think largely because we have acted. 

As someone, again, who was born in coal country, Beckley, West 

Virginia, but spent his entire adult life, most of his adult life in the 

lowest lying State in the Nation, I know this issue is complicated 

and I know compromises have to be made for all of us to survive 

in a low carbon world. However, let me conclude by saying I have 

confidence that this Administration, working in conjunction with 

50 laboratories of democracies, our States across America, using 

common sense, using sound science, will find the right recipe. 

In closing, I encourage our Administration to continue its work 

to drive the international community toward a broader global 

agreement in Paris so that together we can successfully meet the 

challenges facing our planet and ensure a brighter future for our 

grandchildren and for their grandchildren. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Carper follows:] 

STATEMENT OF HON THOMAS R. CARPER, U.S. SENATOR

FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE

Madam Chairman, thank you for convening this hearing today, and thank you to 

our witnesses for joining us. I look forward to hearing your testimony. 

Today, we are here to discuss our country’s efforts to fulfill a promise we made 

in 1992 to address global climate change. 

In 1992, the United States, and other countries around the world, agreed to a 

treaty that established the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate 

Change. The goals—find a way to limit global carbon pollution and limit the impacts 

of climate change to preserve and protect our environment for future generations. 

In 1992, President George H.W. Bush signed the treaty and Congress subsequently ratified it. Today, there are 196 countries that are part of that treaty. 

Over the past 23 years, the United States and our treaty partners have held 

meetings, usually each year, to address these goals and, later this month, the 21st 

7 

meeting will take place in Paris. These negotiations are critical—because to effectively address climate change we cannot act alone, we have to work cooperatively 

with our neighbors around the world. 

There’s a host of scientific studies that underscore the urgent need for action but, 

for me, the most compelling factor in supporting efforts to address climate change 

is deeply personal. 

Being a parent has been a transformative experience in my life, and my love for 

my sons has inspired me to make the world a better place for them, their children, 

and their grandchildren. 

And the science is clear, our future generations face no greater environmental 

threat than the threat of climate change. We know the price of action pales in comparison to the cost of doing nothing. 

This is why I believe we have an absolute duty to fight to change our behavior— 

not only in Delaware and across the country, but also around the world—to help 

stem the tide of climate change. 

When it comes to global challenges, the United States doesn’t often sit back and 

wait for someone to lead. We take the lead. Here should be no different. 

Fascism, Communism, Terrorism, Cyberattacks, the U.S. is a leader of the world. 

Climate change is real. Global warming is real. Sea level rise is real. We see it happening every day. The U.S. can’t do it alone, but we can provide leadership. 

Since the administration has retaken a leadership role on this issue, others have 

followed. Countries like China and Brazil that have been hesitant to make carbon 

reductions have changed their tune because we have acted. 

As someone who was born in coal country—Beckley, West Virginia—but spent his 

adult life in the lowest lying State in the nation—I know this issue is complicated. 

I know compromises have to be made for all of us to survive in a low-carbon world. 

However, I have confident that this administration, and future administrations, 

working with 50 labs of democracy in the states, using coming sense and sound 

science, will find the right compromises. 

In closing, I encourage the administration to continue its work to drive the international community toward a broader global agreement in Paris, so that, together, 

we can successfully meet this challenge facing our planet and ensure a brighter future for our grandchildren and for their children. 

Senator CAPITO. Thank you, Senator. 

We will begin to hear testimony from our witnesses. I am going 

to introduce everybody briefly and then we will begin with Mr. Ku. 

Mr. Julian Ku, who is the Maurice A. Deane Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law & Faculty Director of International 

Programs, that is one long title, at the Maurice A. Deane School 

of Law at Hofstra University. Next we will hear from Mr. Oren 

Cass, who is Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy 

Research, Incorporated. Next we have Mr. Steven Eule, Vice President of Climate and Technology, U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for 21st Century Energy. We have Mr. David Waskow, Director, International Climate Initiative, World Resources Institute. 

And then we have Ms. Lisa Jacobson, President, Business Council 

for Sustainable Energy. 

Again, thank you all. We will have 5 minute statements. Your 

full statements have been submitted to the record. 

Mr. Ku. 

STATEMENT OF JULIAN KU, MAURICE A. DEANE DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR OF CONGRESSIONAL LAW & FACULTY 

DIRECTOR OF INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMS, MAURICE A. 

DEANE SCHOOL OF LAW AT HOFSTRA UNIVERSITY 

Mr. KU. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I want to thank the 

chairman, the ranking member, the members of this committee for 

inviting me to participate in today’s hearing. 

As you just noted, my name is Julian Ku. I am Professor of Law 

at Hofstra University in New York, and my academic research foVerDate Aug 31 2005 12:05 Apr 01, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\_EPW\DOCS\98708.TXT VERN
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cuses on the relationship between international law, international 

agreements, and the United Constitution. My testimony today will 

consider the requirements and limitations under the Constitution 

for an agreement relating to climate change. 

In my written testimony I review the legal status of each kind 

of international agreement; a treaty, a congressional executive 

agreement, a sole executive agreement. And I also explain my written testimony why I believe the Paris agreement should be submitted to the Senate for its approval if that agreement contains legally binding emissions reduction targets and timetables. And I am 

happy to take questions on that issue particularly if members of 

the committee are interested. 

But for the purposes of my oral remarks, I want to focus on the 

possibility that the Paris agreement will contain non-legally binding political commitments. I think this is the direction that the Administration is heading. 

In response to a letter from Senator Bob Corker, the State Department has indicated that the United States is not seeking an 

agreement in which the parties take on legally binding emissions 

targets, and this response means that, at the heart of the Paris 

agreement, the emissions targets will not be legally binding if the 

United States gets it way in Paris. 

Now, I do not have any constitutional objection to the use of a 

political commitment in the manner described by the State Department as long as all parties understand what a political commitment, as opposed to a legally binding commitment, is. 

By making a political commitment, the United States would not 

owe any legal obligations to foreign countries under international 

law to reach any particular emissions reductions target. And as a 

political commitment, no future president or Congress would be 

bound under U.S. law to reach these emissions targets. 

So, as a matter of law, a non-legally binding Paris agreement 

would be no different than the President giving a speech saying I 

promise to reduce emissions or reach certain emissions targets in 

future years. However, as Madam Chairman noted, press reports 

indicate that other countries in Paris are expect the agreement to 

be a legally binding agreement. I also will quote again the statements from France’s President, Francois Hollande, in which he said 

if the agreement is not legally binding, there won’t be agreement, 

because that would mean it would be impossible to verify or control 

the undertakings that are made. 

So statements like this by our treaty partners, or potential treaty 

partners, will make it tempting for U.S. negotiators to call the 

Paris agreement legally binding while they are in Paris, while at 

the same time assuring Congress it is not legally binding. And I 

think this kind of deception, or at least some confusion, is troubling 

because it either results in misleading foreign governments as to 

what the United States is promising or it results in the President 

violating the Constitution by concluding an agreement on his own 

authority as a sole executive agreement. 

So as I explained in my written testimony, I don’t believe the 

Constitution allows the President to use a sole executive agreement 

without any approval from Congress to legally bind the United 

States to particular greenhouse gas emissions targets. And a lack 

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of clarity on the legal nature of the Paris agreement could spur future litigation where a plaintiff might sue, for instance, to demand 

U.S. compliance with a legally binding Paris agreement. 

So, for this reason, if the Paris agreement is finalized with political commitments, as Secretary Kerry and the Department of State 

seem to indicate, I recommend that the Senate request that the Administration identify publicly which particular provisions of the 

Paris agreement, if any, are legally binding and which particular 

provisions are just political commitments. Such an explanation 

ideally should take the form of a public statement by a senior 

member of the Administration, ideally Secretary of State Kerry 

himself, that reviews each provision of the Paris agreement and explains what is binding and what is not. 

Such a statement would make it clear that the Paris agreement 

is or is not binding under domestic or international law and such 

a statement would also make clear, if it is not binding, that no future U.S. president or Congress is bound to fulfill the substantive 

obligations in the Paris agreement, and also shield a future president from litigation on this question. 

So thank you. I would be happy to take questions on other 

issues, if you are interested. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ku follows:] 

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Senator CAPITO. Thank you, Mr. Ku. 

Mr. CASS. 

STATEMENT OF OREN CASS, SENIOR FELLOW, MANHATTAN 

INSTITUTE FOR POLICY RESEARCH, INC. 

Mr. CASS. Thank you for inviting me today. My name is Oren 

Cass. I am a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy 

Research. 

My primary message to the committee is this: climate negotiations no longer bear a substantial relationship to the goal of sharply reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Rather, the upcoming Paris 

conference will focus on a commitment by developed nations, including the United States, to transfer enormous sums of wealth to 

poorer countries. 

This outcome is not surprising to those skeptical that U.S. socalled leadership on climate policy could persuade the developing 

world to forgo economic growth for the sake of emissions reductions. However, it differs dramatically from the popular narrative 

in which Paris represents the historic culmination of a worldwide 

process to bring countries together and act on climate. 

My written testimony makes three points which I will summarize 

here. 

First, the negotiating process is specifically designed to produce 

an easy consensus and excuse inaction. It relies upon each country 

announcing an intended nationally determined contribution, or 

INDC, that represents its proposed actions and emissions reductions. However, the contents of the INDC itself are entirely discretionary. There is no requirement that cuts achieve certain levels or 

that the INDC even use consistent formats, metrics, or baseline. 

There is also no consequence for missing a plan’s goals. 

Boosters are highlighting the INDC-driven structure and the parade of submitted plans as proof that the world can take meaningful action on climate. That is exactly backward. Negotiations have 

followed this course of discretionary, unenforceable pledges only because the positions of the countries are so irreconcilable that no 

substantive agreement is possible. 

And that brings to me to my second point, which is that attempts 

at so-called leadership, as Senator Carper described in his introduction, have not spurred others to action. My written testimony 

details the various manipulations that have produced impressive 

estimates for INDC impact. However, these use a century’s worth 

of escalating efforts, not the actual commitments made, or else they 

compare the actual commitments to plainly incorrect baselines that 

the UNIPCC does not recommend. And this is precisely the basis 

for positive-seeming estimates cited in Mr. Waskow’s testimony as 

well. 

A more realistic interpretation of the analyses suggest total impact of all the INDCs is less than 0.2 degrees Celsius, and using 

the U.N.’s own A1B baseline for longtime standard, there is no improvement at all. Country-by-country analysis tells the same story. 

China has committed to reaching peak emissions around 2030, but 

studies consistently show they were already on this trajectory. 

India’s commitment manages to be even weaker. The most obvious reference point is in the INDC itself. India reports that energy 

20 

efficiency improved more than 17 percent in that country between 

2005 and 2012. India could improve only half as fast going forward 

and still meet the goal that it set for itself. 

Now, such efforts have received loud applause from the White 

House, from the media, and by NGO’s demanding climate action. 

But if the INDC process relies on peer pressure and so-called naming and shaming those who drag their feet, then cheerleading for 

empty non-commitments destroys the premise of the entire enterprise. One might even conclude that political point-scoring has 

taken precedence over actually addressing climate change, which 

brings me to my third point. 

The Paris negotiations are not about emissions reduction; they 

are about cash. The developing world expects developed countries 

to offer more than $100 billion per year in what is called climate 

finance. The rationale for the money, the source of the money, and 

the use of the money are all unclear. Developing nations believe 

they are owed a ‘‘ecological debt’’ for past developed world emissions and also owed ‘‘reparations’’ for the damage from storms they 

link to climate change. 

Now, these are plainly non-starters for the United States. But 

the developing world is also asking to be reimbursed the cost of 

mitigation measures they take. India alone says in its INDC it 

needs $2.5 trillion between now and 2030. But if the INDCs represent business as usual, funding is clearly inappropriately. 

Realistically, developed world leaders are pursuing a transaction 

in which, having staked their political capital and their legacies on 

achieving an agreement, any agreement, they will now pay developing nations to sign on the dotted line. 

To conclude, we should worry that U.S. negotiators and their colleagues desperate to produce an agreement will commit dollars 

from taxpayers that they cannot actually develop and get nothing 

in return. The Senate should preempt any purchase of a piece of 

paper. A clear, simple resolution rejecting enormous transfers of 

wealth from the United States to other countries would highlight 

the issue for the American public, it would tie negotiators’ hands, 

and it would ensure that any future climate change negotiations 

actually focus on climate change. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to appear before the committee, and I look forward to answering your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cass follows:] 

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Senator CAPITO. Thank you. 

Mr. EULE. 

STATEMENT OF STEPHEN EULE, VICE PRESIDENT OF CLIMATE AND TECHNOLOGY, U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE INSTITUTE OF 21ST CENTURY ENERGY 

Mr. EULE. Thank you, Senator Capito, Senator Carper, and 

members of the committee. This hearing could not be timelier. As 

the Framework Convention on Climate Change meeting in Paris 

draws closer, it is important for policymakers to take a clear-eyed 

view of what a new post-2020 agreement might hold. 

The main points I would like to make, which are detailed in my 

written testimony, are as follows. 

First, the Obama administration’s unilateral emissions reductions commitment for Paris is unrealistic and doesn’t add up. We 

estimate that 41 to 45 percent of the Administration’s emission target remains unaccounted for; and that is assuming EPA’s Clean 

Power Plan survives court scrutiny, a big if. Selling such an uncertain plan internationally may prove very difficult. 

Second, the emission goal nations have offered are hugely unequal and will not change appreciably the rising trajectory of global 

emissions. While the United States, Europe, Japan, and a few others have offered large emission cuts, nearly all developing countries, particularly the large emerging economies, have offered little 

beyond business as usual. A recent report from the Framework 

Convention estimates that even in the unlikely event all country 

pledges are implemented to the letter, global emissions will still 

rise about 18 percent between 2010 and 2030, within or close to the 

range of where emissions were headed anyway. Given how the 

Framework Convention is structured, this should surprise no one. 

Third, the disparity in national commitments results from the 

fact that most countries place a greater priority on economic development than they do on cutting emissions of greenhouse gases. 

More than a billion people worldwide lack access to the modern energy services that could lift them out of poverty. Coal will remain 

for some time the fuel of choice for electrification in developing 

countries. Using data from plants, we estimate that on the eve of 

the Paris climate talks, 1.2 trillion watts of new coal-fired power 

plants are under construction or planned throughout the world. 

That is about 3.5 times the capacity of the entire U.S. coal fleet. 

A carbon constrained world this is not. 

Fourth, the Administration’s plan will likely result in emissions 

from the U.S. leaking to other countries, merely moving, not reducing them. The United States has a tremendous energy price advantage over many of its competitors. Overregulation from EPA, however, could force energy-intensive industries to flee to other countries, similar to what we are seeing in Europe, where energy costs 

to industry are two to four times higher than here in the United 

States. 

Fifth, developing countries will not undertake any meaningful 

commitments without large doses of financial aid. China, for example, has proposed that developed countries kick in 1 percent of 

their annual GDP from 2020 on, which in 2014 would have implied 

a U.S. contribution of $170 billion. Other suggestions are equally 

33 

extravagant. Whatever the final finance provisions look like, a 

great deal of the U.S. share of this funding will have to be appropriated by the Congress. 

Sixth, technology is the key. At its most fundamental level, reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a technology challenge. Existing technologies can make a start, but, as we have seen, they are 

not capable of significantly cutting emissions on a global scale and 

at an acceptable cost. That is why the chamber will continue to emphasize energy efficiency and policies designed to lower the cost of 

alternative energy rather than raising the cost of traditional energy. 

Finally, there is the larger question about the real goal of the 

Framework Convention. The organization’s Executive Secretary, 

Christiana Figueres, recently had this to say about the Paris deal: 

‘‘This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting 

ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, 

to change the economic development model that has been reining 

for at least 150 years, since the industrial revolution.’’ The same 

free enterprise economic model Secretary Figueres wants to discard 

is the same model that has produced the largest flourishing of 

human health and welfare in all of history. The rest of the world 

understands that affordable, available, and scalable energy is not 

the problem, it is the solution. 

Given all this, it seems clear that the Paris agreement, whether 

it has legal force or not, should be submitted to the Congress for 

its approval; otherwise, it is hard to see how anything agreed to in 

Paris will be binding on any future administrations or congresses. 

Back in 1997, the Clinton administration offered up an unrealistic U.S. goal and, disregarding clear guidance from the Senate, 

signed the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty it knew was political poison and 

therefore never bothered to submit to the Senate for its advice and 

consent. It now looks like the Obama administration is set to repeat the mistake of signing onto a lopsided deal and making promises future presidents and congresses may be neither willing nor 

able to keep. 

As the late, great Yogi Berra might have said, it’s daj& vu all 

over again. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Eule follows:] 

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Senator CAPITO. Thank you. 

Mr. WASKOW. 

STATEMENT OF DAVID WASKOW, DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL 

CLIMATE INITIATIVE, WORLD RESOURCES INSTITUTE 

Mr. WASKOW. Good morning and thank you, Senator Capito and 

Senator Carper. My name is David Waskow and I am the Director 

of the International Climate Action Initiative at the World Resources Institute, a non-partisan, nonprofit environmental think 

tank. 

My testimony this morning makes three main points. First, taking action on climate change can bring substantial economic benefits and is in the national interest of the United States. A growing 

body of evidence shows that economic growth can in fact go handin-hand with efforts to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, and 

recent experience of the national and State levels demonstrates 

that we can achieve both, a prosperous, low carbon future by harnessing key drivers of economic growth such as more efficient use 

of energy and natural resources, smart infrastructure investments, 

and technological innovation. 

Businesses have recognized the economic value of action as well. 

More than 80 major global companies, including a number of U.S. 

companies such as Dell, Coca-Cola, General Mills, and Procter & 

Gamble, have recently committed to set emission reduction targets 

in their own supply chains that are in line with science. 

Taking this action is also essential because, if nations fail to 

come together to combat climate change, the U.S. will suffer billions of dollars of damage to agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and 

coastal areas; and a recent report from the CAN Military Advisory 

Board of retired, high-ranking military officers, highlighted the 

growing threats to national security from the effects of climate 

change as well. It is thus in our national interest to act at home 

and to work with other countries to achieve an international agreement where all countries act together and where the most severe 

impacts in the United States can be avoided. 

My second theme: the U.S. emissions reduction target announced 

this past March is in fact achievable; ambitious, but achievable. We 

can meet this target using existing Federal laws combined with action by the States. Well-designed policies can accelerate recent 

market and technology trends in renewable energy, energy efficiency, alternative vehicles, and in other areas to meet the 26 to 

28 percent below 2005 pledge by 2025. WRI’s recent report, ‘‘Delivering on the U.S. Climate Commitment,’’ shows several pathways 

to get there. 

We can achieve this target while generating multiple co-benefits 

and maintaining economic growth. For example, the Clean Power 

Plan will result in reduced exposure to particulate pollution and 

ozone, and EPA estimates that these health and other benefits are 

worth $32 billion to $54 billion. 

And then, third, leadership by the United States is paying significant dividends, helping to spur greater action by all countries 

around the world. In the lead-up to the Paris agreement, more 

than 160 countries, 119 of them developing countries, have submitted national climate plans, representing over 90 percent of globVerDate Aug 31 2005 12:05 Apr 01, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00069 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\_EPW\DOCS\98708.TXT VERN
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al emissions. Countries like China, where reductions in coal use 

are already taking place, are taking unprecedented action. 

These national climate plans will deliver significant reductions in 

emissions. The International Energy Agency estimates a shift in 

global average temperature rise to 2.7 degrees Celsius, down from 

almost 4 degrees given business as usual policies. It is not enough 

yet, but it is a significant step. 

Moreover, the agreement will be reached between all parties, all 

countries at the climate summit in Paris and is a major step forward in meeting U.S. objectives in this venue. Most important, this 

will be a universal agreement applicable to all. Based in and implementing the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, 

which was ratified by the Senate in 1992 by voice vote, the Paris 

agreement will involve action to reduce emissions by all countries, 

both developed and developing, and its structure based on nationally determined plans has enabled broad-based participation and 

sets a new pathway for international action. 

The agreement will also include vital provisions on transparency 

and accountability, and it should ensure that all countries continue 

to move forward in a regular and timely way toward a commonly 

understood goal. And, finally, it can help mobilize the investment 

needed for low carbon and climate-resilient economies from an 

array of countries, including developing countries, and from the 

private sector, and it can address the serious climate-related impacts experienced around the world, especially by the most vulnerable countries. 

To conclude, the actions that countries are taking around the 

world, along with the international framework for those efforts, 

should be viewed as a significant success for the United States and 

its leadership role. Meeting the global challenge of climate change 

requires global solutions with action by all. The world is now on 

the cusp of an international agreement that will realize that vision. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Waskow follows:] 

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Senator CAPITO. Thank you. 

Ms. JACOBSON. 

STATEMENT OF LISA JACOBSON, PRESIDENT, BUSINESS 

COUNCIL FOR SUSTAINABLE ENERGY 

Ms. JACOBSON. Thank you, Senator Capito. Thank you, Senator 

Carper and members of the committee. 

The Business Council for Sustainable Energy is a broad-based industry association and we represent companies and other trade associations in the energy efficiency, renewable energy, and natural 

gas sectors. Since its founding in 1992, the Council has been advocating for policies at the State, national, and international levels 

that increase the use of commercially available clean energy technologies, products, and services. 

As an important backdrop to my testimony, the Council would 

like to share some of the findings from the 2015 ‘‘Sustainable Energy in America Factbook.’’ The Factbook was researched and produced by Bloomberg New Energy Finance, and commissioned by 

the Council. It is a quantitative and objective report intended to be 

a resource for policymakers with up-to-date, accurate market information. Its goal is to offer important benchmarks on the contributions that sustainable energy technologies are making in the U.S. 

energy system today. It also provides information on finance and 

investment trends. 

The 2015 edition of the Factbook points to the dramatic changes 

underway in the U.S. energy sector over the past several years. 

Traditional energy sources are declining, while natural gas, renewable energy, and energy efficiency are playing a larger role. These 

changes are increasing the diversity of the Country’s energy mix, 

improving our energy security, cutting energy waste, increasing our 

energy productivity, and reducing air pollution and greenhouse gas 

emissions. 

The Factbook also shows that the U.S. economy is becoming 

more energy productive and less energy intensive. By one measure, 

U.S. gross domestic product per unit of energy consumed, productivity has increased by 54 percent since 1990. Between 2007 and 

2014, total energy use fell by 2.4 percent, while GDP grew by 8 

percent. This was driven largely by advances in energy efficiency 

in the transportation, power generation, and building sectors. Of 

note, energy-related carbon dioxide emissions decreased by 9 percent in the 2007 and 2014 time period. 

BCSE members in the energy efficiency, natural gas, and renewable energy sectors offer readily available, low carbon and zero carbon energy solutions. This portfolio of technologies can be used 

today to provide reliable, affordable, and clean energy options for 

public and private sector customers. In 2014, U.S. investment in 

clean energy technologies reached $51.8 billion, and these sectors 

are providing hundreds of thousands of well-paying jobs in this 

Country. 

The Council will bring a delegation of its members to attend the 

COP 21 as business observers. This organization has consistently 

engaged in the international climate change process since the early 

1990’s. BCSE participates in this process to offer information on 

deployment trends, technology costs, as well as policy best pracVerDate Aug 31 2005 12:05 Apr 01, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00110 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\_EPW\DOCS\98708.TXT VERN
107 

tices. Council members view the climate change negotiations as a 

valuable forum to share information on policy frameworks and to 

help inform the policy choices of countries looking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and deploy clean energy options. 

Further, Council members view the outcomes of the international 

climate change negotiations as important signals to the market 

that countries are serious about investing in low carbon solutions. 

These signals will serve to reduce the uncertainty that can stall 

private sector investment. 

U.S. Government leadership and engagement in the international climate change process supports U.S. business interests 

and expands clean energy business opportunities outside our borders. Further, U.S. leadership increases the ambition of other nations and helps showcase U.S. technology innovations and policy 

frameworks. It also helps protect U.S. business interests, such as 

protection of intellectual property rights. 

The Council’s coalition calls for governments to deliver a clear, 

concise, and durable climate change agreement at COP 21. With 

over 91 percent of global emissions and 90 percent of global population covered by the intended, nationally determined contributions 

of 161 countries, nations are showing a collective commitment to 

spur investment, innovation, and deployment of clean technologies 

in countries around the world. 

The Council believes that a well-structured Paris agreement can 

facilitate higher levels of investment over time. But as we look toward the next several decades, even higher levels of investment 

will be needed. We need to be focused in the trillions, not the billions of dollars in investment. The world energy markets cannot afford any backtracking at this critical time, and the business community is increasingly considering climate change and its impacts 

as part of its corporate strategies. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Jacobson follows:] 

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Senator CAPITO. Right on the dot there. Very good. Thank you 

very much. 

I will begin with the questions, and I want to start with Mr. Ku, 

Professor Ku, because there are two questions that I would like to 

get to in my 5 minutes, and the first one is the legally binding 

issue, whether this is a treaty, whether it is a sole executive agreement. So it is kind of a two-part question. 

Some have argued that the Senate approved emissions reductions when it ratified the U.N. Climate Framework in 1992. But 

didn’t the Bush administration then, in 1992, State that amendments to that Framework, especially ones establishing targets and 

timetables, should be presented as new treaties and have separate 

consents? 

So that is my one question: Was the intent in 1992 that any further targets that were established would be part of an approval 

process with Senate consent? 

And then I am going to ask you the next question. You can answer once. 

On the sole executive agreement issue, it is stated that those 

have been used to justify the authority for COP 21. Would you say 

that those are typically used in narrow and limited circumstances? 

And do you believe that COP 21 would be considered a narrow and 

limited circumstance? 

So I want to dig down on the legality issue. 

Mr. KU. OK. Thank you, Senator. 

On the first issue, I think that the U.N. Framework Convention 

was a framework convention, it was to set up a framework for further negotiations and a process, but did not in fact and should not 

be read as authorizing new agreements without having to go 

through the normal process. So it is my view that convention does 

not authorize, it requires any new agreement for legally binding 

emissions to go back to the Senate. 

In fact, I think in 1992 the Senate, as part of the process for approving the U.N. FCC, actually asked the Bush administration 

whether future protocols to the treaty would require Article II, 

meaning going back to the Senate, and the Bush administration 

said if the new protocol contains legally binding emissions, targets, 

or timetables, then they would send that back to the Senate. 

So that is essentially a promise by the executive branch that we 

will come back to the Senate. It is the type of thing that should 

be respected as inter-branch dialog, and I think it is one of the reasons why I think an agreement with legally binding emissions targets and timetables should be sent back to the Senate for its approval. 

On the second question of sole executive agreement just quickly, 

sole executive agreement is typically done in pretty narrow circumstances. The format typically is Article II treaties or Congress 

specifically authorizes the President to make an executive agreement in a particular area like trade, like the TPP or something like 

that. A sole executive agreement is when the President just acts 

under his own authority, and I think that is not so much that it 

is unusual, but it is narrow and relatively narrow. 

I don’t think that in this circumstance, I think the President 

could say, well, I agree to every year report on what we are doing, 

114 

and that would be something that he could do as a sole executive 

agreement. I don’t think he could commit the United States to reduce emissions by a certain amount, by a certain year, in a sole executive agreement; I think he would either have to get Congress to 

approve that through new legislation or I think the best way to do 

it is to go back to the Senate for approval as a treaty. 

Senator CAPITO. Thank you. 

Mr. Cass, you mentioned a giant transfer of wealth. Obviously, 

the President is going to go to this negotiation with no money and 

a green climate fund that has been appropriated by the Congress. 

What kind of effect will that have, do you think, in terms of future 

commitments that the United States is supposedly making if this 

Congress won’t appropriate any money? There is no guaranty that 

future congresses would. At the same time, I am certain the world 

community is counting on the United States to bring the money to 

the table. 

What comments would you have on that? 

Mr. CASS. Well, I think probably everyone, including negotiators 

from other countries, understand that the President cannot appropriate money on his own. I think the larger concern is that, faced 

with the choice of Paris collapsing without an agreement or saying, 

yes, I will go find a way to get the money, U.S. negotiators will say 

we will find a way to get the money and essentially shift the onus 

back to Congress and say, look, the world has come together on 

this agreement; you, if you do not appropriate the money, will be 

at fault for the agreement failing. 

So to preempt that I think it is actually very important that Congress act first and say to the world, let’s be clear, we will not appropriate that kind of money; don’t come back with an agreement 

that requires it because that should not be the lynchpin of an 

agreement that does not even include significant emissions reduction. 

Senator CAPITO. All right, thank you. 

Senator Carper. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks so much. 

Again, our thanks to all of you for being with us. Some of you 

this is the first time we have met you; others we have known for 

some time. New or old, we are happy to have this chance to spend 

this time with you. 

Just a word on leadership, if I can. I think that leadership is 

probably the most important ingredient of any organization I have 

ever been part of or led; I don’t care if it is the Navy, military, business, this place, sports team, college, hospital, school. Leadership 

is the most important thing. And leadership is demonstrated in a 

variety of ways. I always said that great leaders are those who look 

at a problem and say what is the right thing to do; not the easy 

thing, not the expedient thing, but what is the right thing to do. 

And the right thing to do is to provide leadership in this instance. 

Leadership is staying out of step when everyone else is marching 

to the wrong tune, including some with whom I serve. We lead by 

our example. It is not by do as I say, but do as I do. That is why 

it is important for us to actually set an example and encourage others to lead. I find in my life and my experience a lot of time they 

do. 

115 

Leaders should be aspirational. It has been said that leaders are 

purveyors of hope. 

As I listen to this testimony today, I heard some testimony that 

was doom and gloom, and, frankly, I heard some testimony that 

was aspirational and uplifting; and I know you can probably figure 

out where those came from. Leaders just don’t give up. Leaders 

don’t give up. You know you are right, you are sure you right, we 

don’t give up. 

I would just say you don’t need a tutorial on leadership, but it 

is the most important thing here and every place I have ever 

worked or served. 

I want to talk a little bit about acid rain. We are in a party of 

the Country where we deal with sea level rise on the East coast, 

Mid-Atlantic, Northeast as well. Twenty, thirty years ago we had 

a big problem with acid rain. You may remember that. And a lot 

of folks said, well, we can never afford. President Herbert Walker 

Bush said we have this idea, we call it cap and trade, and we are 

going to try to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions and the effect of acid 

rain. People said, oh, you can’t do that; it will kill the economy. 

Well, guess what? As I recall, as I recall, what we finally did, 

putting in place, implementing the plan that he proposed, we 

achieved our goals in half the time and one-third of the cost. Imagine that. And we spurred a lot of innovation; innovation that turns 

to economic products and technologies that we can export all over 

the world. 

I remember sitting here in this room about 10 years ago. George 

Voinovich and I were leading the Clean Air subcommittee of EPW 

and we had testimony on mercury reductions and how much mercury we could release from coal-fired plants. My recollection is we 

had somebody say, oh, we could never do that, it would cripple the 

economy, that is just impossible. 

We had one witness, Lisa, sitting right where you are sitting 

today, and the guy who was representing all the association technology companies and he said, we can do this. We were talking 

about 80 percent reductions in mercury emissions. He said, we can 

do this. In fact, he said, I think we can maybe even do better than 

that in the timeframe that you are talking about. 

Well, guess what? We did. And we didn’t do 80 percent reductions; we did 90 percent. And we created technology innovation 

that we have been able to sell all over the world. And if we are 

smart about it, all these coal plants you all are talking about in 

China, they can actually have the kind of technology that we have 

put in or prepared to put into new coal-fired plants here. 

Lisa, I am going to ask you to just take a minute and just give 

us a comment on one of the things we have heard from our first 

three witnesses that you think needs to be rebutted or at least addressed. Would you do that, please? 

Ms. JACOBSON. Thank you. I think on the INDC topic. 

Senator CARPER. INDC stands for? 

Ms. JACOBSON. Yes. So they are the commitments that other nations have brought forward. The Council, in our experience in discussing with other countries and what is expected in COP 21, we 

did not expect that those would be legally binding commitments. 

There may be other aspects of the treaty that have more legal 

116 

force. As we all know, that topic is one that has not yet been resolved. 

But just the fact that that scope and scale of countries have come 

forward with greenhouse gas mitigation and adaptation plans in 

any shape or form is a major breakthrough, and, as companies, we 

see that as an important market signal and then we can respond 

to that. We can look at the experience in the U.S., where States, 

local governments, or the Federal Government have made policy 

frameworks that signal low carbon investment, and then we come 

in, roll up our sleeves, and say how can we get that done, very 

similar to the comments that you made about control technologies 

for mercury. 

We have innovation and we have investment capital to bring to 

the table, and when we see 160 countries say I want to consider 

my energy policies and I want to consider low carbon solutions, we 

will step up and work with them through public-private partnership and through investment to help them reach their goals. So 

when we look at the INDCs, we see business opportunities for U.S. 

companies and we see jobs in the United States. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you so much. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Senator CAPITO. Thank you. 

Senator ROUNDS. Senator ROUNDS. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

I want to just give everybody an opportunity to comment on one 

particular part of this, and the part that I am concerned with is 

any time we have a leader who steps forward and says we want 

to make some changes, in the United States, this is a case of where 

you have to bring Congress with you; and it seems as though everything works out better if you have a bipartisan effort to get 

something done. 

What I am concerned about is that there has been a little bit of 

a discrepancy in terms of the discussion here today among our panelists with regard to what occurred in 1992 with the UNFCCC or 

the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. I 

am just curious, for each of you, if you could give us your brief 

thought process. Did that particular Framework, as agreed to by 

the Senate by a voice vote, did that provide the opportunity for the 

President today to step in and to have a binding agreement for this 

Country to reduce levels with regard to climate change issues? 

I know that there was specific language placed within the provisions of the ratification agreement as put forth by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when it was presented to the Senate in 

1992, but I would like your thoughts to see if we would all agree 

or disagree, or where the discrepancy might be with regard to how 

that would be interpreted today. 

If we could, I will just go down the line and simply ask each one 

of the members here if you would give me your thoughts, if you 

would care to. 

Mr. KU. As I said, I think that it is pretty clear from the approval of the Senate they were worried about giving, when they approved it, that that would be an implicit authorization for a new 

agreement which didn’t come back to them. So I would read it as 

requiring a promise by the President to come back if I have legally 

117 

binding emissions reduction targets and timetables. And I don’t 

know that there are that many people who disagree with that. 

That was sort of an understanding when the Senate approved the 

UNFCC. 

Mr. CASS. I would agree with Professor Ku that certainly anything legally binding with respect to emissions targets would need 

to be approved by Congress or the Senate. 

Mr. EULE. I would agree with that as well, and I would just remind everybody that in the Kyoto Protocol, which had legally binding targets and timetables, the expectation was that that would 

have to go to the Senate for its advice and consent. 

Mr. WASKOW. On the original UNFCCC, it obligates all countries 

to take steps to reduce emissions in order to avoid dangerous climate change. In the present instant, I think what is important to 

keep in mind is the Administration’s position, which they have 

stated as being that they are seeking an agreement that is consistent with existing U.S. law, and also one that does not have legally binding provisions having to do with mitigation obligations on 

emission reductions. So I think that sets in a critical way the 

framework for thinking about what is happening in the current negotiations, along with the fact that in fact all countries essentially 

are stepping up to put their mitigation plans, as well as adaptation 

plans, on the table. 

Senator ROUNDS. But does that mean that for legally binding 

changes or limitations that you believe they would also have to 

come back to the Senate for that ratification? 

Mr. WASKOW. I wouldn’t presume to know exactly what the legal 

outcome of the agreement would be and what the implications of 

that would be for Senate ratification. I think, however, the Administration has made clear how it is looking at the mitigation obligations or the mitigation provisions in particular, and that those 

should be non-legally binding. And in that instance, assuming that 

the agreement is consistent with existing U.S. law, and I think 

Professor Ku would agree with this, the law would suggest that the 

Administration, the President can enter into an agreement under 

those circumstances. 

Senator ROUNDS. Ms. Jacobson. 

Ms. JACOBSON. Thank you. I mean, I think the Framework Convention on Climate Change was a catalyst for significant policies 

at the local, State, and national level that aimed to address climate 

change, greenhouse gas emissions, and adaptation. I think it will 

depends what comes out of this agreement in Paris to how Congress will engage, but I think, no matter what, congressional engagement is a positive and constructive part of our Country, thinking about how it is going to manage energy and climate change 

concerns. 

So our organization urges and is, first of all, very pleased that 

there will be delegations, and have been every single year, from 

Congress, both members, Senators, and staff that come to the negotiations; and also we look forward to engagement with Congress in 

the present time, as well as after Paris, to assess what has been 

agreed to and to provide any oversight functions it feels is necessary. So we welcome that. 

Senator ROUNDS. Thank you. 

118 

One more real quick question. This is for Mr. Eule. Mr. Eule, 

Secretary of State John Kerry recently told the Financial Times 

that the Paris agreement is definitively not going to be a treaty. 

Responding to criticism from European counterparts, the State Department quickly backtracked the statement by saying, our position has not changed. The U.S. is pressing for an agreement that 

contains provisions both legally binding and non-legally binding, 

while the exact legal form of a COP 21 agreement remains unclear. 

Do you believe that there is a role for the Senate in assessing 

these policies that stand to have broad-reaching economic and employment consequences? 

Mr. EULE. Absolutely, Senator. As I said in my testimony, I think 

whether the treaty is legally binding or not legally binding 

shouldn’t make a difference. A treaty that really extends into every 

nook and cranny of the U.S. economy I think should go to the Senate and to the House for approval. 

Senator ROUNDS. That would follow, then, with what we would 

find under the State Department Circular 175, in which they lay 

out eight items identifying what is the differences between a binding and non-binding item required for treaty, or that they would 

expect to be under a treaty provision? 

Mr. EULE. Yes, Senator, I would agree with that. 

Senator ROUNDS. Thank you. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Senator CAPITO. Thank you. 

Senator MERKLEY. Senator MERKLEY. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. 

I appreciate the testimony and I appreciate this discussion because the impacts of global warming are extensive and current, certainly on the ground in Oregon, where we see growing damage 

from pine beetles because the winters are warmer. We see extensive increases in forest fires. The season has gotten longer, the fires 

have gotten more extensive, destroying natural resources. We have 

had a huge loss of snow pack in the Cascades, affecting not only 

our streams, making them warmer and smaller, but affecting our 

agriculture, with an extensive three worst-ever droughts in a period of 15 years in the Klamath Basin. Even the oyster industry 

is having troubles because the ocean is 30 percent more acidic than 

it was before the industrial revolution. 

There is certainly no great mystery over the legal status of this. 

An executive agreement under authority of a ratified treaty and 

under authority of current U.S. domestic law, with non-binding 

emission targets and binding responsibilities to report on progress. 

We can play with this extensively and try to divert attention from 

the core issue, but let’s not. Let’s address the core issue. Let’s look 

at the fact that there are enormous economic consequences, that 

global warming is a huge assault on our rural resources, huge devastation to our agriculture, to our fishing, and to our farming. So 

this is something that the U.S. must exert leadership on, and 

bringing together the nations of the world to be able to put forward 

their vision of how we can collectively take this on is an important 

act of the collective international community. 

It has been said that we are the first generation to be feeling the 

impacts of global warming and the last generation that can do 

119 

something about it because of the fact that it is so much harder 

as the momentum builds in the warming feedback loops. So we 

have a moral obligation to act. And certainly many of the major 

corporations that make up the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are 

coming forward on their own to say that this is an important objective, that they are deeply committed to making change; and I hope 

their voice will start to be heard in key forums around the world 

and take us forward. 

I just want to note that in the conversation it is often said, well, 

we really need to have developing nations participate. Well, now 

we have developing nations participate. It has been asserted, I believe, Mr. Ku or Mr. Cass, in your testimony, they were saying, 

well, China is not doing very much. China has pledged in the next 

15 years to deploy as much renewable energy and electricity as all 

the electricity generated in the United States by coal, by gas, and 

by renewable efforts. That is a massive, massive deployment in a 

very short, in a decade and a half, and represents an extraordinary 

change in their disposition and their sense of responsibility. 

I would also like to note that the Senate Appropriations Committee did act. They acted on an amendment, an amendment that 

was put forward and had bipartisan support to say the United 

States should provide funds to the Green Climate Fund; that this 

is certainly part of the equation, because developing nations around 

the world could say we are not going to act until the per person 

footprint of the United States is equal to our footprint, which is 

much, much smaller. They could say that. But if they say that, our 

planet is doomed. 

So they have courageously come forward and said we understand 

that this is something that has to have every nation involved but, 

you know what, we haven’t produced much carbon and the carbon 

that the developed nations have produced is having a big impact 

on us, so can you help us out a little bit to address these issues. 

And that certainly is a reasonable proposition to put forward. So 

I commend the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee for having 

voted in full committee to provide some assistance in that regard. 

I want to just invite David to ask to address whether we can 

wait another 30 or 40 or 50 years to take action and expect not to 

have catastrophic consequences. 

Mr. WASKOW. Thank you for the question. Not acting increases 

the cost of action. The longer that we delay in acting will increase 

the cost of action because we will have infrastructure lock-in and 

other dynamics that will make it increasingly difficult to in fact 

shift to low carbon economies. 

We do have the opportunity and I think we in fact are on the 

trajectory, as Lisa and others have said, of moving very rapidly toward that low carbon economy. The price of solar panels, for example, has fallen 75 percent in the last 5 years. 

Senator MERKLEY. And we can create hundreds of thousands of 

jobs in doing so? 

Mr. WASKOW. And we are in fact creating. There are 100,000 jobs 

in Texas alone related. 

Senator MERKLEY. Thank you. My time has expired, but I do 

want to welcome Sam Adams, former mayor of Portland, who 

works with the World Resources Institute on Climate Change and 

120 

did a tremendous amount as mayor of Portland to take the city forward in this regard. 

Senator CAPITO. Thank you. 

Senator SESSIONS. Thank you. 

This is an invaluable hearing. I think it is very clear the President does not have the power to unilaterally bind the United States 

in these kind of agreements. 

There is a bipartisan agreement and support, and we have made 

a lot of progress together on things like reducing pollution, which 

often means improving coal use. We have made progress on automobile mileage. We have had strict requirements on that and so far 

the automobile industry has done that. We haven’t made the 

progress we should have made on nuclear power, in my opinion. 

That has the greatest potential over time. So we have electric cars 

and other ideas that could become reality. Solar panels are getting 

more competitive and maybe can play a larger role in time to come. 

But the American people are not sold on this, and neither am I. 

The idea that we have to spend billions, even trillions of dollars on 

CO2 as a result of the concern of global warming is what is not 

being sold effectively and is not being accepted by the American 

people. Maybe I will show a couple of charts in just a second here. 

This is polling data, the Gallup Poll earlier in the year, in March, 

that shows 18 issues, and the last one on the minds of the American people as an important issue was climate change. And I think 

the data shows that we are not seeing the kind of increases in temperatures that were projected. If you take the objective satellite 

data compared to the red line here, which is the average of 32 computer models, over 100 runs of those models shows that the temperature would increase at a rather dramatic rate. I thought a 

number of years ago we may actually be seeing that, but the blue 

dots and the light green dots represent the climate temperatures 

actually occurring according to satellite and balloon data. 

So, in essence, I’m just saying that the projections of disaster 

aren’t coming true, and Dr. Pilke testified here from the University 

of Colorado or Colorado State in which he said that we are not seeing more hurricanes, not seeing more tornadoes, we are not seeing 

more droughts, and we are not seeing more floods. So that is part 

of the background of where we are. 

All right, Dr. Eule, the Green Climate Fund proposal and Copenhagen commitment is a commitment of developing countries to provide $100 billion a year by 2020 to address the needs of developing 

countries. Do you know what the United States’ share of that likely 

would be? Has that been discussed? 

Mr. EULE. I don’t think it has been discussed. The Administration has proposed a $3 billion amount that would go to the Green 

Climate Fund, but that is pre-2020. 

Senator SESSIONS. Well, we pay about 25 percent of the U.N. 

Mr. EULE. Right. If we are about 25 percent of the United Nations, actually, when you take a look at the countries that are responsible for providing funds to the Green Climate Fund, it is the 

countries that are in what is known as Annex 2. It is a small subset of developed countries. And the U.S. accounts for about 45 percent of the emissions from those countries. So, in reality, we could 

be on the hook for about $45 billion of that. 

121 

Senator SESSIONS. Forty-five? 

Mr. EULE. Yes. 

Senator SESSIONS. And that would be annually? 

Mr. EULE. That would be annually. Now, you have to remember $100 billion was just a starting point. You know, a group of developing countries have said that should rise up to $600 billion. The 

Chinese have said it should be 1 percent of the GDP of developed 

countries, which the U.S. share of that would mean about $170 billion. 

Senator SESSIONS. We are pushing on 18 trillion GDP, so 1 per- cent of that is $180 billion a year? 

Mr. EULE. That is right. It is a large amount of money even by 

Washington standards. 

Senator SESSIONS. I would agree. An African group is insisting 

on ramping up the funding to $600 billion a year by 2030? 

Mr. EULE. That is right. 

Senator SESSIONS. Well, my time is about up, so I think we made 

the concerns pretty clear here. Yes, let’s do the things that make 

sense; let’s look for the efficiencies and anti-pollutants, which I 

don’t consider CO2 to be a pollutant. Plants need to grow. 

And I think if we work on that, Madam Chair, in a bipartisan 

way, we will also get reduction in CO2 and we will also get reduction in pollutants and we will benefit. But to impose these kinds 

of costs on the economy, when I think there is no realistic expectation the other countries that sign it will meet their requirements 

is not wise. 

Senator CAPITO. Senator Markey. 

Senator MARKEY. Thank you, Madam Chair, very much. 

The world is going to gather in Paris in 2 weeks, and the central 

objective is to deal with the dangerous human interference with the 

climate system, and countries from around the world are coming in 

order to make their commitments. One hundred sixty countries 

that actually are responsible for 90 percent of global carbon pollution have already made climate pledges in advance of the Paris 

talks, and we are positioned to have a very successful outcome from 

this huge international meeting. I believe that the United States 

can meet our goals. 

President Obama has made them at different times before this 

huge summit. That is because our fuel economy standard to go to 

54.5 miles per gallon. That is the largest single reduction in greenhouse gases in history of any country. That is still on the books. 

The President’s Clean Power Plan will dramatically reduce emissions from that sector as well. We have energy efficiency standards 

and we have massive deployment of wind and solar all across our 

Country that is unleashing business opportunity. 

So I guess I go to you first, Mr. Waskow. Do you agree that the 

Paris agreement includes meaningful emissions reduction pledges 

from all the countries, including developing countries, in your opinion? 

Mr. WASKOW. Thank you. As I mentioned, there are more than 

160 countries, 119 of them developing countries that have put forward their plans. We are seeing significant actions in many of 

them. I would just note, for example, in the case of India, that their 

domestic plans are to increase renewable energy to 175 gigawatts 

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total by 2022, and 100 gigawatts of that would be in solar energy; 

and that is more than half the current global solar installed capacity. That would then ramp up. 

Senator MARKEY. That is 170,000 megawatts of renewable electricity. 

Mr. WASKOW. That is right. 

Senator MARKEY. So that is incredible. And China is making a 

comparable kind of commitment, even larger in terms of its deployment, by the year 2030. 

Do you anticipate that an agreement reached in Paris will include procedures for reporting, monitoring, and verifying those 

pledges? 

Mr. WASKOW. The underlying U.N. Framework Convention in 

fact has provisions for countries to provide information about their 

emissions to report on their inventories. This agreement will build 

on that. We already had progress forward in the Copenhagen and 

Cancun agreements about increasing the degree of transparency. 

This agreement, I think, will increase that to an even greater degree and have convergence between developed and developing countries in terms of the requirements that they face in terms of transparency. 

Senator MARKEY. Thank you. Has America’s leadership been the 

key to bringing all the other countries to the table? Has the fact 

that we have made this commitment to reduce by 26 to 28 percent 

by 2025 been the forcing mechanism that says to China and to 

India and to other countries you too must do something? 

Mr. WASKOW. I think our actions have been noted around the 

world. I think that when one goes to the negotiations, one has a 

sense that countries see what we are doing. And I think one of the 

underpinnings, in fact, of this agreement is the work that the 

United States has done with China in particular to move forward. 

Senator MARKEY. I think you are right. Honestly, you can’t 

preach temperance from a bar stool, so we had to put up our commitments, and that is what the problem was back in Kyoto; we 

weren’t putting up what we were going to be doing. So here we 

have that and we have had a response from countries all around 

the world. 

In the business community I think they are looking forward to 

this, are they not, Ms. Jacobson, so that there can be a signal that 

is sent to the business community that they can rely upon, that 

there is going to be an investment atmosphere that is going to unleash hundreds of billions, trillions of dollars into this renewable 

energy sector? 

Ms. JACOBSON. Very much. And energy efficiency and other clean 

generation options. I mean, what the business community needs is 

a clear, sustained market signal to drive investment. Right now we 

are seeing investment sitting on the sidelines because there is not 

enough clarity. The United States has made tremendous progress 

in providing clarity over the last several years in terms of its domestic policy agenda in the energy sector. We need to see that in 

more countries, and we believe that the Paris discussions and the 

outputs from the conference are going to create a stronger investment signal in other countries outside of ours. 

123 

Senator MARKEY. What would it mean if we extended the wind 

and solar tax breaks for 15 years in this Country, in terms of the 

climate for investment? 

Ms. JACOBSON. We have seen, just looking at the ITC and the 

production tax credit experienced just in the last five or 6 years, 

you can see when we had a sustained investment policy for the ITC 

we saw investment and deployment increase dramatically. And 

when we didn’t have that clarity in other tax provisions for clean 

energy, things dropped off. So it is a very clear spotlight on what 

the power of policy certainty can provide to the investment of this 

community. 

Senator MARKEY. Thank you. We are going to have 300,000 jobs 

in wind and solar by the end of next year; 65,000 coal miners. So 

you can see how this is a growth trajectory that if we kept these 

tax incentives on the books, the clean power plan and the fuel economy standards, we would revolutionize our own Country, but give 

the leadership to the rest of the world; and be able to export these 

technologies, by the way, around the rest of the world. 

I thank you for all of your help here today. 

Ms. JACOBSON. Thank you. 

Senator MARKEY. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Senator CAPITO. Thank you. 

It is my understanding that we have had a vote that has been 

called, so what I am going to do is step away from the chair while 

Senator Boozman questions; make my vote really quickly and then 

get back so we can keep continuing with the hearing. Thank you. 

Senator BOOZMAN. [Presiding.] Mr. Eule, as you know, it was revealed earlier this 

month that China’s coal consumption is 17 percent higher than was 

previously reported. This confirms what many of us have been saying: we can’t trust China to keep track of carbon emissions and 

play by the rules. I have said many times that one of my major 

concerns is when we impose expensive carbon mandates here and 

force the price of electricity to necessarily skyrocket. It just forces 

our manufacturers to close, and their competitors in China will 

grow and emit even more into our atmosphere. 

Mr. Eule, is China the only country that has problems keeping 

up with its own CO2 and GHD emissions? 

Mr. EULE. No, it is not. And when you take a look at the error 

that the Chinese made, we are not talking about a rounding error 

here; this is a huge error, equivalent to about the GHD emissions 

from Germany. So what is going on in China is going on in a lot 

of other countries in the world that just don’t have a handle on how 

much greenhouse gas emissions they are actually emitting. 

Senator BOOZMAN. If China can’t accurately account for its emissions, should we expect them to actually deliver on setting up a 

complex and sophisticated national emissions trading system? 

Mr. EULE. Quite frankly, I don’t see how they can do that. I 

mean, part of an emission trading system is the idea of trust; that 

when you purchase a ton of CO2 allowance, that actually represents a ton of CO2 emissions. And right now we don’t have that 

confidence, and I am not so sure in the next year or so, when Chinese expect to roll out their emission trading, I am not so sure that 

confidence can be instilled in such a short period of time. 

124 

Senator BOOZMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Cass, you highlighted in your testimony that the COP 21 negotiations will focus little on greenhouse gas emissions and almost 

entirely on climate finance, specifically on motivating developed 

countries like the U.S. to offer more than $100 billion per year 

starting in 2020 through the green climate slush fund. Of course, 

thankfully, Congress is not going to provide that money. But for 

those countries that might put a few dollars into this fund, is there 

any indication of how these funds would be used? 

Mr. CASS. Thank you, Senator. I think one of the open questions 

right now is exactly that, which is what does this funding look like. 

The Green Climate Fund actually just announced its first set of 

grants, and it was sort of a hodgepodge of small dollar grants to 

build resilient infrastructure, potentially some investments in the 

direction of clean energy. 

But there frankly, at this point, is no clear guidance on how the 

money would be spent, and I think, most importantly, we know 

from our experience with foreign development aid that sending 

large amounts of money to developing countries even to, say, build 

a school is enormously challenging and rarely produces the desired 

result. Sending that money to build a revolutionary electricity grid 

where none has existed I think is doubtful to work very well. 

Senator BOOZMAN. No, that was my next question. We are really 

talking about countries that really have trouble with governance; 

lots of corruption, money not putting to good use. So, again, I guess 

your testimony is that that would be very, very difficult to manage. 

Mr. CASS. I think it is, and I think we take for granted, as we 

develop green infrastructure and renewable energy in the United 

States, that we have all the existing infrastructure to build off of 

and that we are adding a few percentage points to an enormous 

baseload of reliable energy. And now we are trying to do that in 

a developing world that has no such baseline, and this is exactly 

why the developing world doesn’t want to go in that direction, because it is not the right way to develop. 

Senator BOOZMAN. What level of oversight would be assigned to 

the global fund? Is there any oversight in place? 

Mr. CASS. There is an elaborate U.N. style structure of oversight 

over the Clean Climate Fund, with boards and committees and 

guidelines. In practice, how the money comes and goes I think will 

likely look more like what we have seen from other U.N. efforts 

than what we are used to domestically. 

Senator BOOZMAN. Right. Thank you. 

Senator BOOKER. 

Senator BOOKER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

So there clearly is a crisis, and I am glad I didn’t hear anybody 

sort of denying that we don’t have a climate problem. And the data 

and the facts speak for themselves. Just over the past week, scientists reported that global carbon dioxide concentrations have exceeded, perhaps permanently, the 400 parts per million threshold 

and carbon dioxide levels are now substantially higher than at any 

point in the last 800,000 years. Global temperatures have now exceeded about 1 degree Celsius above the pre-industrial age, with 

2014 being the warmest year on record. These are facts. 2015 actually is on pace to be even warmer than 2014. 

125 

And this is something that is not just heralded by the scientists 

around the globe, but also important global organizations. Earlier 

this month, The World Bank announced that due to currently projected sea level rise and an uptick in extreme weather, climate 

change could force an additional 100 million people on the planet 

Earth into poverty by 2030. 

So in the face of global crises, it seems that I hear in Washington 

over and over again that America must lead, that our leadership 

is important. Indeed, as we see with the war on terror, people calling again and again for American leadership. Well, clearly this 

global crisis is another case where we must lead. America has led 

throughout the decades in generations past, from the space race, 

which has yielded billions and billions of dollars in economic benefit to the United States, to even important global issues like mapping the human genome. 

So in the face of this need for American leadership, in the face 

of these facts about a global crisis, it is important to me that there 

are actually things that Paris can do and will do, if not the least 

of which is increasing communication, transparency, and greater 

levels of accountability for nations, as well as corporations. But 

critical to me, I mentioned the space race, is this understanding 

that leadership has its benefits and this crisis has its cost. The 

U.S. historically providing leadership to help solve global crises is 

something I am proud of, and this is an occasion where we must 

rise again. By exercising leadership, the United States economy 

can benefit, and it can benefit in astonishing ways, with trillions 

of dollars of new investments, increased jobs, and, most importantly, as I am seeing on the coast of New Jersey, we can avoid 

the social costs. 

A recent NYU report finds that a global agreement to limit tem- perature increases to 2 degrees Celsius will provide $10 trillion in 

direct benefits to the United States. I know the costs both to the 

local communities in New Jersey, from our fisheries to the storms 

and the weather changes, but the opportunity, the upside for this 

leadership is profound. 

So I would like to ask questions first to David Waskow. Mr. 

Waskow, in your opening statement you mentioned some of the potential economic benefits. This is something that is often not talked 

about. People keep talking about the costs, the costs, the costs, but 

the upside is pretty extraordinary. So if you could elaborate for me 

about what our Country, what the United States of America could 

see when it comes to economic benefits, job benefits from reducing 

carbon emissions. 

Mr. WASKOW. Sure. The benefits are quite extraordinary, as I 

mentioned. The EPA has estimated that the benefits of the Clean 

Power Plan themselves, from health benefits and others, are $32 

billion to $54 billion by 2030. That, in itself, is substantial and 

noteworthy. 

In addition to that, key actions that we can take, such as in energy efficiency, provide economic benefits, the evidence is that for 

every dollar invested in energy efficiency, you get at least two back. 

And the appliance efficiency measures that the Administration has 

put in place since 2009 alone would bring consumers $450 billion 

in benefits by 2030. 

126 

Senator BOOKER. No, I appreciate that. And as somebody who 

had to run a city, I saw a triple bottom line when it came to dealing with energy efficiency and trying to deal with global issues. We 

not only are able to reduce our expenditures by doing environmental retrofits where we were able to lower our carbon footprint, 

but we created jobs for our community and began to deal with the 

crisis in urban places like epidemic asthma rates. 

Ms. Jacobson, a similar question for you is can you describe some 

of the potential economic opportunities for the United States that 

would result from strong international agreement in Paris? And, 

please, you have 30 seconds. There is a ferocious chairman here 

and I want to stay on his good side. 

Ms. JACOBSON. I think I will just go back to my point on energy 

productivity and looking at what productivity gains our economy 

has achieved as we have also reduced our greenhouse gas emissions. It shows that you can reduce emissions, you can cut energy 

waste, you can create jobs, and you can improve the competitiveness of the U.S. economy at the same time. So these things make 

economic sense. 

Senator BOOKER. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Chairman, I would like to note that I finished before my 

time expired. 

Senator BOOZMAN. Senator Wicker. 

Senator WICKER. You surely did; three, two, one. Let me just 

make a statement, because we do have a vote and many other 

things to get to, so I will not have a chance to do a question. 

I want to put in the record at this point, Mr. Chairman, a peer 

reviewed article by Dr. Bjorn Lomborg of Copenhagen Consensus 

Center, entitled, ‘‘Impact of Current Climate Proposals.’’ Could I 

put that in the record at this point? 

Senator BOOZMAN. Without objection. 

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Senator WICKER. I also would like to put into the record a press 

release issued by the Copenhagen Consensus with regard to that 

peer reviewed study. 

Senator BOOZMAN. Again, without objection. 

[The referenced information follows:] 

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Senator WICKER. Let me just say this. Mr. Lomborg and I have 

not always seen eye-to-eye on the causes of climate change, but he 

has, I think, released a very important peer reviewed study. And, 

of course, I look on the Internet and I see the first thing that happens when you challenge the status quo is that there is a chorus 

of people saying that the data is wrong and faulty and should be 

disregarded. 

But here is what Dr. Lomborg tells us about the Paris promises. 

He basically says this: if Paris accomplishes everything they want 

to, and if you use their own projections, if we measure the impact 

of every nation fulling every promise by the year 2030, the total 

temperature reduction will be 0.048 degrees Celsius. In other 

words, by the end of this century, if everything they say is correct, 

we will have accomplished a change in degree Celsius of less than 

five-hundredths of a degree Celsius. 

My friend from New Jersey may or may not be correct about the 

problem, but the question is we spend all this money and divert it 

from all of these other areas. What are we going to get for it in 

addressing this problem? And this peer reviewed study says you 

are going to get less than five hundredths of a degree by the end 

of the century. The United Kingdom is diverting $8.9 billion from its overseas 

budget, going to turn it over to climate change. We are going to divert almost $9 billion and get five-tenths of a degree Celsius? 

I think the people of the world who answer public opinion polls 

are correct. When asked where action-related climate change ranks 

out of 16 categories, they rank it dead last. I think the people that 

are most disadvantaged in this world would rather have us use 

money to improve education, to increase electricity availability, to 

fight malaria. 

Malnourishment claims at least 1.4 million children’s lives per 

year. Yet we are taking money away from programs that do that. 

We are taking money that could be used for malnourishment and 

putting it on something that is going to five us less than five hundredths of a degree. 

1.2 billion people live in extreme poverty. Think of what the 

United Nations could do with the money that we are going to put, 

if it is $100 billion or whatever. Think of what we could do to help 

people in poverty, to help children who are dying, dying from malnutrition. Two point six billion human beings on this planet lack 

clean drinking water and sanitation. We could prevent 300,000 

deaths a year if we took this money and put it on malaria. 

So I just say I hope this Congress, I hope this Senate will act 

with caution. I hope the representatives of the American people act 

with caution when they go to Paris. And I hope whatever is done, 

I hope we make it clear, and the word should go out from this hearing and from this capital that whatever is agreed to by the people 

representing the United States of America in Paris should come 

back to this Congress for debate, for consultation, and for approval 

or disapproval by the Congress. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Senator CAPITO. [Presiding.] Thank you. 

Senator Gillibrand. 

144 

Senator GILLIBRAND. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

Ms. Jacobson, in your written testimony you wrote that the U.S. 

business community is increasingly considering the climate change 

in its energy corporate strategies and that companies are pledging 

to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and are implementing other 

climate change initiatives. Can you discuss with the committee 

some examples of how companies are embracing the move to lower 

our carbon emissions and promote greater sustainability? And have 

they used efforts to combat climate change as an opportunity to innovate and grow? 

Ms. JACOBSON. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to this. 

Several Business Council for Sustainable Energy members made 

recent pledges this fall related to greenhouse gas mitigation and 

other compatible, sustainable energy initiatives. These include 

Calpine, ENER-G Rudox, Ingersoll Rand, Johnson Controls, 

Kingspan Insulated Panels, PG&E, Qualcomm, and Schneider Electric. This really shows them plus their peers. In the recent announcements, as was mentioned by David, there were over 80 companies that came together, representing, I believe, $3 trillion investment, and they provide hundreds of thousands of jobs in this 

Country and offer their technologies, products, and services in a 

competitive and effective way globally. 

They see this as a mainstream business issue, and the range of 

tools vary, but they may be things like energy management practices, setting targets for reducing their energy use, working 

through their supply chains. Some even put carbon pricing into 

their investment decisions. And they are doing this because they 

get economic benefit from doing so. 

The last decade, through tools like the Carbon Disclosure Project 

and other initiatives, track how businesses have really evolved in 

the way they have responded to the call from their customers and 

from shareholders to consider sustainability initiatives and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We also now are seeing companies 

take it to the next level and look at what science and policymakers 

are doing in terms of their own trajectories for greenhouse gas 

emissions and matching them in their corporate strategies. 

So it is a mainstream issue and companies are responding in different ways, but I think the essential piece is that companies are 

responding. 

Senator GILLIBRAND. Can you please describe the importance of 

reaching an international agreement in Paris to the business community that you work with? And what effect do you think the global commitment to reduce greenhouse gases will have on the ability 

of U.S. companies that have already embraced sustainability to 

compete internationally? 

Ms. JACOBSON. Well, I think the second question first. The U.S. 

has a path forward. It has it at the State level, it has it at the local 

policy level, and we have it at the Federal level through the investments we are making in energy research, development, and deployment through things like the Clean Power Plan. We already have 

a roadmap. Other countries where we compete for customers and 

to invest need to be on a similar roadmap. 

And what the International Climate Change Agreement does is 

it brings to light, it provides transparency on not only what we do, 

145 

but what other governments are doing. So that sends a very strong 

signal to investors of where to place their capital. In the energy 

sector, these are long-lived investments; they are decades-long investments. And right now, with a lack of clarity in many parts of 

the world, capital is sitting on the sidelines, and that is not good 

for U.S. firms and it is not providing the job creation opportunities 

that U.S. firms would like to provide here at home. 

Senator GILLIBRAND. Thank you. 

Mr. Waskow, in your testimony you State that the leadership 

shown by the United States has paid substantial dividends internationally. Can you please elaborate on how the United States 

leadership has spurred action by other countries, and what changes 

have we seen from the lead-up to the Copenhagen meeting in 2010? 

Mr. WASKOW. Thank you. The leadership that the United States 

is showing has really had ramifications sort of rippling outwards, 

I think, and the underpinnings of that leadership really has been 

the agreements that the United States has entered into or arranged with China. Beginning a year ago, with the joint announcement by the two countries, where each put forward what its climate plans for the coming decade and, in China’s case, for the coming decade and a half will be, that really laid the ground for an understanding that action was going to be international in scope, 

when the two major emitters, the two largest emitters came forward in that way. 

And what we saw coming out of that, I think, was in fact a ripple 

effect that turned into a wave of action internationally. And we 

have now seen all major emitters, as part of that 160-plus set of 

countries with national climate plans, come forward with their 

plans, and we have seen actions, as I mentioned the Indian renewables target, for example, that have come forward. India has gone 

even beyond those 2022 numbers to commit that it would have 40 

percent of its energy supply from non-fossil sources by 2030. And 

we have seen this happen in any number of countries. 

This is very different from the Copenhagen situation. We have 

seen a doubling of countries that have put forward plans that have 

greenhouse gas emissions targets in them, as opposed to general 

actions, and we are seeing a plethora of renewable energy plans as 

well. We have analyzed the national climate plans, the INDCs, to 

look at renewable energy in particular. Just the eight largest 

emitters have put plans in place for more than 8,000 terawatt 

hours of renewable energy by 2030. This is about 20 percent more 

than what they would have done under business as usual. 

So we are seeing something that is really remarkable. 

Senator GILLIBRAND. Thank you. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Senator CAPITO. Thank you. 

If we could hold here for just a minute or two. Senator 

Whitehouse is on his way back, would like to participate in some 

questioning. So we will just of at ease, I guess would be a way to 

say it. 

Senator CARPER. Madam Chair. 

Senator CAPITO. Yes. 

Senator CARPER. Rather than just sit here and not continue our 

conversation, could I be recognized, please? 

146 

Senator CAPITO. Yes. 

Senator CARPER. A little bit of levy here. Yogi Berra. Who mentioned Yogi Berra? Daj& vu all over again. One of my favorite Yogi 

Berra stories is Yogi Berra is in the dugout with the other Yankees, and before the game started one of his teammates came in 

and said, did you hear the news, did you hear the news, Yogi? He 

said, a Jew has been elected mayor of Dublin. And Yogi thought 

about it and said, only in America. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator CARPER. Another Yogi favorite is Yogi once said, when 

you come to a fork in the road, take it. I think we’re at the fork 

in the road, and my hope is that we will take it. 

I learned a few things in preparing for this hearing, Madam 

Chair. One of those is many of these, I will call them, other executive agreements not approved by Congress have there been? I did 

have no idea, but it turns out there has been something like 18,000 

of them since 1789, compared to about 1,000 treaties that would 

have been agreed to. 

And I thought, well, are some of those executive agreements that 

have not been approved by Congress? One was the Yalta Agreement that ended World War II in 1945. Another was the Paris 

Peace Accords that ended the war in Vietnam in which I served. 

Another was the various adjustments to the Montreal Protocol and 

substances that depleted the ozone labor from 1987. More recently, 

the Minamata Convention on Mercury from 2013, a global agreement to protect human health from mercury pollution. All of those 

were not treaties, they were really essentially executive agreements. 

I will yield back my time and thank you. 

Senator CAPITO. Thank you. 

Senator Whitehouse. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Thank you, Chairman. 

Senator CAPITO. Sure. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. May I first ask unanimous consent to 

enter into the record the key vote alert from the Chamber of Commerce claiming to represent ‘‘the interests of more than 3 million 

businesses of all sizes, sectors, and regions’’ threatening to ‘‘score 

the vote’’ yesterday to destroy the President’s Clean Power Plan? 

Senator CAPITO. Without objection. 

[The referenced information follows:] 

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Senator WHITEHOUSE. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

May I also ask unanimous consent to enter into the record a letter signed by more than 360 companies, including General Mills, 

Nestle USA, Dannon, Staples, Adidas, Gap, Levis, and Schneider 

Electric, which has a good Rhode Island presence, always glad to 

have Schneider Electric involved, that was sent to the Nation’s 

Governors expressing strong support for implementation of the 

EPA’s carbon pollution standards for existing power plants? 

Senator CAPITO. Without objection. 

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Senator WHITEHOUSE. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

May I also ask unanimous consent to enter the White House 

American Business Act on Climate Pledge into the record? This is 

81 companies with operations in 50 States who employ over 9 million people, represent more than $3 trillion in annual revenue, and 

with a combined market cap of over $5 trillion? The signatories include Alcoa, Bank of America, Best Buy, Cargill, Coca Cola, Google, 

McDonald’s, Pepsi, Proctor & Gamble, Walmart, and Walt Disney. 

Senator CAPITO. Without objection. 

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Senator WHITEHOUSE. Thank you. 

And, finally, let me ask unanimous consent to enter into the 

record a financial sector statement on climate change from the financial giants Bank of America, Citi, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan 

Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo calling for a strong global 

agreement? 

Senator CAPITO. Without objection. 

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Senator WHITEHOUSE. I don’t have it with me, but I will get it 

before the record of the hearing closes. I would also ask unanimous 

consent that an advertisement in support of climate action put into 

the Financial Times by Unilever, by General Mills, by Mars, by 

Nestle, by Ben & Jerry’s, and by Kellogg’s be added to the record. 

Senator CAPITO. Without objection. 

[The referenced information follows:] 

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Senator WHITEHOUSE. And I would like to, with the Chair’s permission, ask a question for the record of the Chamber of Commerce, which is present here in the form of Mr. Eule. The question 

for the record is how does the Chamber’s relentless opposition to 

any climate action represent the views of the companies on these 

letters who are chamber members? 

I think that will probably take a little bit of time, so I would like 

to make that a question for the record. 

Let me also add into the record an article—— 

Senator CAPITO. Just let me clarify. That means you are wanting 

a written response from Mr. Eule? 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Yes. And/or the Chamber, if they want to 

respond through some other personage. 

Senator CAPITO. All right. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. I would also like to put into the record a 

recent press story called ‘‘The Koch ATM,’’ which reports that the 

U.S. Chamber of Commerce received $2 million from Freedom Partners, which is a Koch-backed operation, and also reflect for the 

record here that the Center for Media Democracy reports that from 

2001 to 2012 The Manhattan Institute received over $2.1 million 

from foundations associated with the Koch brothers, including the 

Charles G. Koch Foundation and the Claude R. Lambe Foundation, 

and the Union of Concerned Scientists reports that since 1998 The 

Manhattan Institute received $800,000, $475,000 of which has 

come in since 2007, from ExxonMobil. 

Senator CAPITO. Without objection. 

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Senator WHITEHOUSE. Thank you. 

I think the point I am trying to make here is that the so-called 

voices of the business community that we are seeing here are in 

fact the voices of the fossil fuel industry, specifically ExxonMobil, 

the coal industry, big oil, the Koch brothers; and that the bulk of 

the broader American corporate community is actively supporting 

taking action on climate, setting aside the parts of the American 

economy that are actually involved in the clean energy economy. 

These are kind of just neutral American businesses, as opposed to 

companies like I think it is called Mid-America Power, which is 

providing so much wind power in Iowa right now and other big 

ventures that are investing heavily, creating jobs, developing technology, and doing good things for the American economy. 

So I wanted to make sure that the record of this proceeding reflected both the position of the broader American corporate community and also the funding behind two of the gentlemen who are 

here today. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Senator CAPITO. Well, I think we have reached the end of our 

hearing. I want to thank all of you for participating. I think we 

have gotten some good discussion. 

Senator CARPER. Madam Chair. 

Senator CAPITO. Yes. 

Senator CARPER. You and I are both from West Virginia. I was 

born long before you were, but when I think about this issue, I 

think about the Golden Rule, how do we apply the Golden Rule so 

we are fair to everybody. In my State, we face global sea level rise. 

It is going to do us in, eventually, if we don’t do something about 

it. 

My native State, West Virginia, one of the top five coal-producing 

States in the Country, some of our neighbors where I was born and 

grew up, my dad worked as a coal miner for a little bit out of 

school. But I have been a longtime supporter of clean coal technology, I am sure you have as well, for over twenty-some years. We 

spent about $20 billion on clean coal technology, I think, in the last 

20 years, and we have a plant up and running now in Southwest 

Texas. It will be up and running next year. It will produce about 

250 megawatts of energy. We have some other plants where work 

is being done on those. 

It has taken a long time, it has taken a lot of money, but I am 

encouraged that we are starting to make some progress. So when 

I apply the Golden Rule to those five coal-producing States, West 

Virginia, Kentucky, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Wyoming, and others, I 

think what is the fair thing to do with them, and I think part of 

the fair thing to do is to continue to invest in clean coal technology 

and look for the innovation. All those coal plants that they are 

going to build in China and other places, if they can actually use 

this technology, we could actually develop it, that could be pretty 

good job development for all of us. 

Senator CAPITO. Well, I would agree, and in the form of letting 

the panel know that Senator Barrasso is on his way, so the same 

courtesies that we extended to Senator Whitehouse we will extend 

to him and wait a little bit longer for him to be able to make questions. 

221 

And I do believe innovation, but I do believe that when we talk 

about the human price and the human consequences of what is 

going on in terms of climate change, you have to look about what 

is going on in States like mine right now, and the human consequences of the highest unemployment, a 4 percent cut in our 

State budget, the first time we have ever had to cut education in 

many, many years by 1 percent; more people in poverty; a sense 

of gloom and doom and depression that really I have not seen in 

our State, and we have had a lot of highs and lows in our State. 

As you know, we have had experience with kind of feeling that our 

economics can’t move forward. 

But it is indescribable where I am living right now, so I see the 

human consequence of moving forward without the innovation, 

without longer timelines, without more common sense. So I will 

just make that a statement. 

I am going to ask a quick question because you brought up the 

sole executive agreements that had been made. I think you said 

how many over the past, 800? 

Senator CARPER. Actually, about 18,000. 

Senator CAPITO. Eighteen thousand. 

Senator CARPER. They call them executive agreements. 

Senator CAPITO. So my question is, Mr. Ku, if this becomes a sole 

executive agreement by this President, who is leaving office in a 

year, for the next president coming in, what kind of parameters, 

does that have any binding measures for the next president, and 

could the next president come in and just totally undo what has 

been done in that sole executive agreement? 

Mr. KU. Thanks, Senator. I think that a sole executive agreement is the weakest kind of commitment that the United States 

can make. There are a lot of them, but they are usually for very 

small things or things within the president’s inherent powers. So 

the Supreme Court has said that only for things that historically 

Congress has acquiesced in using executive agreements would the 

Court uphold such executive agreements. 

So I think the way to think about this is that if he makes the 

executive agreement under his sole authority, a president can withdraw the executive agreement under his sole authority. 

Senator CAPITO. But that would mean the succeeding president. 

Mr. KU. Yes. So a succeeding president would have the authority 

to withdraw an executive agreement that was made under the sole 

authority of the previous president. 

The only difference, I would just say, is that if the other countries feel like the previous president made a binding promise, the 

fact there is a new president doesn’t make them feel much better 

about it. So there is a cost to it if the next president withdraws. 

Even though it is legal, the other countries obviously become upset 

and unhappy about it, and that is why the Supreme Court, I think, 

and generally scholars think that the use of sole executive agreements has to be carefully used only where it is clear the president 

has the authority and there is longstanding precedent for use of a 

sole executive agreement in that circumstance. 

Senator CAPITO. Well, thank you. 

Senator Barrasso. 

222 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Madam Chair, before we turn to Senator 

Barrasso’s remarks, may I simply associate myself with the 

thoughtful remarks of Senator Carper of a moment ago? I have to 

leave now, but I would like to associate myself with his remarks. 

Senator CAPITO. All right. Thank you. 

Senator BARRASSO. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

You know, if there was one message that I would like to send to 

the international community ahead of the international climate 

change conference, it is this: without Senate approval, there will be 

no money. 

Secretary Kerry says that a treaty requiring Senate approval will 

not emerge from the international climate talks. This is despite the 

fact that the State Department is pushing for parts of the agreement to be legally binding on the United States. 

On November 13th, the State Department, our position has not 

changed. The U.S. is pressing for an agreement that contains provisions both legally binding and non-legally binding. 

Any agreement reached in Paris that contains legally binding requirements on the American people must come to the Senate for 

a vote. This isn’t only the right thing to do, it is also what the Constitution requires. 

As we know, the United Nations Green Climate Fund was proposed during the 2009 conference of parties in Copenhagen, Denmark. The Fund facilitates a giant wealth transfer of taxpayer dollars from the developed nations to developing nations to help them 

adapt to climate change. 

Congress has never authorized funding the Green Climate Fund. 

The United States and other developed nations have pledged approximately $10 billion for the initial capitalization of the Fund, 

with the goal of raising $100 billion annually. Most people think 

that is a misprint, but it is true, $100 billion annually is what they 

are talking about. 

On November 15th of last year, the Obama administration 

pledged $3 billion in U.S. taxpayer funds over the 4-years during 

the G20 meetings in Australia. The Administration’s Fiscal Year 

2016 budget request asks for $500 million for the Fund. 

We cannot support providing taxpayer dollars to this Fund is 

Congress does not get approval of an agreement. 

So I want to make it clear to the Administration, as well as to 

foreign diplomats across the globe who are looking for U.S. dollars, 

which is the linchpin of this conference, without Senate approval 

there will be no money, period. 

I and many of my colleagues will be sending the President a letter stating that very soon. We have circulated a copy of the letter. 

Now for the questions. 

Mr. Cass, it was recently reported in The New York Times, page 

1, above the fold, Wednesday, November 4th, China is burning 

much more coal than it claimed. Article states, even for a country 

of China’s size, the scale of the correction is immense. The sharp 

upward revision in official figures means that China has released 

much more carbon dioxide, almost a billion more tons a year, than 

previously estimated. A billion more tons a year than estimated. 

223 

The increase alone is greater than the whole German economy 

emits annually from fossil fuels. 

So how does this impact the Chinese INDC submission and 

should we be premising U.S. action based on a promise from China, 

when they can’t even accurate count or won’t accurately account 

their coal consumption? 

Mr. CASS. Thank you, Senator. I think the Chinese restatement 

is an important fact, because in that very article they actually 

quote China’s climate advisor, somewhat smugly noting this makes 

it even easier for them to meet their target. 

China has never committed to a level that its emissions will peak 

at; it has never committed to how its emissions will decline after 

that. So by after having already put out its commitment, noting, 

oh, and actually we are burning a lot more coal than we told you, 

they are in fact making it that much easier to meet a goal that 

they were on track to meet anyway, without actually making any 

changes to their policy. 

Senator BARRASSO. But it sounds like the cost and concessions to 

be made by the U.S. in the agreement with China are much more 

real than what China is ever going to do, and ours have to be done 

before 2025 and China can continue to go to peak in the year 2030. 

Mr. CASS. That is correct. And I think what is most concerning 

about that in some respects is that we have heard so much at this 

hearing about the importance of U.S. leadership and about this 

process we have moved forward with that requires what is essentially called naming and shaming. The premise of getting action 

from the developing world is that we are going to call out those 

who do not commit to action and shame them into action. Now, 

whether that was ever a good idea or not, it is how we have proceeded; and yet the talking points from the most vocal advocates 

of climate action are now that the China is doing a great job. 

Senator BARRASSO. And, Mr. Eule, if I could ask you if a sophisticated country like China can’t keep up with its emissions, what 

level of confidence do we have that other countries with fewer resources and capacity will be able to or willing to produce a reliable 

system for measuring, reporting, and verifying emission reduction 

activities? 

Mr. EULE. In the Chinese experience, my guess is nothing new. 

I think there are a lot of developing countries that don’t have a 

handle on how much greenhouse gas emissions they are actually 

emitting. So it is an excellent question, and I am not quite sure at 

this point that measuring, reporting, and verification can be set up 

so that we can, with assurance, guarantee that the emission cuts 

they have promised are actually going to be delivered. 

Senator BARRASSO. And then a question for both of you, if you 

could. There was a recent opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal 

by Bjorn Lomborg, who many of you are familiar with, noted that 

in the run-up to the negotiations, he says, rich countries and development organizations are scrambling to join the fashionable ranks 

of climate aid, of the donors. This effectively means telling the 

world’s worst off people, suffering from tuberculosis, malaria, malnutrition, that what they really need isn’t medicine, isn’t mosquito 

nets, or micronutrients, but a solar panel. 

224 

Could the ultimate effect of the negotiations make it actually 

harder, harder for countries to raise their own people out of the abject poverty in the name of climate change? 

Mr. CASS. I think that is certainly a concern, and I think Senator 

Wicker called attention to the fact that the U.K., under pressure 

to provide climate finance, has simply said, OK, we will shift our 

other develop aid into climate finance. 

I think the good news for people in developing countries is that 

their own leaders are refusing to prioritize emissions cuts over economic growth. The bad news is that the developed world, for the 

sake of getting a signed piece of paper, may reorient their own aid 

toward solar panels instead of drinking water. 

Senator BARRASSO. Mr. Eule. 

Mr. EULE. Mr. Cass said essentially what I was going to say. The 

simple fact is when you look at what developing countries are 

doing, they have set their priorities, and their priorities are economic development, poverty eradication, and energy access; it is 

not about addressing greenhouse gas emissions. And I think that 

is going to be the way it will be for the foreseeable future. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Senator CAPITO. Thank you. 

Senator Carper, anything else? 

Senator CARPER. If I could make a unanimous consent request to 

put in the record, Madam Chairman, a copy of the U.S. pledges for 

the general climate fund, which actually appear to be around $3 

billion, instead of the $45 billion quoted earlier. 

I would just say to my friend from Wyoming, you missed this, 

but we have a number of States. I was born in one that produced 

a lot of coal, and as we go forward and try to figure out how to 

deal with this issue of climate change and global warming, we need 

to be mindful how do we help the States that will be adversely affected, just as we try to help the low-lying States that are in danger of being drowned. 

And I would say if we don’t provide leadership, the rest of the 

world, they are not going to do much at all. Why should they? If 

we do provide leadership, we have a shot, we have a chance. 

Thank you. 

Senator CAPITO. Thank you. 

Thank you again to the panel and thank all those who attended, 

and I will call this hearing adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:27 a.m. the hearing was adjourned.] 

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