(4) The United Nations Framework Convention 
on Climate Change (hereinafter in this section re-
ferred to as the ‘‘Convention’’) establishes a viable 
foundation to construct a global regime to combat 
global warming and manage its impacts. 
(5) The United States, along with 189 other 
countries, is a party to the Convention, agreed to in 
New York on May 9, 1992, and entered into force in 
1994. The Convention’s stated objective is ‘‘to achieve 
stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the 
atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous 
anthropogenic interference with the climate system’’. 
(6) The Kyoto Protocol to the Convention was 
adopted by the third Convention Conference of the 
Parties (COP–3) in December 1997, in Kyoto, Japan, 
and stipulated legally binding reductions in green-
house gas emissions at an average of 5.2 percent 
below 1990 levels for industrialized countries, but it 
did not specify policies for its implementation. The 
Kyoto Protocol also did not stipulate binding reduc-
tions in greenhouse gas emissions for rapidly indus-
trializing countries such as China, India, and Brazil. 
(7) Before negotiations were completed on the 
mechanisms for implementing Kyoto Protocol com-
mitments on greenhouse gas emissions, George W. 
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Bush took office as President of the United States, 
and in March 2001, announced opposition to contin-
ued negotiations over implementation of the Protocol, 
stating that the Protocol was ‘‘fatally flawed’’ from 
the Administration’s point of view. 
(8) President Bush unveiled an ‘‘alternative’’ 
strategy to the Kyoto Protocol for halting global 
warming on February 14, 2002. The President’s plan 
did not contain any international component to 
amend or supplant the Kyoto Protocol or any kind of 
blueprint for committing major developing economies 
such as China, India, and Brazil to reduce future 
greenhouse gas emissions. The President’s plan set a 
voluntary ‘‘greenhouse gas intensity’’ target for the 
United States that specified an 18 percent reduction 
in ‘‘emissions intensity’’ by 2012. This reduction 
would allow actual emissions to increase by at least 
12 percent over the same period. 
(9) On February 16, 2005, after Russia’s ratifi-
cation, the Kyoto Protocol entered into force. With 
entry into force, the emissions targets of the Protocol 
became legally binding commitments for those indus-
trialized countries that ratified the Protocol. Because 
the United States and Australia did not ratify the 
Protocol, and because developing countries are not 
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subject to its limits, the Protocol currently restricts 
the emissions of countries accounting for only 32 per-
cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. 
(10) The Kyoto Protocol required that parties to 
the Protocol begin negotiating in 2005 toward a sec-
ond round of commitments to begin after the expira-
tion of the first emissions budget period in 2012. The 
eleventh Convention Conference of the Parties (COP– 
11) in November and December 2005 in Montreal, 
Canada launched the negotiations on the second 
round of commitments by parties to the Protocol and 
initiated a dialogue (a ‘‘parallel process’’) under the 
Convention that engaged both the United States and 
developing countries in discussions on future efforts. 
(11) At the twelfth Convention Conference of the 
Parties (COP–12) in November 2006 in Nairobi, 
Kenya, parties continued discussions on a second 
round of commitments under the Kyoto Protocol as a 
successor to the first commitment period (2008 
through 2012) and, in the parallel process, discussed 
enhanced cooperation under the Convention that 
would engage countries that did not have commit-
ments under the Protocol. 
(12) At a summit in Brussels, Belgium in March 
2007, the head of governments of the European Union 
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committed its Member States to cut greenhouse gas 
emissions 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and 
committed to move this target up to 30 percent if the 
United States and other major emitters joined the 
commitment. 
(13) On April 17, 2007, the United Nations Se-
curity Council held its first ever ‘‘open meeting’’ on 
the impact of climate change on international secu-
rity. British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett, in 
her capacity as President of the Security Council, de-
clared in her opening statement that the Council has 
a ‘‘security imperative’’ to tackle climate change be-
cause it can exacerbate problems that cause conflicts 
and because it threatens the entire planet. United Na-
tions Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the Coun-
cil that ‘‘issues of energy and climate change have im-
plications for peace and security’’. 
(14) Working Group III of the IPCC met from 
April 30 through May 4, 2007, in Bangkok, Thailand 
to assess technologies and policies needed to avert 
dangerous climate change and to provide background 
for negotiations on a post-2012 climate change re-
gime. The draft report by the IPCC Working Group 
III concludes that by quickly adopting technological 
options that are available or are being developed, the 
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global concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmos-
phere can be stabilized at 450–550 parts per million 
(ppm). The IPCC scientists believe that a 450 to 550 
ppm ceiling might limit the global rise in tempera-
tures to no more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit and 
avert impacts of escalating scale, scope, and costs, po-
tentially including the destabilization of large polar 
ice sheets that could contribute to long-term, cata-
strophic sea level rise at higher temperatures. 
(15) At the Group of Eight (G–8) Summit sched-
uled to be held in Heiligendamm, Germany in June 
2007, climate change and energy have been placed at 
the top of the policy agenda, and during the Summit, 
the G–8 is scheduled to have a dialogue with China, 
India, South Africa, Mexico, and Brazil on the issue. 
(16) The United Nations Secretary-General Ban 
Ki-moon has indicated that one of his top goals is to 
forge a more comprehensive agreement under the Con-
vention to ensure there is no gap when the first com-
mitment period under the Kyoto Protocol ends in 
2012. In order to reach this goal, critical negotiations 
involving all of the major greenhouse gas emitters, 
along with the vulnerable countries, must be initiated 
immediately and be completed by 2009. On May 1, 
2007, the Secretary-General named three Special En-
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voys on Climate Change to assist in ‘‘consultations 
with Governments’’. The Secretary-General will host a 
‘‘high-level meeting’’ on climate change at the United 
Nations General Assembly in September 2007 to give 
‘‘political direction’’ to the thirteenth Convention 
Conference of the Parties (COP–13) to take place in 
December 2007 in Bali, Indonesia. 
SEC. 102. CONGRESSIONAL STATEMENT OF POLICY. 
Congress declares the following to be the policy of the 
United States: 
(1) To promote United States and global security 
through leadership in cooperation with other nations 
of the global effort to reduce and stabilize global 
greenhouse gas emissions and stabilize atmospheric 
concentration of such gases. As such, the United 
States will seek to obtain mitigation commitments 
from all major greenhouse gas emitting countries 
under the institutional framework provided by the 
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate 
Change (hereinafter in this section referred to as the 
‘‘Convention’’); 
(2) To facilitate progress in global negotiations 
toward a comprehensive agreement under the Conven-
tion, and in service of this goal, the United States 
will, during the course of 2007, engage in high level 
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dialogue on climate change within the Group of Eight 
(G–8), with the European Union, with Japan and 
other industrialized countries, and with China, India, 
Brazil, and other major developing countries. The 
United States will also participate in the initiative 
of the United Nations Secretary-General to build con-
sensus among governments on enhanced international 
cooperation on these matters. 
(3) To participate more actively and construc-
tively in the intergovernmental climate change proc-
ess, including at the thirteenth Convention Conference 
of the Parties (COP–13) to take place in December 
2007 in Bali, Indonesia. As such, at the COP–13 
meeting, the United States will be represented by a 
high-level delegation composed of climate experts and 
career foreign service officers with extensive diplo-
matic experience, including experience in multi-lat-
eral negotiations, headed by the Secretary of State, 
the Secretary’s Deputy, or the Undersecretary for 
Global Affairs of the Department of State. 
(4) To engage in serious discussion of possible 
future commitments under the Convention. These dis-
cussions will seek to develop a plan of action and 
time-table with the goal of adopting a new inter-
national agreement under the Convention that stipu-
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lates commitments from all major greenhouse gas 
emitters, including the United States and other coun-
tries listed in Annex 1 to the Convention, China, 
India, and Brazil, at the fifteenth Convention Con-
ference of the Parties (COP–15) to take place in 2009. 
This process will seek as its objective that a new in-
strument will come into force by the time the first 
commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol ends in 
2012. 
(5) To protect United States national and eco-
nomic interests and United States competitiveness in 
all sectors by negotiating a new agreement under the 
Convention that is cost effective, comprehensive, flexi-
ble, and equitable. Such an agreement shall, at a 
minimum— 
(A) require binding mitigation commit-
ments from all major emitting countries based 
on their level of development; 
(B) provide for different forms of commit-
ments, including economy-wide emissions tar-
gets, policy-based commitments, sectoral agree-
ments, and no-regrets targets; 
(C) increase cooperation on clean and effi-
cient energy technologies and practices; 
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(D) target all greenhouse gases, including 
sources, sinks, and reservoirs of greenhouse gases, 
and should expand the current scope of the Kyoto 
Protocol and Convention to sectors not covered, 
such as the international aviation and maritime 
sectors; 
(E) include mechanisms to harness market- 
based solutions, building upon the joint imple-
mentation, clean development mechanism, and 
international emissions trading developed under 
the Protocol; 
(F) include incentives for sustainable for-
estry management that reflect the value of avoid-
ed deforestation; 
(G) address the need for adaptation, espe-
cially for the most vulnerable and poorest coun-
tries on the planet; 
(H) consider the impact on United States 
industry and contain effective mechanisms to 
protect United States competitiveness; and 
(I) include the perspectives and address the 
concerns of impacted indigenous and tribal pop-
ulations. 
(6) To seek international consensus on long-term 
objectives including a target range for stabilizing 
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