Statement of Senator Peter Welch (D-Vt.)
As Prepared and Submitted for the Congressional Record
November 21, 2024
Madam President, world leaders and other high-ranking officials from nearly 200 countries have been in Baku, Azerbaijan this week in pursuit of an agreement on financing of future actions necessary to avert a global catastrophe caused by climate change. The outcome of these negotiations will signal whether the international community is finally getting serious about reducing carbon emissions to halt global warming, or still capable only of setting inadequate, voluntary goals which they then fail to meet.
It is sadly ironic that the 29th Conference of the Parties, otherwise known as COP29, is being held in an oil-rich country that has wholly failed to meet its commitments under the Paris Agreement, and whose head of state, President Ilham Aliyev, has profited from his county’s oil wealth. Aliyev has abused his authority,enriching himself and crushing any opposition to his authoritarian rule. In fact, Aliyev opened COP29 by praising fossil fuels as a “gift from God” and, in the run-up to the conference, penned several natural gas deals, boosting the fossil fuel industry in his country.
It is also distressing that rather than invest in clean energy, President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to do everything he can to increase the production of fossil fuels here in the United States and has threatened to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement. The result for the American people would be dirtier air, dirtier water, more disastrous oil and chemical spills, and more hurricanes, floods, droughts, fires, earthquakes, and other extreme weather events that have devastated communities across this country.
This year, another 40 billion tons of heat-trapping carbon will be spewed into the Earth’s atmosphere. That is nearly double the emissions compared to just 25 years ago, despite the repeated warnings of the world’s scientists of the harmful impacts on human health and the environment.
2024 is expected to be the first full year when we have breached the 1.5-degree Celsius target set in Paris, with temperatures reaching life-threating levels for hundreds of millions of people. Wildfires are more frequent and intense than ever before. Water has become so scarce in some countries plagued by prolonged drought that it is more valuable than oil. Deforestation, another driver of global warming, is causing the extinction of an estimated 137 species of plants, animals and insects every day. That is 50,000 species lost forever each year.
Economically, the story is no better. A recent working paper of the National Bureau of Economic Research estimates that for every additional degree of global warming, we can expect a 12% drop in global GDP. That translates to increasing costs for food, housing, clothing, transportation, and other basic needs.
To illustrate the global scope of climate change, both Vermont and Vietnam, on opposite sides of the planet, experienced catastrophic flooding this year. But they were not alone. This year has brought unprecedented flooding from torrential rainfall, hurricanes, and typhoons causing death and destruction on a massive scale in the United States, Central Asia, East Africa, West Africa, Southeast Asia, and Central Europe.
Despite this ominous trend, the response of the Republican-led House of Representatives was to prohibit a U.S. contribution to the Green Climate Fund in Fiscal Year 2025. The House included zero funding for the UN Environment Program, zero funding for USAID’s clean energy programs, zero funding for USAID’s climate adaptation programs, and they cut funding for USAID’s programs to protect forests and wildlife.
President-elect Trump’s designated czar for so-called government efficiency has proposed to cut the federal budget by $2 trillion. The consequences of cuts for programs to combat global warming worldwide, combined with increased investments in fossil fuels, would threaten future generations with potentially catastrophic increases in temperatures and sea levels unprecedented in human history. If President-elect Trump and the Republican Congress get their way, it’s the American people who will suffer.
Madam President, climate change is a global crisis, requiring global solutions. The United States has the opportunity and obligation to be the world’s leader on climate, not just because we are the second largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions, but because we have the world’s strongest economy and the power to drive innovation.
Taking a back seat in addressing climate change will undercut our economic competitiveness and cede ground to China and other industrialized nations. And while the President-elect may seek to reverse the progress we have made in recent years, the American people understand that climate change is real. They are already coping with the impacts, which are becoming worse each year. I, and many others in the Senate, remain committed to working to transition away from fossil fuels, protect clean air and water, support vulnerable communities, and preserve biodiversity. We will continue to do all we can to ensure the United States does its part.
Unfortunately, at COP29, we are witnessing what an absence of strong U.S. leadership looks like. Argentina has withdrawn its delegation and, following in the President-elect’s footsteps, is reconsidering its participation in the Paris Agreement. The heads of state of China, France, Germany, Japan, and India declined to attend. In fact, the top leaders of the 13 largest carbon emitters, including the U.S., are absent.
International cooperation must go on. COP29 must reaffirm, despite the ebbs and flows of electoral politics, that there is still an international commitment to address the climate crisis. A recent UN report on the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement showed them falling woefully short of what is needed to avert what UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell described as a “human and economic train wreck for every country, without exception.” New NDCs, which will outline parties’ efforts to lower emissions through 2035, are due in February of next year and must be ambitious, substantive, and actionable to avoid an economic and human catastrophe.
In another measure of our collective ambitions, negotiators in Baku will set a new climate finance goal to replace the $100 billion annual contributions pledged by developed countries to fund climate actions in developing nations. Experts have estimated that the need for financial assistance will exceed $1 trillion annually by 2035. While countries have balked at this figure, direct fossil fuel subsidies reached $1.3 trillion in 2022 according to the International Monetary Fund. Negotiators must increase public contributions by several orders of magnitude—hundreds of billions of dollars—in order to successfully leverage private finance if we hope to achieve this goal.
COP29 will also seek to implement Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which allows countries to trade emission reductions, by establishing rules for international carbon markets. Any markets emerging from these negotiations must be transparent, include strong environmental guardrails, and be strictly enforced. They must account for the full lifecycle of carbon emissions, a range of conservation actions, and the unique natural resources of countries across the world. Carbon markets cannot be allowed to “greenwash” or “offset” continued emissions by polluters, but facilitate real, lasting change in our global energy systems.
Finally, we must use COP29 as an opportunity to continue building momentum in the effort to limit the climate crisis. While we need to do more, we have made positive strides in recent years. The President’s Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience has mobilized billions of dollars to help developing countries manage the effects of global warming, reducing the risk of climate-fueled conflict and migration. Policies to strengthen the renewable energy sector have made renewables the cheapest electricity on the market, lowering the energy cost burden for consumers. Investments in green manufacturing will produce hundreds of thousands of new, good-paying, American jobs. Climate action is not only good for the environment, but also for our economy, public health, and national security.
COP29 must remind us of these facts and inspire action. Climate change is an existential threat that may soon dwarf all others we face. The 2050 deadline for climate action is only 25 years away. We are no longer talking about future generations, it is our generation that will have to contend with a climate that is increasingly hostile. The clock is running out. There is no more time to waste.
# # #