Gore: Obama stimulus good for climate

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Senator Lugar, members of the committee. Indeed, I do join in welcoming your newest member, and also acknowledging my fellow Tennessean, Senator Corker, and the many friends that I have on this committee. And may I also acknowledge in the audience Teresa Heinz Kerry, who is a long-time activist on the issue that we're discussing here today.

It is truly a great honor and personal privilege to be invited to appear before this committee. Mr. Chairman, I want to compliment you on your long-time leadership on this issue, and thank you and Senator Lugar for the prominence you're bringing to this issue by making it the subject of the very first substantive hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2009.

We are here today, of course, to talk about how we as Americans and how the United States of America as part of the global community should address the dangerous and growing threat of the climate crisis.

We have arrived at a moment of decision. Our home, Earth, is in danger. What is at risk of being destroyed is not the planet itself, of course, but the conditions that have made it hospitable for human beings.

Moreover, we must face up to this urgent and unprecedented threat to the existence of our civilization at a time when our nation must simultaneously solve two other worsening crises: Our economy is in its deepest recession since the 1930s and our national security is endangered by a vicious terrorist network and the complex challenge of ending the war in Iraq honorably while winning the military and political struggle in Afghanistan.

As we search for solutions to all three of these challenges, it is becoming ever clearer that they are linked by a common thread: Our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels. If you grab ahold of that thread and pull it, all three of these crises yield a solution and you hold in your hand the answer, and that is a shift from carbon- based fuels to renewable energy.

As long as we continue to send hundreds of billions of dollars for foreign oil year after year to the most dangerous and unstable regions of the world, our national security will continue to be at risk. As long as we continue to allow our economy to remain shackled to the OPEC roller coaster of rising and falling oil prices, our jobs and our way of life will remain at risk. Moreover, as the demand for oil worldwide grows rapidly over the longer term, even as the rate of new discoveries is falling, it is increasingly obvious that this roller coaster is headed for a crash and we're in the front car.

Most importantly, as long as we continue to depend on dirty fossil fuels like coal and oil to meet our energy needs and dump 70 million tons of global-warming pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet, we move closer and closer to several dangerous tipping points which scientists have repeatedly warned, again just yesterday, threaten to make it impossible for us to avoid irretrievable destruction of the conditions that make human civilization possible on this planet.

We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf and burning it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that has to change.

For years, our efforts to address the growing climate crisis have been undermined by the idea that we must choose between our planet and our way of life, between our moral duty and our economic well-being. These are false choices. In fact, the solutions to the climate crisis are the very same solutions that will address our economic and national security crises as well.

In order to repower our economy, restore American economic and moral leadership in the world and regain control of our own destiny, we must take bold action now. The first step is already before us. I urge this Congress to quickly pass the entirety of President Obama's recovery package. The planned unprecedented and critical investments in four key areas -- energy efficiency, renewables, a unified national energy smart grid, and the move to clean cars -- represent an important down payment and are long overdue. These crucial investments will create millions of new jobs and hasten our economic recovery, while strengthening our national security and beginning to solve the climate crisis.

Quickly building our capacity to generate clean electricity will lay the groundwork for the next major step needed -- placing a price on carbon. If Congress acts right away to pass President Obama's recovery package and then takes decisive action this year to institute a cap-and-trade system for CO2 emissions -- as many of our states and many other countries have already done, and as many of the leading Fortune 500 corporations in America are pleading with the Congress to do so they'll have predictability and the basis to become more competitive in world commerce -- then the United States will regain its credibility and enter the Copenhagen treaty talks with a renewed authority to lead the world in shaping a fair and effective treaty.

And this treaty must be negotiated this year. Not next year; this year.

A fair, effective and balanced treaty will put in place the global architecture that will place the world, at long last and in the nick of time, on a path towards solving the climate crisis and securing the future of human civilization. I am hopeful that this can be achieved. Let me outline for you the basis for the hope and optimism that I feel.

The Obama administration has already signaled a strong willingness to regain U.S. leadership on the global stage in the treaty talks, reversing years of inaction. This is critical to success in Copenhagen and is clearly a top priority of the administration.

Developing countries, as you said, Mr. Chairman, that were once reluctant to join in the first phases of a global response to the climate crisis have themselves now become leaders in demanding action and in taking bold steps on their own initiatives. Brazil has proposed a very impressive new plan to halt the destructive deforestation in that nation. Indonesia has emerged as a new constructive force in the talks. And China's leaders have gained a strong understanding of the need for action and have already begun important new initiatives.

Heads of state from around the world have begun to personally engage on this issue, and forward-thinking corporate leaders have made this a top priority. More and more Americans are paying attention to the new evidence and fresh warnings from scientists. There is a much broader consensus on the need for action than there was when President George H.W. Bush negotiated, and the Senate ratified, the Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992. And there is much stronger support for action than when we completed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997.

The elements that I believe are key to a successful agreement in Copenhagen include, first, strong targets and timetables from industrialized countries and differentiated but binding commitments from developing countries that put the entire world under a system with one commitment: to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other global warming pollutants that are the cause of the climate crisis.

Two, the inclusion of deforestation, which alone accounts for more than 20 percent of the emissions that cause global warming.

Three, the addition of so-called carbon sinks, including those from soils, principally from farm lands and grazing lands, with appropriate methodologies and accounting. Farmers such as Senator Lugar and ranchers in the U.S. and around the world need to know that they can be a part of the solution.

Fourth, the assurance that developing countries will have access to mechanisms and resources that will help them adapt, to the worst impacts of the climate crisis, and technologies to solve the problem. And finally a strong compliance and verification regime.

The road to Copenhagen is not easy. But we have traversed this ground before. We negotiated the Montreal Protocol more than 20 years ago, to protect the ozone layer, and then strengthened it to the point where we've now banned most of the major substances that created the ozone hole over Antarctica. And that is now healing. And we did it with bipartisan support. President Ronald Reagan and Speaker of House Tip O'Neill joined hands to lead the way.

With your permission, Mr. Chairman, and with the permission of the committee, I would like to discuss, in more detail, some of the reasons why, I believe, this is so serious and with your permission show just a few new pictures that illustrate the basics of the problem.

SEN. KERRY: Yeah. We'd be delighted. Thank you.

MR. GORE: I know it's hard to see.

SEN. KERRY: Do you need the lights to go down a little bit?

MR. GORE: That would be great. If you could, put the lights down. And I know it's hard to see on these monitors.

But to start with the broadest overview, the scientific community and most recently the European Space Agency has pointed out that Earth and Venus are exactly the same size, with exactly the same amount of carbon. No more than 400 kilometers difference in circumference, and the carbon quantity is identical.

The difference is that on Earth, most of the carbon has been sequestered in the soil, pulled out of the atmosphere, by the miracle of life and by the unique geology on earth, while most of the carbon on Venus is still in the atmosphere.

The difference is that the average annual temperature on Earth is 59 degrees. And on Venus, it's 855 degrees, and it rains sulphuric acid; not the kind of weather forecast you'd like to wake up to. And it's not because Venus is closer to the sun. It's three times hotter than Mercury, which is right next to the sun.

It is, in fact, the CO2. And this is a stark difference that illustrates why it's a problem, to follow a global strategy of pulling as much carbon out of the earth as we possibly can, as quickly as possible, and burning it in ways that leave it in the atmosphere.

The basics of this are well known to everyone: As we thicken the layer of greenhouse gases, more of the outgoing heat is trapped and the temperature increases.

In the last five years, a very short period of time, the concentrations of tropospheric CO2 have increased measurably. It is now at a level of slightly more than 386 parts per million, comparing to roughly 280 parts per million at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The 10 hottest years in the recorded record -- and this is an atmospheric record that only goes back 160 years -- but the 10 hottest years have been in the last 11 years.

If we stopped global greenhouse-gas emissions today, according to some scientists -- and you referred to this, Mr. Chairman -- we would see an increase in temperatures that many scientists would -- believe would be extremely challenging for civilization.

If we continued at today's levels, some scientists have said it can mean an increase of up to 11 degrees Fahrenheit. This would bring a screeching halt to human civilization and threaten the fabric of life everywhere on the Earth. And this is within this century, if we don't change.

Let me briefly discuss a couple of important early indicators. The north polar ice cap, for most of the last 3 million years, has been roughly the size of the lower 48 states. In 1980, just 28 years ago, it appeared this way in the summertime. Last year, it had shrunk to this size. To put this in perspective -- the early part of that graph to the left -- up to the 1970s, the fluctuations stayed within a fairly predictable range. But in the 1970s, the decline began. And a new record was set in 2005.

To illustrate how much of the north polar ice cap that represents: Again, I said it's roughly the size of the lower 48 states; the scientists say if you take out an area roughly the size of Arizona, it's precise. But the amount that melted in 2005 is equal to every state east of the Mississippi River.

In 2007, something fairly dramatic happened that startled the scientists. In one year, the drop was really quite pronounced, as you can see from this slide. And again, to put that in perspective, the additional melting represented another whole row-and-a-half of states west of the Mississippi River.

Now, the next slide I'm going to show you illustrates that in 2008, just when the measurements were taken a few years ago, it shrank even further; but Mr. Chairman, it was not a change in the surface area, it was a change in the thickness. And please bear with me on this slide. I don't normally include this, and it's a little complex, but I want you to see it.

This is 30 years in less than 30 seconds. And what you will see is, like the beating of a heart, in winter the North Polar Ice Cap expands, and you'll see a dark blue margin, the annual ice that's only a foot thick; but keep your eye on the multi-year ice, what they call the permanent ice. It's colored in red. And it has been spilling out along the coast of Greenland. And here you'll see 30 years very quickly. The permanent ice, you see it expanding year by year, like a beating heart. And the permanent ice looks almost like blood spilling out of a body, along the eastern coast of Greenland. This -- up to the mid '90s, and it's continuing.

What is left now, when last measured a few months ago, is really a very pale shadow of what it used to be. Professor Wieslaw Maslowski, at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, has calculated that there is an 80 percent chance that the entire North Polar Ice Cap will be completely and totally gone in summer months in less than five years. Again, 28 years ago it looked like this, and now it looks like this.

Now, the reason this is important is not because it affects sea level. As you know, the North Polar Ice Cap is a floating ice cap. Its mass has already been displaced. So when it melts, it does not change sea level, unlike Greenland and Antarctica. But what it does do is reflect 90 percent of the incoming solar energy as if it were a giant mirror. And as it disappears, the Arctic Ocean begins to absorb enormous quantities of heat, and that causes a series of dramatic changes.

I just want to talk about two of them. Not the polar bears. We've heard plenty about them; they are an early indicator. But I want to focus your attention on the frozen ground around the Arctic Ocean. It contains a lot of carbon. The current amount in the atmosphere of CO2 is roughly 730 gigatons, or trillion tons. But in that frozen soil around the Arctic, there is roughly an equal quantity.

If it thaws and is allowed to release the methane into the atmosphere, then the amount in the atmosphere doubles over a relatively short period of time. And the microbes turn the methane -- turn the carbon into methane as it thaws, and methane is even more powerful than CO2, but over 12 to 15 years it breaks down into CO2, so it's very similar.

Now, here is -- here are two short images from the University of Fairbanks in Alaska. Dr. Katie Wheeler went out to a shallow lake in Alaska and documented methane bubbling up from the bottom of this lake. And indeed, the scientific community worldwide is very concerned about the amount of methane increases that appear to be already starting there. Dr. Wheeler and her team went out last winter to another site. (Video segment shown.)

She's okay. The question is -- the question is, are we? When the heat builds up in the Arctic Ocean, it puts pressure on Greenland. And Greenland has land-based ice which, if it melted, has the potential to raise sea level worldwide by 20 feet. The melting pattern for the seasonal ice -- or the seasonal melting pattern in Greenland has steadily increased, and it is now accelerating.

This famous picture from the University of Manchester -- you see the scientist at the top -- show (sic) one of the new larger moulins, as they call them, draining water down through the ice pack.

Now, when sea level increases, it erodes coastlines and threatens to displace people who live in low-lying areas. That's why this home in Alaska fell into the sea, and why this home in Canada fell into the sea. The nation of the Maldives has just put a new budget item in its budget to relocate the entire country. They're searching to buy territory to move 100 percent of their population.

You mentioned the issue of climate refugees, Mr. Chairman. The authorities -- the scientists indicate that for each 1 meter of sea level rise, there are roughly 100 million climate refugees. This committee, with its distinguished tradition and expertise, knows full well the destabilizing and tragic impact of very large flows of refugees.

Now, Greenland is roughly the same size as West Antarctica.

West Antarctica would also lead to a sea level rise of roughly 20 feet if it melted.

Until recently many scientists had hoped that the continent of Antarctica would remain relatively stable over a long period of time, but a study just in the past two weeks has showed that the melting is now accelerating in Antarctica, and confirmed that it is warming along with the rest of the world. In 2005 the areas of snow melt in West Antarctica roughly equaled in aggregate the size of the state of California.

The recent study showing the overall warming of Antarctica focused on West Antarctica, which is pinned up on top of undersea islands, which makes it different from East Antarctica. The ocean comes in under that ice. Its mass is resting on land, so if it melts, it raises sea level. But the warming ocean is now beginning to degrade the structure of the West Antarctic ice shelf. You have in the audience Bob Corell, one of the leading polar scientific researchers, who's nodding as I present this -- (chuckling) -- and giving me a little confidence to go forward.

Now just a brief word on glaciers and only one aspect of the melting of glaciers. This glacier in South America is the source of water for this city. The flows of water are increasing, but when the glaciers disappear, the source of the water will also disappear.

West of Andes, west of the Rockies, in fact, our own water resources are threatened by the diminishing snow pack in our mountains, and in every mountain range in the world this is happening.

But as you said, Mr. Chairman, most importantly, in the Himalayas, the great rivers of Asia, the Indus and the Ganges and the Brahmaputra and the Salween or the Irrawaddy, the Mekong, the Yangtze and the Yellow, all originate in the same ice field. And 40 percent of the population on Earth gets 50 percent of or more of its drinking water from this melting powder.

This is a recent satellite picture of one small ridge in the Himalayas, and you will see at the top of this image what used to be glaciers and are now lakes. In this region of the world, they worry about the sudden bursting of these lakes, flooding the villages down the slope. But the larger and longer-term concern is what happens when that source of water disappears in Asia.

I will say to my fellow Tennessean Senator Corker and, to you, Senator Isakson, you are on either side of the Georgia-Tennessee border and you know full well -- in fact, there was a little conflict between our two states when, for some inexplicable reason, Georgia wanted to change the line down there to capture one of our reservoirs. (Laughter.) But we'll take that up later. (Laughter.) But the droughts in the Southeast and in the West are getting longer and deeper and are related to global warming.

The tree death, particularly in the West, is becoming a very serious concern, and drier vegetation and vulnerability to beetles that are no longer held back by the frost are causing dramatic changes.

The fires -- again, Senator Isakson in Georgia and also in Florida, the largest fires in the history of either state; repeatedly in California, hundreds of thousands of people have had to be evacuated. And these are not following a normal pattern, as Senator Boxer knows full well. The increase in fires on every continent has been quite dramatic. This, from last fall, a satellite image of the fires -- they're from January to September. And the government of Greece almost was brought down by the unprecedented fires there.

I won't spend time on hurricanes except to say this fall we saw more destruction and we almost didn't pay close attention when a million people were once again evacuated from New Orleans. Is that the new normal?

This -- and I only have two more. This is a chart from the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. And you see on the left-hand slide worldwide major weather-related disasters during the first part of the century. What's been going on more recently is quite a different pattern. In the last 30 years, there have been four times more annual weather-related disasters than in the previous 75, and the trend is continuing. The reinsurance companies are quite disturbed, as you would expect by this.

But if you put this in perspective and you look at the predictions that floods, droughts, hurricane damage, fires and other climate-related disasters will increase even more dramatically the longer we delay action on this, the cost is quite serious.

This is the final image, Mr. Chairman. It's from a new study that shows the impact on the global ocean. I mentioned we're putting 70 million tons of global warming pollution into the atmosphere each day. Twenty-five million tons are going into the oceans each day.

The oceans are growing more acidic, and the entire ecology of the world ocean is being disrupted. Scientists are still grappling to understand what this -- what all of the phenomena related to this result might be. But this was published in Nature magazine in November.

The legend shows that the dark pink represents severe oxygen depletion in the oceans. Look at the size of the area in the eastern Pacific, off of the coast of California, Central America and northern South America. And look at the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea, on either side of the Indian subcontinent. This is a catastrophe in the making. Even if it did not produce warming of the world, the killing of the oceans would be yet another reason to address this crisis.

Thank you for giving me the chance to show a few images. And I am eager -- and, again, honored -- to respond to any questions or comments that you and Senator Lugar and members of the committee might have.

SEN. KERRY: Well, Mr. Vice President, that's dramatic and, frankly, remarkable testimony. And I'm going to order the full printing, if we can, of this testimony and, indeed, of the following questions, and I'm going to distribute it to every single one of our members in the Senate. And we'll find some way, if possible -- maybe you could cooperate with us -- I know you can't get the motion in the slides, but if we could get some of those accompanying slides as a separate entry, then we'd be able to accompany those. I think Bob Carell (sp) is nodding. We can try and get some of those from him. But that'd be really helpful.

But if ever there was a -- if ever there was an underscoring of the urgency, I think you've given it to us in a very important, significant way. And this is a significant hearing for that reason.

Let me ask you, if I can, sort of to -- one of the things that just struck me, as you were talking about the methane being released and the instant doubling, is the fact that many people are not aware of, that CO2 in the atmosphere has a half-life of something like 80 to 100 years, if I'm correct.

MR. GORE: I think the scientists will say that a hundred years from now, 50 percent of it will fall out of the atmosphere.

However a thousand years from now, 20 percent of what we put up this year will still be there.

So it's, as one would expect, a more complex picture. But basically if we can get half of it out over a hundred years, that's a hopeful sign. If a lot of it remains after a thousand years, it's a sobering warning that the quicker we reduce, the better.

SEN. KERRY: But that which is already up there continues. Absent it being somehow extracted, it continues to do the damage it's doing now.