May 2, 2003

(a) FINDINGS. - The Congress makes the following findings:

Finding (1) Evidence continues to build that increases in atmospheric concentrations of man-made greenhouse gases are contributing to global climate change.

This statement (and the one following) is not based upon observed scientific data, but primarily upon computer model simulations and projections so deficient in their treatment of numerous physical and biophysical processes and feed-backs that their predictions contain uncertainties much greater in magnitude than the temperature change predicted to result from a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

The complexity of the computer simulations of climate is one reason the forecasts are unreliable. The simulations must track over 5 million parameters. To simulate climate change for a period of several decades is a computational task that requires 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 degrees of freedom. To improve the forecasts, much better information is required, including accurate understanding of feedback effects of water vapor and clouds, the chief naturally occurring atmospheric greenhouse gases.

Also, Hansen et al. have recently concluded the forcings that drive long-term climate change are not known with accuracy sufficient to define future climate change (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , U.S.A. 95: 12,753-12,758). In other words, current climate models are not reliable as forecasting tools.

Because about 80% of the carbon dioxide from human activities was added to the air after 1940, the early 20th Century warming trend had to be largely natural. Human effects from increased concentrations of greenhouse gases amount to at most 0.1 C per decade - the maximum amount of the surface warming trend seen since the late 1970s. Since the mathematical form of nearly all climate model warming projections is linear rather than exponential (i.e., once the warming starts, it continues at a more or less constant rate), this surface warming would suggest a temperature trend of about 1 C per century, which is less than that predicted by the computer simulations of the air's increased human-made greenhouse gas content.

Computer simulations of climate in which the air's greenhouse gas concentrations increase owing to human activities predict detectable warming not only near the surface but also in the layer of air above the surface, the lower troposphere, which rises in altitude from roughly two to eight kilometers. The signal of global warming from added carbon dioxide to the air must show up in BOTH the surface and the lower troposphere temperature records. That is because the enhanced-CO2 effect works (in theory) to heat the lower troposphere, which, in turn warms the surface. According to the computer simulations of climate, the lower troposphere, where greenhouse gases are well mixed, must warm more than the surface. The computer models say that the troposphere should have warmed by +0.5 C in the last two decades. However, the fact that the independently validated, accurate readings of the temperature in the lower troposphere show no meaningful warming means that the man-made CO2 effect is small or nonexistent.

In short, the surface warming cannot be caused by the rise in atmospheric CO2 because the warming effects cannot bypass the troposphere (BOTH layers of air must warm significantly).

Therefore, the models upon which Finding (1) is made are wrong.

What then might cause the surface warming, especially in the early 20th century when greenhouse gases from human activities had not significantly increased in concentration in the atmosphere? The 20th century temperature pattern shows a strong correlation to energy output of the sun. Although the causes of the changing sun¹s particle, magnetic and energy outputs are uncertain, as are the responses of the climate to the sun¹s various changes, the correlation is pronounced. It explains especially well the early 20th century warming trend, which cannot have much human contribution.

Finding (2) The [United Nations] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (in this section referred to as the "IPCC") has concluded that "there is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities" and that the Earth's average temperature can be expected to rise between 2.5and 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit in this century.

The Summary for Policy Makers (SPM) as it stood at the end of the scientific review doesn't say that - it appears much weaker:

"From the body of evidence since IPCC (1996), we conclude that there has been a discernible human influence on global climate. Studies are beginning to separate the contributions to observed climate change attributable to individual external influences, both anthropogenic and natural. This work suggests that anthropogenic greenhouse gases are a substantial contributor to the observed warming, especially over the past 30 years. However, the accuracy of these estimates continues to be limited by uncertainties of internal variability, natural and anthropogenic forcing, and the climate response to external forcing." (Government and Expert Review Draft, IPCC Third Assessment Report, p.5. 16 April 2000)

Again, the projected rise in global average temperatures in this finding is based on general circulation climate models that failed to reproduce well-observed climate properties. (See paragraph four above, Findings 1.)

Also, Finding (2) is outdated relative to some of the most recent scientific research.

While scientific papers have been published which assert a causal connection between CO2 and climate, studies also continue to be published showing contrary evidence.

A recently published study by researchers at Harvard and the University of Delaware reveals that many parts of the world were warmer during the period 800-1200 A.D. than today. From about 1300 to 1900 A.D. the world experienced unusual cold, with the 15th-16th centuries possibly the coldest period of the prior 10,000 years. That eliminates the argument that the warming surface temperatures of the 20th century were extreme, therefore unusual and therefore unnatural (man-made). The strong implication is that any current warming is probably natural and cyclical. The study, funded in part by NASA, examined the results of more than 240 scientific reports, most published within the last 5 years. [Soon, W., Baliunas, S., Idso, S., and Legates, D. R. 2003: "Reconstructing climatic and environmental changes of the past 1,000 years: A Reappraisal." Energy & Environment , 14 (no. 2)]

Computer simulations predict a major warming trend in the troposphere that is not found in observation. One explanation for this discrepancy is that aerosols may "mask" or hide the absent warming trend predicted from enhanced greenhouse gases.

One way to test this idea is to look at the upper air temperature trend for the Southern Hemisphere. There, because of far less industrialization, aerosols should be largely absent and the greenhouse warming trend pronounced. However, the satellite record for the Southern hemisphere shows a cooling trend in contradiction to the aerosol masking hypotheses.

A recent study casts further doubt on the "masking" theory [Jacobson, M. 2001. "Strong radiative heating due to the mixing state of black carbon in atmospheric aerosols," Nature , 409:695-697]. The study shows that one type of aerosol, black carbon, is a strong warming agent. Consequently, the net cooling effect of aerosols may be too small to account for the lack of observed warming in the troposphere. This is another implication that the IPCC's exaggerated warming scenarios are based on uncertain physics.

Richard Lindzen of MIT and two NASA colleagues indicate even more fundamental defects in the IPPC models' physics. Their research indicates that as energy from increased greenhouse gases build in the atmosphere, cloud properties adjust much as a thermostat would to divert excess heat energy back to space, thereby averting predicted future exaggerated warming. [Lindzen et al., "Does the Earth Have an adaptive Infrared Iris?" Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society , March 2001, 82:417-32]

Other researchers have found that the IPCC's warming projections, especially the high-end estimates, are based on flawed economic assumptions as well as flawed physical assumptions. They find that the IPCC's Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES) assume unrealistic levels of economic growth, especially in developing countries. Inflated growth projections lead to unrealistic emission scenarios, which in turn, lead to unrealistic warming projections. [Economist , Feb. 13^th, 2003; Letter of Ian Castles to Dr. Rajendra Pachuari, Chairman, IPCC, August 6, 2002.]

Finding (3) The National Academy of Sciences confirmed the findings of the IPCC, stating that "the IPCC's [Summary for Policy Makers] conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase of greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue" and that "there is general agreement that the observed warming is real and particularly strong within the past twenty years". The National Academy of Sciences also noted that "because there is considerable uncertainty in current understanding of how the climate system varies naturally and reacts to emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols, current estimates of the magnitude of future warming should be regarded as tentative and subject to future adjustments upward or downward".

The UN IPCC Summary for Policymakers was not approved by the scientists who wrote the report. The summary is a political consensus made by policy makers. The resulting document has a strong tendency to disguise uncertainty, and conjures up some scary scenarios (computer generated) for which there is no scientific evidence. (see above, Findings 1 & 2)

The NAS panel herein alluded to essentially concluded that the IPCC's Summary for Policymakers does not provide suitable guidance for the U.S. government. The panel cautioned:

Confidence limits and probabilistic information, with their basis, should always be considered as an integral part of the information that climate scientists provide to policy and decision makers. Without them, the IPCC SPM [Summary for Policymakers] could give an impression that the science of global warming is "settled," even though many uncertainties still remain. The emission scenarios used by the IPCC provide a good example." [NAS, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions (2001), p. 22.]

The statement in Finding (3) that observed warming is "real and particularly strong within the past twenty years" is misleading and only holds for selective data sets. Temperature records from both satellite and upper-air balloon measuring devices indicate virtually no significant troposphere warming over the past twenty years. Additionally, several proxy temperature records suggest that the present surface warmth is not nearly as great in magnitude as the earlier Medieval Warm Period some 900-1200 years ago.

Finding (4) The IPCC has stated that in the last 40 years, the global average sea level has risen, ocean heat content has increased, and snow cover and ice extent have decreased, which threatens to inundate low-lying island nations and coastal regions throughout the world.

Sea level rise:

Sea levels rise naturally in the "interglacial" periods between ice ages. At the end of the previous interglacial (about 125,000 years ago) sea level was about 16 feet higher than it is today. In all likelihood, sea levels will keep rising until the next ice age. However, empirical data do not support the claim that man-made emissions of CO2 are accelerating sea level rise. As the IPCC reports: "There is no evidence (emphasis added) for any acceleration of sea level rise in data from the 20^th century alone." [IPCC, Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis , p. 663.]

Some studies challenge the principal support for the present quantitative prediction of current and future sea level trends. In the words of one author, "there is an understandable wish to identify a possible accelerated sea level rise due to the greenhouse effect." However, as he notes, "we should point out here that this is very difficult," the main reason being that "during a shorter time interval, say one or a few decades, an apparent acceleration (or retardation) might very well be caused by anomalous winter wind conditions." [ Ekman, M. 1999. Climate changes detected through the world's longest sea level series. Global and Planetary Change 21: 215-224.]

Also, in a recent study of the mass balance of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany used both an older GCM (General Circulation Model) and the newer ECHAM4 GCM. Running both of the models at present-day and doubled atmospheric CO2 concentrations, they found the older model projected a sea level rise from polar ice sheet melting under a doubling of the air's CO2 content, while the newer model actually projected a sea level decline. [ Wild, M. and Ohmura, A. 2000. "Change in mass balance of polar ice sheets and sea level from high-resolution GCM simulations of greenhouse warming." Annals of Glaciology 30: 197-203.]

Ocean Heat Content:

A detailed analysis of the vast array of oceanic temperatures was done by Levitus et al.  [Levitus, S., Antonov, J.I., Boyer, T.P. and Stephens, C.  2000.  "Warming of the world ocean."  Science 287: 2225-2229.]  They find a significant increase in ocean heat content in the layer from 300- to 1000-meters during the past 50 years, and opine that their research supports the hypothesis of global warming from greenhouse gas emissions.  However,  "the increase in ocean heat content [in the subsurface layer] preceded the observed warming of sea surface temperature," and the authors acknowledge that it "may seem implausible that subsurface ocean warming preceded the observed global mean warming of surface air and sea surface temperature."  Indeed it does.  The researchers also acknowledge that ocean temperature changes cannot be partitioned into a man-made component or one of natural variability.  More importantly, their data shows that ocean warming is not a continuous trend over 50 years.  Rather, the ocean warmed during the period 1920 to 1940, then cooled for several decades, and then warmed abruptly in the mid-1970s.  This step-like increase, known as the "1976 Pacific Climate Shift," may well be of natural origin.  One thing is certain: climate models cannot explain it.

Snow and ice cover:

Scientific observational evidence indicates that the Greenland ice sheet appears to be in balance and the Antarctic ice sheet is accumulating mass. Contrary to Finding (4), model scenarios suggest that slight to moderate global warming would actually lead to a greater accumulation and positive balance of the Antarctic ice sheet from increased snowfall. Observational data indicate Antarctic sea ice has increased over the past three decades [Joughin, I., and Tulaczky, S., 2002: "Positive Mass Balance of the Ross Ice Streams, West Antarctica, Science , 295, 451-452], and temperatures have been dropping over the continent as a whole for the past 50 years [Doren, P., et al., 2002: "Antarctic climate cooling and terrestrial ecosystem response," Nature , 415: 517-520.]

Finding (5) In October 2000, a United States Government report found that global climate change might harm the United States by altering crop yields, accelerating sea-level rise, and increasing the spread of tropical infectious diseases. This is a reference is to a discredited "US National Assessment" (USNA). The

Administration has stated that the USNA climate impact assessments "do not represent government policy" and are not "policy positions or statements of the U.S. Government." [See, e.g., Testimony of Thomas Karl, Director National Climate Data Center, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, House Energy and Commerce Committee, July 25, 2002, p. 1.]. During past testimony before the House Oversight & Investigations Committee, one of the co-chairs of the report confirmed Virginia State Climatologist Patrick Michaels's finding that the USNA models could not reproduce past U.S. temperatures better than could a table of random numbers.

Crop Yields:

This finding promotes the speculative thesis that rising levels of atmospheric CO2 will warm the planet and generally impact earth's weather patterns in such a way as to depress crop yields and agricultural production.

Once again, this scenario is based on climate model predictions that fail to adequately describe the many agricultural benefits, based on experimental observations and real-world greenhouse production practices, likely to be derived from the aerial fertilization effect of the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 content. A wealth of data demonstrates that atmospheric CO2 enrichment actually helps plants compensate for changes in temperature and water availability. For the future, therefore, a modest increase in both temperature and atmospheric CO2 would most likely be a welcomed global subsidy for agriculture, freely enhancing the bounty of the global harvest.

Global crop productivity, the well being of people and livestock, the growth of forests, and the productivity of rangelands are all currently far more limited by cold than by warmth in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Modest warming, therefore, would be an asset, not a hindrance, to the global economy. Indeed, there is virtually no place on earth too hot or too humid to grow sweet potatoes, cassava, or plantains; while corn, soybeans, rice and many other crops are successfully grown from the equator to 45 degrees latitude north and south.

Sea Level Rise:

See (4) above.

Infectious Diseases:

The alarm over spread of infectious diseases, such as malaria, is due to exceptionally flawed computer models that use only one or two climate variables. The authors of a recent study using 5 climate variables explicitly stated that their model "contradicts prevailing forecasts of global malaria expansion." One of their scenarios even predicted nearly a one percent decrease in malarial exposure [ Rogers, D.J. and Randolph, S.E. 2000. The global spread of malaria in a future, warmer world. Science 289: 1763-1766].

Empirical studies find no evidence of a link between malaria and climate change. For example, Hay et al. examined long-term meteorological trends of high-altitude sites in East Africa, where a resurgence of malaria over the past two decades has been widely reported. The authors found no significant change in temperature, rainfall, vapor pressure, or the number of months suitable for malaria transmission, either "during the past century or during the period of reported malaria resurgence." Factors contributing to the resurgence included resistance to anti-malarial drugs, population migration, and breakdown in insect control operations. The authors conclude: "Economic, social, and political factors can therefore explain recent resurgences in malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases with no need to invoke climate change." [Hay, S. L., et al. 2002: "Climate change and the resurgence of malaria in the East African highlands," Nature , 21, 905-909.]

According to Paul Reiter, one of the world's foremost experts on vector-borne disease, claims that malaria resurgence would occur due to CO2-induced global warming ignore other important factors and disregard History. If malaria is a "tropical" disease, a disease of climate rather than of poverty, then why, in the 19^th century, was malaria widespread in North Dakota, Montana, Finland, Poland, and Russia? Why was malaria prevalent in Europe in some of the coldest centuries of the past millennium? And why have we only recently witnessed malaria's widespread decline at a time when temperatures have been warming? Clearly, there must be other factors that are more important than temperature. And there are, as Reiter points out, including the quality of public health services, irrigation and agricultural activities, land use practices, civil strife, natural disasters, ecological change, population change, use of insecticides, and the movement of people [ Reiter, P. 2001. "Climate change and mosquito-borne disease", Environmental Health Perspectives 109: 141-161] . Hence, it is clear that the role of temperature in the spread of malaria is insignificant in comparison to the roles played by other factors.

Finding (10) Any future, binding treaty on climate change must not result in serious harm to the United States economy, and should not cause the United States to abandon its shared responsibility to help reduce the risks of climate change and its impacts. Future international efforts in this regard should focus on recognizing the equitable responsibilities for addressing climate change by all nations, including commitments by the largest developing country emitters in a future, binding climate change treaty.

The Kyoto Protocol would do serious harm to the U.S. economy, costing $77 billion to $338 billion per year, according to the Energy Information Administration. Yet, according to the climate models, Kyoto would merely postpone by a few years any projected end-of-century warming from greenhouse gas emissions. For example, according to the National Center for Atmospheric Research's climate model, Kyoto would avert only 14/100^th of a degree C of warming by 2100. [Wigley, T., 1998: "The Kyoto Protocol: CO2, CH4, and Climate Implications," Geophysical Research Letter , 25: 2285-88.] That difference is too small for scientists to detect, and would be of no benefit. It would take energy rationing schemes far more draconian than Kyoto to begin to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases in the coming decades. Such schemes would be a prescription for global poverty and economic collapse. Under current and foreseeable technologies and energy infrastructure, Finding (10) implicitly asks for the impossible: a climate treaty that can significantly reduce greenhouse gas concentrations without putting the U.S. and other economies at serious risk.

President Bush has announced a number of bilateral agreements that have engaged both developing nations (China, India) and also friends and allies among the developed countries (Australia, Japan, Italy).

Finding (12) American businesses need to know how governments worldwide will address the risks of climate change.

President Bush issued his climate policy on February 14, 2002 with a challenge to every sector of the economy to develop its approach to the 18% greenhouse gas intensity improvement over the next ten years. The U.S. has defined its goals. The U.S. will not ratify the Kyoto Protocol and will not adopt an energy-rationing scheme by capping CO2.

Finding (13) The United States benefits from investments in the research, development and deployment of a range of clean energy and efficiency technologies that can reduce the risks of climate change and its impacts and that can make the United States economy more productive, bolster energy security, create jobs, and protect the environment

Investments in "clean energy and efficiency technologies," if driven by political mandates rather than market forces, are likely to generate more cost then benefit. For example, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) modeled a "multi-pollutant" strategy for reducing emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOX), and CO2 from electric power plants. Here's what EIA found. Reducing NOX and SO2 emissions 75 percent would cost power generators and consumers $6 billion. Reducing CO2 emissions 7 percent below 1990 levels - the U.S. Kyoto target - would cost $77 billion. If the three requirements are "integrated," the total cost is $77 billion -- $5 billion less than if the emission reduction targets were imposed one at a time, with no coordination. [EIA, Analysis of Strategies for Reducing Multiple Emissions from Power Plants: Sulfur Dioxide, Nitrogen Oxides, and Carbon Dioxide , Dec. 2000, p. 9.] That $5 billion "savings" is due to the "co-benefits" of "integrated" air quality management - the fact that CO2 reductions entail ancillary NOX and SO2 reductions. But, if your goal is cleaner air, then you haven't saved any money at all. Rather, you have spent $77 billion to achieve $6 billion worth of SO2 and NOX reductions. In other words, forcing power producers to invest in low-carbon and non-carbon energy technologies wastes $71 billion - wealth no longer available to meet other consumer or environmental priorities.

Coal is the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel. Consequently, as is widely known, Kyoto-style policies would restrict the use of coal, America's most abundant fuel and the source of over half of all U.S. electricity. Less well appreciated are the health benefits of low-cost electricity from coal and, conversely, the mortality effects of anti-coal regulation. A new study finds that regulatory restrictions on coal-fired power would lead to significant increases in mortality rates, especially among the poor. The study, Mortality Reductions from Use of Low-Cost Coal-Fired Power: An Analytical Framework , by Daniel E. Klein of Twenty-First Strategies and Ralph Keeney of Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, notes that, "wealthier individuals are more likely to live safer, healthier, and longer lives." Drawing on a robust literature, the study estimates that regulatory costs in the range of $6.8-$18.5 million induce one additional adult death by reducing disposable income.

The study finds that fully replacing coal-fired power in the U.S. would reduce total household income by $125-225 billion in 2010, the peak impact year, and could lead to 14,000 to 25,000 additional adult deaths. An obvious implication of the study is that Kyoto-style policies, although providing few if any environmental benefits, can be literally lethal in their effects on American households.

The science comments were prepared by the Center for Science and Public Policy (202-454-5249) and the Competitive Enterprise Institute (202-331-1010).

(b) SENSE OF CONGRESS - It is the sense of the United States Congress that the United States should demonstrate international leadership and responsibility in reducing the health, environmental, and economic risks posed by climate change by--

(1) taking responsible action to ensure significant and meaningful reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases from all sectors;

The President has already laid out a goal to reduce the greenhouse gas intensity of the U.S. economy by 18% by 2012. The President's policy will measure progress based on improvements in the energy efficiency of the economy, not by absolute caps on emissions. The President's policy allows the economy to grow and encourages new investment in technology and processes.

President Bush's budget calls for a significant increase in climate change research, and the U.S. already spends more on climate science than all other countries combined. Although some of that research is "political" science (such as the U.S. National Assessment), the United States is the unrivaled world leader in global climate research.

(2) creating flexible international and domestic mechanisms, including joint implementation, technology deployment, tradable credits for emissions reductions and carbon sequestration projects that will reduce, avoid, and sequester greenhouse gas emissions; and

These are elements of the rejected Kyoto Protocol. Tradable credits attain full market value only with a cap on emissions, because although many companies would like to sell CO2 credits, none will buy credits unless constrained to do so to meet a cap. A cap on emissions, however, requires energy rationing across the entire economy.

(3) participating in international negotiations, including putting forth a proposal to the Conference of the Parties, with the objective of securing United States participation in a future binding climate change Treaty in a manner that is consistent with the environmental objectives of the UNFCCC, that protects the economic interests of the United States, and recognizes the shared international responsibility for addressing climate change, including developing country participation.

This climate amendment does not update the Byrd-Hagel resolution, it overturns it. The U.S. has defined a better path forward that will not penalize our economy. Our domestic effort will be driven by voluntary actions with financial incentives to invest in new and more efficient technology. Our international focus will be on productive bilateral agreements on science and technology with our friends and allies in both the developed and developing world.