Copenhagen climate talks

Senate Foreign Relations Committee leaders urge action to avoid deforestation

Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Dick Lugar (R-Ind.), leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called on Monday for action to prevent deforestation and thereby slow down climate change. Clearing and burning forests accounts for 20 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. “There’s no point in words. It’s time for action,” Kerry told the crowd […]

Former veep to rally climate change activists

Al Gore is stepping up his efforts to train an army of climate change activists. The Climate Project, the grassroots activist group Gore started in 2006, today announced it will gather several thousand volunteers in Nashville this May to prepare a new push to persuade lawmakers to pass significant climate legislation this year. The group […]

Gore urges Congress to quickly pass stimulus package and climate bill

Speaking before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday, VP-turned-climate-guru Al Gore urged lawmakers to move quickly on both the economic-stimulus package and a cap-and-trade climate bill. His testimony -- which included an updated version of his Inconvenient Truth slide show, now with even scarier data -- was warmly received by Republicans as well as Democrats.

"I urge this Congress to quickly pass the entirety of President Obama's recovery package," Gore said. "The plan's unprecedented and critical investments in four key areas -- energy efficiency, renewables, a unified national energy grid, and the move to clean cars -- represent an important down payment and are long overdue." He said he favors the House version of the bill (passed Wednesday afternoon), which includes more funding for efficiency, renewable energy, and mass transit.

This was the first major hearing of the 111th Congress for the Foreign Relations Committee, whose new chair is Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). By shining a spotlight on Gore and climate change at the hearing, Kerry sent a clear message about his priorities.

"Frankly, the science is screaming at us," Kerry said. He cited a recent study from the University of Pennsylvania, MIT, and the Heinz Center that found that even if the world aims for the highest goals currently on the table -- including Obama's call for an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2050 -- carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would still far exceed safe levels. "If every nation were to make good on its existing promises, we would still see atmospheric carbon dioxide levels well above 600 parts per million -- 50 percent above where we are now. ... And no one in the scientific community disputes that this would be catastrophic."

"Some may argue that we cannot afford to address this issue in the midst of an economic crisis," Kerry continued. "Those who pose that question have it fundamentally wrong. This is a moment of enormous opportunity for new technology, new jobs, and the greening and transformation of our economy."

Gore echoed that point, emphasizing that we can't wait to act on climate change, which is intertwined with other key national challenges. "We must face up to this urgent and unprecedented threat to the existence of our civilization at a time when our country 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," said Gore. "As we search for solutions to all three of these challenges, it is becoming clearer that they are linked by a common thread -- our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels."