Cop28

Floor Speech

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, well, first of all, congratulations to Chairman Cardin for his fifth COP delegation that he led. I have been on all five of them, and I am really grateful that he has organized them and organized them well.

A couple of topics on this one: Going in, we had acquired from the UNFCCC the requirement that people showing up would have to disclose their fossil fuel affiliations--like who are you really working for, if you have come to the COP--and we have worked since then with the environmental community to put some real teeth into that disclosure so that you actually know what the questions are and you have to answer them, and you can't just send it to the PR department and get a bit of fluff to file. We have sent that in to Professor Raskin, who is the intermediary on the subject of transparency with the UNFCCC.

So we didn't get it done for this one, and this one was swarming with lobbyists and undisclosed mischief makers. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for instance, was present. We know, particularly in this building, that they are constantly up to no good. But we are hoping that, by the next COP, there will be far better transparency and people who are actively working to defeat climate legislation, to defeat climate progress have to disclose that they are up to that. They can still come, but everybody needs to know what jersey they are wearing.

The other thing that happened was that the nations of the world agreed that we are going to transition away from fossil fuels. For many of us, that seemed pretty obvious going in. So I am not too excited about that. But what is good about it is that every country signed off on it, like Saudi Arabia. Countries that have long been part of the fossil fuel kleptocracy apparatus had to go along with this.

So while the standard may not be all that exciting--everybody knew going in we are transitioning away from fossil fuel, for Pete's sake-- the unanimity is new, and I give John Kerry a lot of credit for being extremely patient and determined to hold through all that and at least move the worst performers, the worst nations, to catch up with everybody else who already knew that transitioning away from fossil fuels is necessary.

There was some good work done on methane. There were international efforts to focus on methane and, particularly, methane leaks, and that is going to be good because working with what we are doing in the United States on methane--the methane regulation that just passed out of EPA; the methane fee that was brought into the IRA with the good work of Chairman Carper; the methane task force that the Biden administration has stood up to spot methane leaks from satellites and go right at them the way a fire department would and make sure they are put out, they are snuffed out, they are stopped, and moved quickly--you put that together with an international package, and you can begin to make a real dent in methane emissions.

And methane emissions are less dangerous than carbon dioxide because they don't last as long, but they are immensely powerful while they are in the atmosphere. So they are really dangerous in the short run, and knocking them out in the short run will be a good outcome.

The last thing I will say is that we talked a lot about the CBAM, or the carbon border adjustment mechanism, while we were there. The European Union has passed a CBAM that will tariff goods that are imported into the EU from more carbon-intensive countries, including us and including China and including Russia and including everybody in the world.

And, to my mind, that EU CBAM is the most promising emissions reduction strategy anywhere--arguably, even more than these COPs. It is a big, big deal. And one of the things we heard from our EU folks is that they are not budging. No matter what pressure is put on them, they are not budging. They are not going to give exceptions. They are not going to give waivers. They are not going to let people weasel out. They are going to stick to their guns and make sure that their proposal goes forward. And I encourage that because I think, as soon as they are really locked down and everybody knows it, others will begin to join.

And guess what today's news is? The UK is officially joining the EU CBAM. Now, those two big economies are joined, and they will not have to pay internal tariffs to each other. And, as my friend Philip Dunne, the conservative MP who leads the Environmental Audit Committee of Parliament, said, their version of the UK CBAM will ``keep the U.K. at the forefront of the group of leading economies . . . introducing comprehensive and effective measures to tackle global emissions while promoting growth.''

The EU is in, rock solid, not budging. The UK is joining. Now it is time for the United States to step up and join the carbon border tariff policies that are probably our very best step to avert the horrors of uncontrolled climate chaos.

With that, let me yield the floor back and, again, thank Chairman Cardin for his leadership of this very busy and hard-working delegation.

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