Hearing Examines Achievements and Opportunities for Climate Protection Under the Montreal Protocol

Hearing Examines Achievements and Opportunities for Climate Protection Under the Montreal Protocol

The purpose of today's hearing is to find out whether there are ways to use the world's most successful environmental treaty — the Montreal Protocol — to tackle one of the world's gravest threats: global warming.

The public is beginning to understand the dangers of global warming. There is a growing awareness that if the nation and the world do not act, global warming could cause more floods. More droughts. More heat waves. Stronger hurricanes. The extinction of 20% to 30% of the world's species. The spread of diseases like malaria. The loss of our coastlines.

But what few people realize is that there are simple, affordable steps that we can take now that can make a big difference. The risks are large, but the situation is far from hopeless. There are cost-effective options for tackling climate change. We have the power to reduce the dangers of global warming if we choose to act.

At today's hearing, we are going to learn of one step we could take that would make a huge impact at virtually no cost. Using the Montreal Protocol, we can eliminate the equivalent of one billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions. That's an enormous amount of emissions. It's equal to roughly half of the total emissions reductions required under the Kyoto Protocol. Yet the cost could be as low as 50 cents per ton — between just $500 million and $1.5 billion globally.

We can achieve half the global warming impact of Kyoto at a global cost of just a billion dollars by taking one simple step: accelerating the phase-out of ozone-depleting hydrochlorofluorocarbons, or HCFCs.

HCFCs are used in air conditioners and refrigerators. There are low-cost substitutes currently on the market, so banning HCFCs would be inexpensive. But because HCFCs are extraordinarily potent greenhouse gasses, eliminating HCFCs would have the same impact on global warming as removing 20 million cars from the road.

The Montreal Protocol was negotiated 20 years ago in order to stop the depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer by human-produced chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons and hydrochlorofluorocarbons. The treaty is widely recognized as a tremendous success when it comes to protecting the ozone layer. As a result of the Montreal Protocol's legally binding controls on the production and consumption of ozone depleting substances, global emissions of these gases has dropped to a small fraction of their 1990 levels. Although we still have a way to go, the ozone layer is on the path to recovery.

At the same time, the Montreal Protocol has helped protect the planet from global warming. Today, we'll hear about a scientific paper which finds that the Montreal Protocol has had the effect of delaying global warming impacts by seven to twelve years. This new analysis shows that the world would be a decade closer to catastrophic climate change without the Montreal Protocol.

A new round of negotiations over the Montreal Protocol is scheduled for September. Yet few people are aware of the role the Montreal Protocol has played in slowing down global warming. And virtually no one in Congress knows that by further strengthening the Montreal Protocol in the upcoming negotiations, we can make a major positive contribution to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.

Global warming is an enormous challenge. To fight global warming, we will need to increase energy efficiency. We'll have to reduce emissions from transportation and electricity generation. We'll need to move away from the dirty technologies of the past and embrace new, clean technologies.

But as we will learn today, there are also simple steps with dramatic effects that we can take now if we are creative and listen to what scientists are saying.

I look forward to hearing the testimony of the witnesses and thank them for being here.

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