Climate Change: Hearings Before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, United States Senate, One Hundred Ninth Congress, First Session, to Receive Testimony Regarding the Current State of Climate Change Scientific Research and the Economics of Strategies to Manage Climate Change, July 21, 2005, September 20, 2005, Volume 4

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Page 155 - In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.
Page 75 - These projections are not meant to be an exact prediction of the future, but represent a likely energy future, given technological and demographic trends, current laws and regulations, and consumer behavior as derived from known data. EIA recognizes that projections of energy markets are highly uncertain and subject to many random events that cannot be foreseen such as weather, political disruptions, and technological breakthroughs.
Page 74 - Administration (EIA) is an autonomous statistical and analytical agency within the Department of Energy. We are charged with providing objective, timely, and relevant data, analysis, and projections for the use of the Department of Energy, other Government agencies, the US Congress, and the public.
Page 27 - The Parties should take precautionary measures to anticipate, prevent or minimize the causes of climate change and mitigate its adverse effects, where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing such measures...
Page 37 - IPCC, established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on its First Assessment Report on Climate Change.
Page 16 - Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise. Temperatures are, in fact, rising. The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability.
Page 27 - greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system", 2.
Page 24 - There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.
Page 155 - Parties should: take precautionary measures to anticipate, prevent or minimize the causes of climate change and mitigate its adverse effects. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing such measures, taking into account that policies and measures to deal with climate change should be cost effective so as to ensure global benefits at the lowest possible cost.
Page 147 - Because of the large and still uncertain level of natural variability inherent in the climate record and the uncertainties in the time histories of the various forcing agents (and particularly aerosols), a causal linkage between the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the observed climate changes during the 20th century cannot be unequivocally established.

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