Oversight Hearing on the Kyoto Protocol: The Undermining of American Prosperity : Hearing Before the Committee on Small Business, House of Representatives, One Hundred Fifth Congress, Second Session, Washington, DC, June 4, 1998, Volume 4

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U.S. Government Printing Office, 1998 - 228 pages

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Page 166 - ... billion per year. These steps should be taken regardless of Kyoto, because they make sense in terms of energy efficiency. But they have the added benefit of preparing us for Kyoto. Estimated Reduction in Costs from Annex I Trading In the language of the treaty, "Annex I," is the set of countries that have agreed to take on binding limitations in emissions of greenhouse gases. Even without meaningful developing country participation — which, again, the President has emphasized is essential before...
Page 154 - C02, the IPCC estimates that global temperatures will increase by between 2 to 6 degrees Fahrenheit in the next 100 years, with a best guess of about 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit.
Page 171 - The predictions of the SGM model are robust in the sense that virtually all energy models reveal the potency of effective, flexible, domestic and international trading mechanisms to reduce substantially the cost and energy price impact of meeting the Kyoto targets. Of course, the most important factor that has been left out of the above assessment is the benefit of mitigating climate change itself. A full cost-benefit analysis would include mitigation in the benefits column. The only reason we have...
Page 153 - R&D investments over the next 5 years; this package makes good sense in terms of energy policy and will jumpstart our efforts. A final component of the President's climate change policy is his support for electricity restructuring in a manner that will offer approximately $20 billion in cost savings to electricity consumers, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Page 161 - EPA's highly acclaimed sulfur dioxide (SO;) program, which relies, among other things, on a system of tradeable permits to reduce emissions of SO,, from electric utilities. The SO,. program has been successful in several ways: a large number of utilities participate, SO.. emissions and ambient concentrations have fallen and the costs of reducing emissions are considerably lower than originally forecast As has been frequently noted, the average cost of SO...
Page 137 - Our ability to quantify the human influence on global climate is currently limited because the expected signal is still emerging from the noise of natural variability, and because there are uncertainties in key factors.
Page 157 - ... economic analysis suggests that two elements are absolutely essential: The effort must be global, to address the global externality inherent in the nature of the problem. The effort must be flexible and market-based, to ensure that we achieve our objectives in the most efficient manner possible. Need for Global Action Climate change is a global problem requiring a global solution. As I mentioned earlier, no single country has an incentive to reduce emissions sufficiently to protect the global...
Page 166 - The package also contains $2.7 billion over the next 5 years in additional research and development investments — covering the four major carbon-emitting sectors of the economy (buildings, industry, transportation, and electricity), plus carbon removal and sequestration. Federal facilities, and cross-cutting analyses and research. One example of the R&D effort is the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (PNGV). PNGV is a government-industry effort to develop attractive, affordable cars...
Page 168 - The more developing countries that take on modest binding targets and trade in international permit markets, the lower will be costs. These cost-saving opportunities are fundamental tenets of the US position The promise of Kyoto cannot be achieved without effective emissions trading. Moreover, if we do not get meaningful participation by key developing countries, we won't submit the treaty for ratification to the Senate. So, while our analysis may be predicated on some ambitious conditions concerning...
Page 158 - US, for industry, they were 5 cents per kilowatt hour in 199S, a fraction of prices in Switzerland of 13 cents per kilowatt hour. Yet US industry is not moving en masse to Venezuela, nor is Swiss industry moving to the United States. Third, roughly two-thirds of all emissions are not in manufacturing at all, but in transportation and buildings, sectors which, by their very nature, are severely limited in their ability to relocate to other countries. We therefore believe we need...

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