Daniel Akaka: “I thank Senator Lieberman. Climate change is a topic that is very important to Hawaii, Pacific islands, and coastal…”

“I thank Senator Lieberman. Climate change is a topic that is very important to Hawaii, Pacific islands, and coastal States in general. I have served on the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources since I joined the Senate in 1990. The committee has held hearings on global change almost every year since then, regardless of which party held the majority. It has become clear that an omnibus energy bill must address the production of carbon dioxide and methane, the two most prominent greenhouse gases, because 98 percent of carbon dioxide emissions are energy related. For more than 20 years, the National Research Council, the International Panel on Climate Change, and Federal agencies, including the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Department of Energy, have been investigating climate change to broaden the scope of our understanding of the interactions of the oceans and the atmosphere, and the modeling of terrestrial and coastal impacts of climate change. Fifteen years ago, scientists were uncertain about the effects of global warming. Today, nearly 95 percent of scientists say that global warming is a certainty. Most recently, the national academies of science of 11 nations joined together in a joint science academies statement on the need for a global response to climate change.…”