John Kerry

Our effort must come to an end someday, and someday soon, because, as President Obama says, our goal was never to occupy Afghanistan.

We owe it to our troops and our civilians, who will face these dangers, to come together as Americans.

What happens in Pakistan, particularly near the Afghan border, will, in my judgment, do more to determine the outcome in Afghanistan than any increase in troops or shift in strategy.

This is a decision that the President of the United States has made, but ultimately all of us share responsibility for its consequences.

It's a particularly good moment for us to be thinking about some of the issues in front of this committee.

The global economy has changed dramatically, quickly, and profoundly.

We're not out of the woods yet, but it's not too soon to start rebuilding and rethinking our international financial institutions.

The G-20 just went to Italy and came out ratifying that we have to hold it to 2 degrees Centigrade.

Please, because nobody else has.

If I have a few thousand scientists over here... I ought to implement the precautionary principle.

Senator, we have to price carbon and we want certainty in the marketplace.

But I have a lot of scientists whom I respect--from John Holdren, who is now the Science Advisor to the President, to Jim Hansen over at NASA, and a bunch of others--who tell us we have a 10-year window to try to meet the standard of…

To wit, the Chinese, I think Senator Hatch said they do not want to abide by it or they do not care about it. The Chinese are petrified by what is happening in the context of global climate change.

In fact, the last 8 years, emissions in the United States of America, in greenhouse gases, went up 4 times faster than in the 1990s.

Show me a peer-reviewed study.

If some outlier country decides to try to take advantage of other countries, they are going to be the odd person out.

We cannot sit here if the United States does this all by ourselves.

I joined in the effort on the floor when we did the Byrd-Hagel Amendment, because we felt we had to have everybody under the tent.

It makes no sense for us to take action if major emitters in the developing world fail to follow our lead.

Well, actually, Dr. Green, that is not entirely true. I am sorry.

I look forward to it.

Ask Lisa Murkowski or Mark Begich what is happening in Alaska.

I was at the treaty signing, which we ratified unanimously in the U.S. Senate, the 1992 Framework Convention which George Herbert Walker Bush negotiated.

If we just sit here the way we are sitting here and do not do this, China, India, a host of other countries are going to clean our clock economically.

We stand up for the American worker, American businesses, for a fairer playing field.