On the recordMay 2, 2019
I want to say very strongly that on behalf of the Foreign Affairs Committee and also the Energy and Commerce Committee, we support this amendment. It is a very good amendment. The Paris Agreement, signed in 2015, is the first truly universal agreement among nations to tackle climate change. Rarely is there consensus among nearly all nations on a single topic. But with the Paris Agreement, leaders from around the world collectively agreed that climate change is driven by human behavior, that it is a threat to the environment and all of humanity, and that global action is needed to stop it. It also created a clear framework for all countries to make emission reduction commitments. At present, 197 countries--every nation on Earth, with the last signatory being war-torn Syria--have adopted the Paris Agreement. This agreement includes a series of mandatory measures for the monitoring, verification, and public reporting of progress towards a country's emission reduction targets. The emission reduction targets themselves are voluntary. Each nation sets their own, respectful of national sovereignty, and there is no penalty for missing the targets. The idea is to create a culture of accountability and maybe some peer pressure to get countries to reduce emissions. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox), the author of this amendment.
