How Changes in the Arctic are Affecting the Rest of the World
Senator Lugar's speech to Capitol Hill forum “How Changes in the Arctic are Affecting the Rest of the World” sponsored by the Environmental and Energy Study Institute and the Norwegian Embassy, June 15, 2006

Thank you to the Embassy of Norway and the Environmental and Energy Study Institute for sponsoring this important symposium on climate change, along with the embassies of Sweden and Iceland. I look forward to continuing my work with the Nordic and Baltic countries as we focus on mutual security issues, the health of the Arctic region, and the problems of nuclear materials left over in the region from the former Soviet Union.

At this, the conclusion of your symposium on the ramifications of the changing climate in the Arctic region, I’ve been asked to comment on “the need to act.”

The need to act is based, I believe, on the fact that the world’s over-reliance on fossil fuels, and especially petroleum, has created a very dangerous equation.

The worldwide demand for oil is enriching many authoritarian regimes. It encourages them to repress democracy, and even use access to energy resources as a weapon to threaten others. And the burning of these fossil fuels has greatly increased the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that could cause major changes in the earth’s climate.

Changes in climate will bring more draughts, floods and extreme weather events. Pests and disease will spread into new regions of the world threatening public health and economic growth. More conflicts will arise.

In a world where terrorism has not been contained, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction not completely constrained, the emergence of potential new conflicts over energy, and dire circumstances due to extreme climatic change, has to be addressed in a comprehensive and coordinated way.

There is no single solution to these combined threats. The situation is similar to the one the world faced 15 years ago as the Soviet Union began to break up.

Former Senator Sam Nunn and I were approached by a number of Soviet officials in 1991 about their concerns for the security of their weapons systems. Consequently, we developed a legislative initiative that is now known as the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program.

Nunn-Lugar was not created by governments. It was a major American foreign policy initiative coming from Congress. There was not a great deal of enthusiasm, initially, for Nunn-Lugar in the administration of the first President Bush and at the Pentagon.

While the need to act, which is our theme today, was apparent, the precise road to success was not. Working with the new leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan, and with many military officials and others on the ground at dozens of weapons facilities, we developed relationships and created assistance programs to remove completely the nuclear weapons from Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan, and then systematically destroy weapons in Russia. We have made a great deal of progress, but it requires the continued active engagement by thousands of others, and my continued and daily involvement, to succeed.

That same kind of active and sustained action is required for the challenges of energy security and climate change. To do this we must address several challenges.

The first challenge is to radically reduce America’s reliance on oil, especially in the transportation sector. Seven years ago in 1999, when a barrel of oil was $20, I joined with former CIA Director Jim Woolsey to warn that America’s over-reliance on petroleum made it more difficult for America to act responsibly in the world to ensure peace, security and prosperity. The United States cannot continue to consume 25% of the world’s petroleum with 5% of the population without jeopardizing our own security and undermining our leadership in international affairs. With oil at $70 a barrel that is even more the case today.

Dr. Woolsey and I called for the development of low carbon cellulosic ethanol as an alternative transportation fuel to petroleum. President Bush earlier this year also embraced the development of cellulosic ethanol to break what he called America’s addiction to oil.

This excitement for cellulosic ethanol, however, has not been met with sufficient action by government, the automobile industry and by the oil companies.

In the meanwhile, investments are being made in dozens of new corn ethanol plants, but there is no assurance that filling stations will take this new fuel and that consumers will be able to buy and drive cars that use a mixture of 85 percent ethanol or E85.

Because ethanol is now being used in gasoline to add oxygen to replace the polluting chemical MTBE, the price of ethanol has been increasing. Some gas stations that have put in E85 pumps now complain they can’t afford to buy the fuel and that consumers are turning away from the higher prices.

Lifting the tariff on imported ethanol from countries such as Brazil may help to alleviate this problem, but many supporters of ethanol are fearful of losing other domestic agricultural subsidies and protections.

To begin to break this logjam of inaction, I’ve joined with Purdue University in my state to sponsor the first Lugar-Purdue Summit on Energy Security to be held August 29 in West Lafayette, Indiana. We must organize an army of responsible citizens to effect timely changes now.

We will bring together more than 1,000 local, state, national and international business and governmental officials to discuss the strategies, policies and programs required to reduce America’s reliance on oil as a transportation fuel, and the development of transportation equipment and fuels that reduce pollutants in the atmosphere.

The second challenge we have to address in the United States is an effective program on carbon constraints and cuts. Such a program needs to include a robust carbon trading mechanism.

I recently listed my farm in Indiana on the Chicago Climate Change. The hardwood trees I have been growing are sequestering 3,400 tons of carbon, and it turns out that this has value on the exchange even before the United States adopts a more universal cap and trade system. I joined with the Climate Exchange in part to send a message and present a constructive project to farmers and foresters throughout my state and the nation.

Farmers are often conservative people. Change sometimes comes slowly, but with a few small changes, they could be making more money and helping the environment. A great deal of unused farm land in the United States can be turned into tree farms that help sequester carbon, and farmers can make money doing it. In addition, they may choose to use more land for grasses that can be converted into cellulosic ethanol, another environmental improvement.

Farmers could shift over to no-till cultivation practices. That keeps the carbon in the ground. Farmers in Iowa who follow these practices are having their farms listed on the Chicago Climate Exchange.

A whole new farm business plan can evolve around growing crops for fuel and sequestering carbon. A whole new economic development plan for rural and small town America could be created.

Farmers can use switch grass and corn stover to make ethanol. Because of the economics of transporting these feedstocks a small refinery should be built every 75 miles or so. It would make economic sense to place these ethanol refineries near feedlot or dairy operations. The energy to make the ethanol can come from methane gas created by the feedlots, and the residue from making the ethanol, distillers dried grain, is a high protein livestock feed.

Climate change gets out of trench warfare debate when farmers, environmentalists and business leaders sit around a table discussing these strategies.

The debate over climate change will shift when there are more and more business discussions on new income from alternative fuels, carbon sequestration and money saved from energy efficiencies.

While some businesses in the United States are beginning to develop strategies that save or make money by reducing carbon emissions, others will continue to refuse to change unless growing economies such as China and India also act. This third challenge requires the United States to become actively engaged in international diplomacy to address energy security, economic development and climate change with many other major national economies.

In that regard, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month approved the Lugar-Biden Climate resolution, or SR 312, which calls for the United States to be actively engaged in reaching agreements under the U. N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. I have also introduced the Energy Development and Security Act, or S 2435, to direct the State Department to take the lead in promoting discussions with other countries, and especially developing countries, on strategies for alternative and sustainable energy development.

A fourth challenge is the need to address both the adaptation and security ramifications of energy and climate change. On the security front, I want to announce that the United States Senate earlier this week approved a resolution I wrote that calls upon the United States to lead the discussion at NATO headquarters about the role the alliance could play in energy security. The resolution also instructs the President to submit to Congress a report that details a strategy for NATO to develop secure, sustainable, and reliable sources of energy, including contingency plans if current energy resources are put at risk.

Dependence on imports of oil and natural gas from limited numbers of countries with state-controlled reserves makes NATO member countries vulnerable to political manipulation of supply. On a global scale, increased competition for finite supplies of oil and gas could lead to conflict that would directly or indirectly involve NATO member states. This is why the resolution urges that the United States energy security message to NATO members include attention toward sustainable fuels and preparedness for supply disruption.

At the same time, we have to develop strategies for dealing with the potential consequences of climate change beyond our control. As the hurricane season last year proved, the United States has to study development issues on vulnerable coast lines. In poorer countries this will take even more international focus and leadership.

Farming practices and agricultural policies must prepare for climate change. Soy bean rust has already migrated north from more tropical areas to attack farmers in Indiana and the Midwest. Economic and social disruptions from pest and disease spread could cause untold conflicts and crises around the world.

And that leads to the biggest challenge we continue to face, and this is the skepticism and even ridicule of the naysayers, doubters and entrenched interests. Climate change is a myth, they claim. There is more oil to drill, they protest. They seize on every problem we confront as we face these combined energy security and climate change challenges to argue that business as usual is the most prudent path of any new “need to act.”

We’ve encountered the same kind of doubts and naysaying at every step of the way on the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program in arms control. The naysayers can be overcome if we continue to work together to explore every opportunity and challenge with enthusiasm, good will, and transparency. I’m committed to that endeavor. I look forward to studying and promoting ideas, from around the world, both large and small, that move America and the world into a growing and secure future based on carbon neutral fuels and technologies. Together we will build a more secure and peaceful world.