Co-author of only comprehensive climate bill to pass the House or Senate urges UN summit participants to be bold

 

WASHINGTON (September 23, 2014) – Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), the co-author of the Waxman-Markey climate bill that passed the House of Representatives in 2009, and the current chair of the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on climate issues and the U.S. Senate Climate Change Clearinghouse, released the following statement regarding today’s United Nations climate summit in New York City:

 

“If there’s one message from the climate marchers and activists converging on New York this week, it’s this: the political clock has run out on world and Washington leaders who don’t take bold action on climate change. There can be no avoiding the science, the voices, or the moral necessity to cut the pollution that is threatening the survival of cities, people, and wildlife the world over.

 

“That’s why the president’s speech today is so important. The United States must show that it will be the leader, not the laggard, in the fight against climate change.

 

“In 2009 in Copenhagen, when President Obama and Secretary Clinton took the commitments from Waxman-Markey and brought them to the world stage, the global community responded in a positive way. That meeting was proof that American leadership mattered. It still does. 

 

“Now we must all dedicate ourselves to take the momentum created this week in New York City and build upon it every day, every week, every month until the 2015 UN climate negotiations in Paris, when countries can kick off a clean energy future that avoids the catastrophic impacts of climate change."

 

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