Rep. Jared Huffman joins congressional delegation to Paris climate talks

North Coast Rep. Jared Huffman will be part of a bipartisan congressional delegation attending a portion of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris that starts Monday and aims to achieve a binding agreement to limit global warming.

Huffman, D-San Rafael, a second-term congressman who is emerging as a House Democratic leader on environmental issues, said he will be one of about a dozen members of next week’s informal delegation organized by House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Republican, and Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, the Democratic minority leader. Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Sacramento, will be the delegation’s third California member.

More than 190 nations, which Huffman said account for 90 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, are participating in the 21st annual conference, which will include speeches by more than 140 world leaders. About 170 countries have submitted carbon-curbing pledges intended to support the pact.

Huffman, a former environmental attorney, said he hopes to “roll up those commitments into something that puts us on a track to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius (above pre-industrial levels).”

That’s the conference’s official target, but scientists have said the pledges would likely result in warming of at least 2.7 degrees Celsius. There is also tension over whether the agreement would be legally binding, which French officials have declared as their goal. Obama administration officials have expressed caution on that point, noting that a formal treaty would require Senate approval, which the White House sees as unlikely.

The United States has pledged to reduce emissions by 26 percent, compared with 2005 levels, by 2025.

The European Union intends to cut emissions by 40 percent, compared with 1990 levels, by 2030. China will agree that its emissions will peak by 2030. India is developing ways to electrify more of its territory in a “climate-friendly” way, Huffman said.

Under business-as-usual conditions, global temperatures would likely jump more than eight degrees Fahrenheit by 2100, The New York Times reported. The Paris pledges would lower the likely increase to just over six degrees Fahrenheit.

Huffman said the widespread participation in the conference “debunks one of the main narratives against U.S. climate initiatives,” referring to the contention that “the rest of the world isn’t involved.”

Some nations are offering “incredibly ambitious” plans, such as Costa Rica’s proposal to be a “completely renewable-energy country” by 2030, he said.

About 40,000 people, including delegates, journalists, observers and exhibitors, are expected to attend the conference, which opens just two weeks after jihadists killed 130 people in Paris.

Gov. Jerry Brown will be there, fresh off his own international diplomatic tour brokering climate agreements with regional governments, including states and provinces in Brazil, Germany and Mexico that agreed to cut their emissions 80 percent or more by mid-century, NPR reported.

“That’s more than the nation-states,” Brown said.

The House delegation will consist of about seven Democrats and four or five Republicans, making it a bipartisan group but not necessarily sharing the same agenda, Huffman said.

Republican lawmakers have in the past opposed climate agreements, he said, noting that the Senate will also send a delegation to Paris that might include Sen. James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican who is a prominent climate change denier.

The House Democrats intend to show that some members of Congress “value science and want the U.S. to be part of a robust international response to climate change,” Huffman said.

The U.S. is the only major country with a majority legislative party that “embraces climate change denial,” he said.

The House delegation will leave for Paris on Dec. 9 and will participate in the “tail end” of the conference, which ends Dec. 11, he said.

You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @guykovner.