Flashback 1992: Gore on CO2 emissions: ‘No government mandated requirements would be necessary of any kind’ – ‘Purely voluntary measures’

Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1992, then Senator and Democratic vice presidential nominee Al Gore states that carbon taxes and ‘government mandated requirements’ are unnecessary to maintain CO2 at 1990 levels. Instead, ‘we could all but meet the goal with purely voluntary measures’.

Then Sen. AL GORE: ‘You said for example that you were convinced that the only way to stabilize CO2 emissions at 1990 levels is with a large tax. Quite to the contrary, the Bush Administration itself produced a rather comprehensive study of the options available to us to stabilize CO2 emissions and found that not only would a tax be unnecessary but no government mandated requirements would be necessary of any kind, that we could all but meet the goal with purely voluntary measures if we had leadership from the executive branch with a series of new initiatives that are outlined in that study.’

Senate Foreign Relations Committee
September 18, 1992

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