Barbara Lee: “Many of our developing country allies have made it very clear that strengthening their ability to address climate change…”

“Many of our developing country allies have made it very clear that strengthening their ability to address climate change and the threat that it poses is an overriding national priority, and they are looking to the United States for support. I was in COP27 in Egypt a couple of years ago, and this is exactly the message that was sent. The FY24 House State and Foreign Ops bill willfully ignores the changing climate and its implications for so many other global challenges this bill is intended to address, including promoting food and water security, global health, the protection of tropical forests and other vital natural resources, and social and political stability in strategically important regions. According to the World Bank, climate change could put 132 million people into extreme poverty by 2030 and could drive the internal migration of an additional 216 million people by 2050. Every one of our districts has been challenged by severe drought, rainfall storms, and heat. We are continuing to spend more and more on humanitarian needs caused by these disasters both domestically and abroad. We need to get ahead of these crises. Helping communities cope, especially those with the least means to do so, is both moral and smart. Why are we demonizing these programs and cutting ourselves off from valuable tools? These are not problems anyone can solve alone. We must work with others which make cooperation and our multilateral tools work.…”