John Kerry

Lives are already being lost in America. We are losing lives today.

But everybody in the region understands that the level of violence, the intensity and some of the sectarian component of it was added to by the million people who descended on Damascus.

I did not say that. I very clearly said that climate change is not the cause of the war in Syria.

We put together something in a bipartisan way.

The truth is it places no burden on America.

I think what we really ought to try to focus on is the bigger issue here.

No. Clearly, I do not.

People need to stop and think about that.

If you look at the distribution, we have the most unequal distribution of income in America that we have had since the 1920's when we did not have an income tax.

One would be to not give a trillion dollars worth of tax benefits to the top 1 percent of Americans.

But, yes, the report confirmed it, and there is ample peer-reviewed science, literally thousands of reports that have been done which have peer reviewed the judgments, the assumptions, the analysis.

It is estimated that if we have the 0.5 degrees of increased temperature over the course of the next 12 years, it will cost all of us about $54 trillion.

If the Greenland ice sheet were to melt in its entirety, you could have several feet of sea level rise, not millimeters.

I supported the 2015 Paris Peace Climate Agreement that Secretary Kerry negotiated because it met the requirements of the Byrd-Hagel resolution, ensuring that all nations--all nations--take measurable, reportable, and verifiable steps to…

If people think the migration on Europe today is a challenge to the politics of Europe, wait until you have much of the Middle East and Northern Africa knocking on Europe's door.

Willful denial will not change the fact that our military readiness will be degraded when the permafrost our Alaskan bases are built on begins to thaw out.

The truth is that climate change is real and poses significant challenges for our Nation's security.

It is a council of doubters and deniers from what has been leaked from the White House, convened to undo a 26-year-old factual consensus.

We are not here for our parties.

Imagine what happens as climate change gets worse and you have millions of people that have to move because they cannot eat, they cannot drink.

This committee will weaken our ability to respond to real threats, putting American lives at risk.

The only people cheering the President's apparent attempt to erase climate change from U.S. national considerations live in Beijing and in Moscow.

Climate change did not lead to the rise of the terrorist group Boko Haram in Nigeria, but the country's severe drought and the government's inability to cope with it exacerbated the volatility.

The designation of climate change as a security issue was not settled by President Obama's NSC, my state Department, or Secretary Hagel's Pentagon.

Thank you for your stewardship of a committee which, at its best, demands accountability of those in positions of power on behalf of the American people.