Adriano Espaillat: “Today we are convening our monthly special order hour of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus to talk about a pressing…”

“Today we are convening our monthly special order hour of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus to talk about a pressing issue to our Nation, to our planet, in fact, and especially to communities of color. Climate change is a real global problem. It is affecting folks around the world contributing to natural disasters and droughts that lead to immigration and increased conflict. We have seen how the Caribbean, which stands in the pathway of natural disasters, has been hit time and time again from Superstorm Maria to Hurricane Irma to the recent earthquakes in Puerto Rico. We have seen how this region of the world, the Caribbean, which is our third border, continually gets hammered by natural disasters. In fact, just 2 days ago, the National Security, Military and Intelligence Panel of the Center for Climate and Security, a nonpartisan security policy institute, released a damning report. Within the report it said that higher levels of warming will pose a catastrophic and likely irreversible global security risk over the course of the 21st century. Last September, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released yet another dire warning that the effects of climate change are already irreversible, and we only have just about a decade to act before it is too late. One thing that is important, though, about climate change is the disproportionate impact it has on communities of color.…”