Recognizing that climate change most severely impacts vulnerable and disadvantaged communities in the United States and around the world, and that it is the responsibility of the United States Government to work with its global partners to promote environmental justice and climate justice.

IV 116TH CONGRESS 1ST SESSION H. RES. 367 Recognizing that climate change most severely impacts vulnerable and dis- advantaged communities in the United States and around the world, and that it is the responsibility of the United States Government to work with its global partners to promote environmental justice and cli- mate justice. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES MAY 9, 2019 Mr. ESPAILLAT (for himself, Ms. MOORE, Ms. JAYAPAL, and Ms. OMAR) sub- mitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs RESOLUTION Recognizing that climate change most severely impacts vul- nerable and disadvantaged communities in the United States and around the world, and that it is the responsi- bility of the United States Government to work with its global partners to promote environmental justice and climate justice. Whereas climate change poses an existential threat for this generation and generations to come; Whereas the world is already experiencing the omnipresent danger of climate change; Whereas the recent, current, and future impacts of changes in the Earth’s climate present real and immediate dan- VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:03 May 10, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR367.IH HR367 pamtmann on DSKBFK8HB2PROD with BILLS 2 •HRES 367 IH gers to the United States and countries around the world; Whereas there needs to be a global approach to addressing issues of climate change and emergency preparedness; Whereas climate change is a threat multiplier to global con- flicts, leading to droughts, floods, hurricanes, heat waves, fires, natural disasters, and food shortages, in turn exac- erbating competition and conflict over resources, dis- placing large populations, and creating migration and ref- ugee crises; Whereas the Fourth National Climate Assessment is in agreement with the scientific community that ‘‘the evi- dence of human-caused climate change is overwhelming and continues to strengthen’’; Whereas the Paris Agreement acknowledges that all ‘‘Parties should, when taking action to address climate change, re- spect, promote and consider their respective obligations on human rights, the right to health, the rights of indige- nous peoples, local communities, migrants, children, per- sons with disabilities and people in vulnerable situations and the right to development, as well as gender equality, empowerment of women and intergenerational equity’’; Whereas the Paris Agreement notes the importance of ‘‘cli- mate justice’’ when mitigating and adapting to climate change and recognizes ‘‘the need for an effective and pro- gressive response to the urgent threat of climate change’’; Whereas the Fourth National Climate Assessment states that ‘‘people who are already vulnerable, including lower-in- come communities and other marginalized communities, have lower capacity to prepare for and cope with extreme VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:03 May 10, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR367.IH HR367 pamtmann on DSKBFK8HB2PROD with BILLS 3 •HRES 367 IH weather and climate-related events and are expected to experience greater impacts’’; Whereas the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C acknowl- edges that already vulnerable and marginalized commu- nities include communities of color, indigenous peoples, and agrarian communities, among others, and that these communities experience disproportionate impacts of cli- mate change; Whereas the World Health Organization finds that 7,000,000 people die prematurely every year from diseases exacer- bated by air pollution, a major contributor to climate change, around 90 percent of which are in low- and mid- dle-income countries; Whereas the World Health Organization considers air pollu- tion as the greatest environmental risk to health, and es- timates that ‘‘between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause 250,000 additional deaths per year, from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea and heat stress’’; Whereas a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Black and Hispanic individuals in the United States face 56 percent and 63 percent more exposure to air pollution, respectively, that is caused by their con- sumption of goods and services that generate fine partic- ulate matter; Whereas disparities in poverty and health will only increase as climate change becomes more extreme; Whereas heat islands, urban areas with little green space leading to constantly higher temperatures, disproportion- VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:03 May 10, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR367.IH HR367 pamtmann on DSKBFK8HB2PROD with BILLS 4 •HRES 367 IH ately harm the health and well-being of people of color and the elderly; Whereas access to clean water, in the United States and around the globe, is severely impacted by climate change, adversely affecting communities of color that already struggle with clean water access; Whereas studies demonstrate that catastrophic hurricanes impacting the United States and Caribbean nations in re- cent years have been magnified by the effects of climate change; Whereas families in the ‘‘dry corridor’’ of Honduras, Guate- mala, and El Salvador lost up to 80 percent of their corn and bean crops in both the first and second harvest sea- sons of 2018 due to drought; Whereas 300,000 subsistence farmers in Guatemala reported crop loss because of low rainfall at the end of the year; Whereas rising temperatures, more extreme weather events, and increasingly unpredictable rainfall patterns disrupt agricultural cycles, endangering the livelihood of Central American farmers and driving migration; Whereas in southern Africa, crop yield losses compounded by climate change would increase food prices by an average of 12 percent by 2030, placing a drastic strain on poor households, who spend as much as 60 percent of their in- come on food, the resulting malnutrition could lead to a 23 percent increase in severe stunting of normal growth and development; Whereas 800,000,000 people in South Asia depend on water from the Himalayas, and as temperatures warm and the ice recedes, the combination of droughts and the reduced VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:03 May 10, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR367.IH HR367 pamtmann on DSKBFK8HB2PROD with BILLS 5 •HRES 367 IH flow threaten Nepal’s tourism industry as well as the lives of rural farmers; Whereas Small Island Developing States acutely face health risks resulting from climate change, which increases flooding due to sea-level rise and raises exposure to infec- tious diseases due to the contamination of freshwater supplies; Whereas the Climate Change and the Cost of Capital in De- veloping Countries report of the United Nations Environ- ment Programme finds that in the last ten years, climate vulnerability has cost the twenty nations most affected by catastrophes rooted in climate change an additional $62,000,000,000 in interest payments alone; and Whereas the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review for the De- partment of Defense highlights that climate change influ- ences ‘‘resource competition while placing additional bur- dens on economies, societies, and government institutions around the world,’’ serving as ‘‘threat multipliers that will aggravate stressors abroad such as poverty, environ- mental degradation, political instability, and social ten- sions—conditions that can enable terrorist activity and other forms of violence’’: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 1 (1) recognizes that climate change most se- 2 verely impacts vulnerable and disadvantaged commu- 3 nities in the United States and around the world, 4 and that it is the responsibility of the United States 5 Government to work with its global partners to pro- 6 mote environmental justice and climate justice; 7 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:03 May 10, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\HR367.IH HR367 pamtmann on DSKBFK8HB2PROD with BILLS 6 •HRES 367 IH (2) recognizes that all efforts to adapt to and 1 mitigate climate change must include specific protec- 2 tions for and acknowledgment of the harm to com- 3 munities of color, indigenous peoples, and other 4 frontline communities around the world; 5 (3) recognizes that mitigating climate change 6 must be a global endeavor, in which the United 7 States should act as a leader among the inter- 8 national community; 9 (4) urges the United States Government to ex- 10 pand collaboration and cooperation among its global 11 partners to pursue policies that prioritize climate ad- 12 aptation among vulnerable and disadvantaged com- 13 munities, given the disproportionate impact climate 14 change has on minority communities, who are least 15 responsible for the causes of climate change yet bear 16 the greatest burden of its effects; 17 (5) expresses the need for all countries to pro- 18 mote vulnerable community-focused adaptation to 19 occur across all sectors, including in agriculture, in- 20 frastructure, and health; 21 (6) recognizes and encourages all countries to 22 undertake inclusive stakeholder engagement when 23 developing policies to address environmental justice 24 and climate justice; and 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:03 May 10, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\HR367.IH HR367 pamtmann on DSKBFK8HB2PROD with BILLS 7 •HRES 367 IH (7) expresses that immediate, multilateral ac- 1 tion is needed to drastically reduce global green- 2 house gas emissions in order to mitigate the effects 3 of climate change. 4 Æ VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:03 May 10, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6301 E:\BILLS\HR367.IH HR367 pamtmann on DSKBFK8HB2PROD with BILLS