[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 347 Introduced in House (IH)]
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119th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. RES. 347
Recognizing the significant impact and legacy of Cecil Corbin-Mark in
the environmental justice community and further 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.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
April 24, 2025
Mr. Espaillat submitted the following resolution; which was referred to
the Committee on Foreign Affairs
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RESOLUTION
Recognizing the significant impact and legacy of Cecil Corbin-Mark in
the environmental justice community and further 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.
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 dangers 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 conflicts, leading to
droughts, floods, hurricanes, heat waves, fires, natural disasters, and
food shortages, in turn exacerbating competition and conflict over
resources, displacing large populations, and creating migration and
refugee crises;
Whereas the Paris Agreement acknowledges that all ``Parties should, when taking
action to address climate change, respect, promote and consider their
respective obligations on human rights, the right to health, the rights
of indigenous peoples, local communities, migrants, children, persons
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 ``climate justice'' when
mitigating and adapting to climate change and recognizes ``the need for
an effective and progressive response to the urgent threat of climate
change'';
Whereas the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on Global
Warming of 1.5 C acknowledges that already vulnerable and marginalized
communities include communities of color, indigenous peoples, and
agrarian communities, among others, and that these communities
experience disproportionate impacts of climate change;
Whereas the World Health Organization finds that 7,000,000 people die
prematurely every year from diseases exacerbated by air pollution, a
major contributor to climate change, around 90 percent of which are in
low- and middle-income countries;
Whereas the World Health Organization considers air pollution as the greatest
environmental risk to health, and estimates 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 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, disproportionately 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 recent years have been magnified by the
effects of climate change;
Whereas families in the ``dry corridor'' of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador
lost up to 80 percent of their corn and bean crops in both the first and
second harvest seasons of 2018 due to drought;
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 income 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 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 infectious diseases due to the contamination of
freshwater supplies; and
Whereas Cecil Corbin-Mark, Deputy Director of WE ACT for Environmental Justice,
dedicated his career to uplifting environmental justice communities,
from his native Harlem to around the globe, fighting to combat systemic
inequities faced by communities of color: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
(1) recognizes the significant impact and legacy of Cecil
Corbin-Mark in the environmental justice community and further
recognizes 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;
(2) recognizes that all efforts to adapt to and mitigate
climate change must include specific protections for and
acknowledgment of the harm to communities of color, indigenous
peoples, and other frontline communities around the world;
(3) recognizes that mitigating climate change must be a
global endeavor, in which the United States should act as a
leader among the international community;
(4) urges the United States Government to expand
collaboration and cooperation among its global partners to
pursue policies that prioritize climate adaptation among
vulnerable and disadvantaged communities, given the
disproportionate impact climate change has on minority
communities, who are least responsible for the causes of
climate change yet bear the greatest burden of its effects;
(5) expresses the need for all countries to promote
vulnerable community-focused adaptation to occur across all
sectors, including in agriculture, infrastructure, and health;
(6) recognizes and encourages all countries to undertake
inclusive stakeholder engagement when developing policies to
address environmental justice and climate justice; and
(7) expresses that immediate, multilateral action is needed
to drastically reduce global greenhouse gas emissions in order
to mitigate the effects of climate change.
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