IV 

116TH CONGRESS 

1ST SESSION H. RES. 367 

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. 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

MAY 9, 2019 

Mr. ESPAILLAT (for himself, Ms. MOORE, Ms. JAYAPAL, and Ms. OMAR) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on 

Foreign Affairs 

RESOLUTION 

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. 

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 danVerDate Sep 11 2014 23:03 May 10, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR367.IH HR367

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•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 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 Fourth National Climate Assessment is in 

agreement with the scientific community that ‘‘the evidence 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, 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 Fourth National Climate Assessment states that 

‘‘people who are already vulnerable, including lower-income communities and other marginalized communities, 

have lower capacity to prepare for and cope with extreme 


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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 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 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 consumption of goods and services that generate fine particulate 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, disproportionVerDate Sep 11 2014 23:03 May 10, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR367.IH HR367

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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 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 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 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 


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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; 

Whereas the Climate Change and the Cost of Capital in Developing Countries report of the United Nations Environment 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 Department of Defense highlights that climate change influences ‘‘resource competition while placing additional burdens on economies, societies, and government institutions 

around the world,’’ serving as ‘‘threat multipliers that 

will aggravate stressors abroad such as poverty, environmental degradation, political instability, and social tensions—conditions that can enable terrorist activity and 

other forms of violence’’: Now, therefore, be it 

1 Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 

2 (1) recognizes that climate change most se3 verely impacts vulnerable and disadvantaged commu4 nities in the United States and around the world, 

5 and that it is the responsibility of the United States 

6 Government to work with its global partners to pro7 mote environmental justice and climate justice; 


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1 (2) recognizes that all efforts to adapt to and 

2 mitigate climate change must include specific protec3 tions for and acknowledgment of the harm to com4 munities of color, indigenous peoples, and other 

5 frontline communities around the world; 

6 (3) recognizes that mitigating climate change 

7 must be a global endeavor, in which the United 

8 States should act as a leader among the inter9 national community; 

10 (4) urges the United States Government to ex11 pand collaboration and cooperation among its global 

12 partners to pursue policies that prioritize climate ad13 aptation among vulnerable and disadvantaged com14 munities, given the disproportionate impact climate 

15 change has on minority communities, who are least 

16 responsible for the causes of climate change yet bear 

17 the greatest burden of its effects; 

18 (5) expresses the need for all countries to pro19 mote vulnerable community-focused adaptation to 

20 occur across all sectors, including in agriculture, in21 frastructure, and health; 

22 (6) recognizes and encourages all countries to 

23 undertake inclusive stakeholder engagement when 

24 developing policies to address environmental justice 

25 and climate justice; and 


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1 (7) expresses that immediate, multilateral ac2 tion is needed to drastically reduce global green3 house gas emissions in order to mitigate the effects 

4 of climate change. 

Æ 


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