I 
117TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 2774 
To authorize appropriations for climate financing, and for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
APRIL 22, 2021 
Mr. ESPAILLAT (for himself, Mr. BOWMAN, Mr. NADLER, Mr. LOWENTHAL, 
Ms. VELA´ZQUEZ, Ms. BUSH, Mr. SMITH of Washington, Mr. CART-
WRIGHT, Ms. BARRAGA´N, Ms. TLAIB, Ms. PINGREE, Mr. HUFFMAN, Mr. 
CONNOLLY, Ms. NORTON, Mr. PHILLIPS, Ms. BROWNLEY, Mrs. HAYES, 
Mr. CASTEN, Ms. TITUS, Mr. CLEAVER, Mr. CASE, and Mr. JONES) in-
troduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on For-
eign Affairs 
A BILL 
To authorize appropriations for climate financing, and for 
other purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Green Climate Fund 
Authorization Act of 2021’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds that— 
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(1) climate change most severely impacts vul-
nerable and disadvantaged communities in the 
United States and around the world; 
(2) it is the responsibility of the United States 
Government to work with its global partners to pro-
mote environmental justice and climate justice; 
(3) the report of the United Nations Environ-
ment Programme entitled ‘‘Climate Change and the 
Cost of Capital in Developing Countries’’, dated May 
2018, found that, in the 10 years prior to the publi-
cation of the report, climate vulnerability has cost 
the 20 nations most affected by catastrophes rooted 
in climate change an additional $62,000,000,000 in 
interest payments alone; 
(4) individuals and families, particularly com-
munities of color, indigenous communities, and low- 
income communities, that are on the frontlines of 
climate change across the globe are often in close 
proximity to environmental stressors or sources of 
pollution; 
(5) the communities described in paragraph 
(4)— 
(A) are often the first exposed to the 
causes and impacts of climate change; and 
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(B) have the fewest resources with which 
to mitigate those impacts or to relocate; 
(6) all efforts to adapt to and mitigate climate 
change must include specific protections for and ac-
knowledgment of the harm of climate change to 
communities of color, indigenous peoples, women, 
and other frontline communities and marginalized 
peoples around the world; 
(7) in Paris, on December 12, 2015, the parties 
to the United Nations Framework Convention on 
Climate Change adopted the Paris Agreement, a 
benchmark agreement— 
(A) to combat climate change; and 
(B) to accelerate and intensify the actions 
and investments needed for a sustainable low 
carbon future; 
(8) the Paris Agreement, to which the United 
States is a party, acknowledges, ‘‘Parties should, 
when taking action to address climate change, re-
spect, promote and consider their respective obliga-
tions on human rights, the right to health, the rights 
of indigenous peoples, local communities, migrants, 
children, persons with disabilities and people in vul-
nerable situations and the right to development, as 
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well as gender equality, empowerment of women and 
intergenerational equity’’; 
(9) the Paris Agreement— 
(A) notes the importance of ‘‘climate jus-
tice’’ when mitigating and adapting to climate 
change; and 
(B) recognizes ‘‘the need for an effective 
and progressive response to the urgent threat of 
climate change’’; 
(10) it is imperative for all countries to under-
take mitigation activities to rapidly meet the goal of 
limiting global warming to not more than 1.5 de-
grees Celsius; 
(11) developed countries have the greatest ca-
pacity to mitigate their greenhouse gas emissions, 
while— 
(A) developing countries have the least ca-
pacity to engage in mitigation activities; and 
(B) the capacity of developing countries to 
engage in mitigation activities is less than the 
national mitigation potential of those developing 
countries; 
(12) the determination for the fair share of 
mitigation and adaptation activities for each country 
must take into account— 
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(A) the historic greenhouse gas emissions 
of each country; and 
(B) the current capacity of each country to 
both mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and 
adapt to climate impacts; 
(13) developed countries that have historically 
emitted a disproportionately high share of green-
house gas emissions, and reaped the economic bene-
fits of those polluting activities, have a cor-
responding disproportionately greater responsibility 
to engage in global mitigation and adaptation activi-
ties, as compared to less industrialized countries 
that have historically polluted far less; 
(14) the only realistic way for less industri-
alized countries to meet their full mitigation poten-
tial is through international climate financing by 
more developed countries; 
(15) in the 2009 Copenhagen Accord, developed 
countries committed to jointly mobilize, starting in 
2020, $100,000,000,000 per year in public climate 
financing (as well as private investment and other 
alternative forms of finance), for developing coun-
tries, a commitment reaffirmed in 2015 in Decision 
1/CP.21 of the United Nations Framework Conven-
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