00:00The gentlelady, the chair now recognizes the gentleman from New York, Mr. Espaillat, for comments on the bill.
00:10Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank the chairman of the subcommittee and the ranking member of the subcommittee for their efforts to try to work in a bipartisan, constructive way.
00:25I must stand and express my concerns regarding the mission of the Green Climate Fund.
00:39As we all know, climate change is a reality.
00:42And, of course, the Caribbean stands in the pathway of hurricanes that every year intensify and destroy those island nations.
00:58And both the chairman and the ranking member of the subcommittee must know this really well because Florida also stands in the pathway of hurricanes and strong winds.
01:13And, of course, we've seen how devastating events, flash floodings just hit Washington, D.C. a couple of days ago.
01:26Flash floodings flooded the New York City subway system a couple of weeks ago.
01:34And we've all remembered Superstorm Sandy, and we're still, in some way, recovering from Superstorm Sandy in New York City.
01:44North Carolina has seen devastating effects, the wildfires in California.
01:53All of this is happening.
01:54We remember Katrina, the impact on New Orleans, and we've seen time and time again how climate change impacts in disproportionate and severe ways many of our communities,
02:11is forcing us to really make fiscal commitments to remediate the harm caused by these events.
02:25And I believe very strongly that we should encounter this and address this by exerting our leadership in the hemisphere.
02:37And no best way to start doing that by our commitment to a green climate fund.
02:44Now, we've seen migration, and we know for a fact that droughts in Central America have contributed, seven-year droughts in some cases,
02:57to food insecurity in those regions and have generated a massive exodus of families,
03:06including women with children, to our border.
03:09So environmental disasters are joined at the hip to migration patterns.
03:17And so we must exert our leadership.
03:20And we start by committing funding to a green climate fund so that we are the leaders of this hemisphere.
03:28And we want to yield that space to China, who could otherwise come in and bring in predatory dollars to build structures that will resist these environmental challenges.
03:45We must lead by example, and that starts by committing some level of funding to a green climate fund
03:55that will, again, reaffirm our leadership in the world, but particularly in this hemisphere.
04:04And that that's omitted, not included in the bill.
04:09I think it's something that's so important because what we're facing, not just in the hemisphere, but right here at home,
04:16that we must begin to address it.
04:19And I must express my concern about it as we debate this bill.
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