IV
119THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION 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 responsi-
bility of the United States Government to work with its global partners
to promote environmental justice.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
APRIL24, 2025
Mr. E
SPAILLATsubmitted the following resolution; which was referred to the
Committee on Foreign Affairs
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;
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•HRES 347 IH
Whereas the recent, current, and future impacts of changes
in the Earth’s climate present real and immediate dan-
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 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 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;
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•HRES 347 IH
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 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-
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 rising temperatures, more extreme weather events,
and increasingly unpredictable rainfall patterns disrupt
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•HRES 347 IH
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
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; and
Whereas Cecil Corbin-Mark, Deputy Director of WE ACT for
Environmental Justice, dedicated his career to uplifting
environmental justice communities, from his native Har-
lem to around the globe, fighting to combat systemic in-
equities faced by communities of color: Now, therefore, be
it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 1
(1) recognizes the significant impact and legacy 2
of Cecil Corbin-Mark in the environmental justice 3
community and further recognizes that climate 4
change most severely impacts vulnerable and dis-5
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•HRES 347 IH
advantaged communities in the United States and 1
around the world, and that it is the responsibility of 2
the United States Government to work with its glob-3
al partners to promote environmental justice and cli-4
mate justice; 5
(2) recognizes that all efforts to adapt to and 6
mitigate climate change must include specific protec-7
tions for and acknowledgment of the harm to com-8
munities of color, indigenous peoples, and other 9
frontline communities around the world; 10
(3) recognizes that mitigating climate change 11
must be a global endeavor, in which the United 12
States should act as a leader among the inter-13
national community; 14
(4) urges the United States Government to ex-15
pand collaboration and cooperation among its global 16
partners to pursue policies that prioritize climate ad-17
aptation among vulnerable and disadvantaged com-18
munities, given the disproportionate impact climate 19
change has on minority communities, who are least 20
responsible for the causes of climate change yet bear 21
the greatest burden of its effects; 22
(5) expresses the need for all countries to pro-23
mote vulnerable community-focused adaptation to 24
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•HRES 347 IH
occur across all sectors, including in agriculture, in-1
frastructure, and health; 2
(6) recognizes and encourages all countries to 3
undertake inclusive stakeholder engagement when 4
developing policies to address environmental justice 5
and climate justice; and 6
(7) expresses that immediate, multilateral ac-7
tion is needed to drastically reduce global green-8
house gas emissions in order to mitigate the effects 9
of climate change. 10
Æ
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