Markey leads colleagues in letter to President Biden calling for U.S. to build on climate success of Inflation Reduction Act and ensure vulnerable nations have necessary resources to address climate damage

Text of Letter (PDF)

Washington (November 4, 2022) – Ahead of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 27^th Conference of Parties (COP27) in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) today led his colleagues Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in a letter to President Joe Biden urging the Administration to strengthen the United States’ position as a global leader in combatting climate change. In the letter, the senators call for the President to bolster climate and finance commitments and ensure that vulnerable, developing nations receive sufficient support to address losses and damages caused by climate change. The lawmakers also urge President Biden to use all the available tools, including executive and regulatory action, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to fulfill the United States’ Nationally Determined Contribution to the Paris climate agreement, which consists of a target to reduce emissions by 50 to 52 percent in 2030, compared to a 2005 baseline.

“As we make history at home by implementing unprecedented climate and clean energy action delivered in the Inflation Reduction Act, we cannot turn our back on the rest of the world. Climate change is a global challenge, and as frontline nations face immense loss and damage wrought by environmental disasters caused largely by other nation’s longtime climate negligence, ours included, we must step up and deliver once again for vulnerable people around the world.”

“With enactment of the historic Inflation Reduction Act, the United States is better positioned than ever to serve as a world leader in the fight to protect our planet and ensure that vulnerable developing nations receive sufficient funding and support to address losses and damages caused by climate change,” the senators write in their letter. “No one is exempt from the effects of the climate crisis, but the most vulnerable nations at the frontline of the climate crisis have endured and are enduring disproportionate suffering, while contributing the least to global carbon emissions. The United States, by contrast, is responsible for around one-quarter of historic carbon emissions, more than any other nation or the European Union.”

In October 2021, Senator Markey, Senator Van Hollen, and Rep. Omar led 58 colleagues in a bicameral letter to President Biden ahead of the COP26 urging him to secure a deal on a Build Back Better agenda with strong climate provisions.

###