SECRETARY BLINKEN: Thank you very much. To Minister André, to Minister Peters, we’re grateful to your partnership and your leadership.
We’re here for a straightforward reason. Climate change is melting glaciers. It’s causing sea levels to rise. It’s fueling extreme weather like storms, which have become even more devastating when combined with higher seas. Already, in so many of our countries, these patterns are upending lives and livelihoods.
Based on current trends, by 2050, sea-level rise could displace tens of millions of people.
We can still prevent this, but the time to act is running out.
That’s why President Biden worked with our Congress to make the single largest investment in clean energy ever, putting the United States on track to cut our emissions in half by the end of this decade. President Biden has also pledged to provide $11 billion a year in climate financing to support our partners as they work toward their own climate goals – a pledge that we expect to meet this year.
The United States is helping vulnerable nations manage the challenges that they’re confronting right now. Today, NASA released snapshots of every Pacific Island country, with information and analysis to help them predict and prepare for the consequences of rising seas.
Through the President’s Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience, the United States is helping more than half a billion people in developing countries adjust to the ways that climate change has already reshaped our communities and our coastlines. This includes deploying early warning systems in 80 countries, so people can better prepare for storms and other disasters and get to safety.
The United States is also updating our policies to reflect our changing planet. Our position is that sea-level rise should not diminish a country’s maritime zones, including the fishing grounds and resources under a nation’s jurisdiction. And no country should lose its statehood or membership in the United Nations or other international organizations because of sea-level rise.
Tackling the climate crisis, slowing sea-level rise – I know these can feel like daunting, maybe even insurmountable, tasks. But when it comes to global warming, every tenth of a degree matters. That means that every step that we take matters too, for protecting our planet and our shared future.
