Sec. 2. Findings
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Congress makes the following findings: There is strong global support for actions that limit the severity of climate change. On September 18, 2019, more than 200 representatives of environmental groups, human rights groups, indigenous peoples, workers, and academia adopted a declaration calling on governments to urgently address environmental damage, including by increasing the pressure on those most responsible for climate change. The United States Government has developed and implements targeted measures to restrict access to the United States financial system for specific individuals and entities involved in conduct including malicious cyber-enabled activity, transnational organized crime, narcotics trafficking, terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, human rights abuse, and corruption.
Those conduct-based measures apply globally and are not focused on any specific country. As of the date of the enactment of this Act, the United States Government seeks to apply existing sanctions authorities against individuals and entities engaged in wildlife trafficking. On January 30, 2018, the Office of Foreign Assets Control designated an organization for engaging in illicit activities including the trafficking of endangered and vulnerable animals such as black bears, pangolins, tigers, rhinoceroses, and elephants.
Climate change has disproportionate impact on poorer communities and individuals in less developed countries. Targeted measures against individuals and entities most responsible for exacerbating climate change could help ensure that efforts to address climate change do not worsen global inequality. Development of carbon-intensive electrical power plants is continuing across the developing world through new foreign investments, despite broad awareness of the dangers. The current investment plans of countries likely to receive significant foreign energy investments may lead to an excess build-out of fossil fuel assets and create carbon lock-in absent urgent action.
Governments that are investing in or directing foreign investment toward legacy fossil fuel energy generation often lack the incentive to formulate more efficient or sustainable national energy policies. Those governments are thus likely to default to established but harmful forms of energy generation. Alternatives to carbon-intensive electrical power generation are now available and technological advancements continue to strengthen the economic competitiveness of such alternatives.
Corruption is especially harmful when individuals who abuse positions of influence for personal gain can simultaneously cause great damage to the global commons by facilitating significant increases in the emission of, or decreases in the absorption of, greenhouse gases. Deforestation is doubly damaging because it undercuts the absorption of carbon dioxide, while also raising greenhouse gas emissions. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, most pathways to limit warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius require reduced deforestation in concert with reforestation, afforestation, and bioenergy efforts.
From 2013 to 2019, some of the largest financial institutions in the world provided tens of billions of dollars in financing to entities either directly or indirectly deforesting the largest rainforests in the world. Most financial institutions have no internal policy covering dealings in key forest-risk commodities. On September 22, 2019, 130 financial institutions worth $47,000,000,000,000 collectively, representing 1/3 of the global industry, signed on to the United Nations-backed Principles for Responsible Banking, committing to strategically align their businesses with the goals of the agreement of the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, done at Paris December 12, 2015, and entered into force November 4, 2016 (in this Act referred to as the Paris Climate Agreement ), and the Sustainable Development Goals adopted by all United Nations member countries in 2015.
Illegal deforestation causes environmental harm while promoting criminal activity. In the Brazilian Amazon, criminal networks with the capacity to coordinate large-scale extraction, processing, and sale of timber deploy armed personnel to protect their interests. They regularly kill and threaten people who stand in the way of criminal activity, including members of indigenous communities and environmental enforcement officials. Perpetrators of violence are rarely brought to justice.
Between 2002 and 2017, 1,558 people in 50 countries were killed for defending their environments and lands. Environmental defenders currently face a wave of violence that includes threats of physical harm, intimidation, and criminalization. Policies and measures to address climate change must also promote human rights, thereby advancing equality, justice, and dignity for all, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.