Sec. 2. Findings

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Congress makes the following findings: Climate change is imposing significant damage on communities in the United States and abroad in the form of severe weather events, wildfires, heat waves, droughts, flooding, ocean acidification, and other threats to public health and safety. Scientists expect those effects to grow in frequency and intensity in the coming decades, jeopardizing the jobs, health, and safety of the people of the United States. Collectively, the international community needs to limit global warming to under 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels in order to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change.

In 2024, average temperatures passed the 1.5-degree threshold for the first time. With sustained 1.5-degree warming, scientists expect the United States to experience a sharp rise in annual heat-related deaths, longer and more destructive wildfire seasons, more frequent and severe droughts, reduced crop yields, more multibillion-dollar flood disasters, increased high-tide flooding in coastal areas, more days with unhealthy air quality, and longer tick and mosquito seasons, among other effects.

Low-income communities and communities of color will experience the worst effects. The adverse impacts of climate change will increase exponentially as warming continues. Under the current trajectory, the world will experience warming that exceeds 3 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. At 3 degrees of warming, scientists expect dangerous conditions in the United States where outdoor work is unsafe for many months of the year, farmers struggle to keep livestock and grow crops, power grids become overloaded, water becomes scarce during summer months, poor air quality leads to widespread health problems, severe wildfires and droughts become more common, major flooding events occur on a regular basis, mosquito- and tick-borne illnesses spread further, and some coastal areas become submerged.

Climate change is also expected to pose a significant challenge to the international community’s shared vision of fulfilling the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. To avert catastrophe, the United States and every country on Earth will need to make drastic reforms to global economic systems to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, reduce deforestation, and adapt to unavoidable changes in the climate. Internationally, economic actors continue to pursue activities, such as development of new coal-fired power plants and deforestation, that contribute to dangerous levels of greenhouse gas emissions and the destruction of carbon sinks.

In addition to carrying a significant climate risk, many of those activities are associated with serious human rights abuses, acts of corruption, and environmental injustice against Indigenous communities, communities of color, and other communities that have historically faced marginalization and discrimination. Illegal deforestation is a significant driver of the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. Criminal networks with the capacity to coordinate large-scale extraction, processing, and sale of timber deploy armed personnel to protect their interests.

Those criminal networks regularly attack and threaten members of Indigenous communities, other environmental defenders, and enforcement officials. Perpetrators of such violence are rarely brought to justice. Numerous studies show that transnational criminal organizations no longer limit themselves only to drug trafficking but diversify their operations to include natural resource crimes, among other activities. The goals articulated in the Paris Agreement depend on collective action involving the entire international community.

Progress made by one economic actor can be reduced or cancelled out if another economic actor emits significant greenhouse gas emissions into the Earth’s atmosphere or destroys important carbon sinks. In 2025, President Donald J. Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement and attacked climate change-related activities across the Federal Government. President Trump's decision to ignore climate change has provided the People's Republic of China with a strategic opportunity to make significant competitive gains in preparing for a new economic order in a world that has warmed by 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

During the first year of President Trump's second term, the United States experienced one of its costliest years on record for wildfires and storms, record-breaking heat waves, and severe flooding—all disasters that were linked to 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 whose actions threaten or run counter to United States national interests.

While the United States has not yet used such measures for climate-related activities alone, the United States Government has deployed such measures in response to terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, transnational organized crime, narcotics trafficking, malicious cyber-enabled activity, wildlife trafficking, serious human rights abuses, and acts of corruption. The United States should take action to address the urgency of the climate crisis and hold actors responsible for environmental and climate harm.