UNITED STATES AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Administrator Samantha Power at the High-Level Dialogue on Financing for Climate Resilience

ADMINISTRATOR SAMANTHA POWER: Thank you so much Candace [Vahlsing]. And thank you for your ambition, and everything you’ve brought to USAID in driving this agenda forward with our Treasury colleagues, and of course, under President Biden’s leadership.

Thanks to all of you. It’s an incredible gathering here today, really reflecting the urgency of this topic. This past weekend, just one example: New York’s Health Department reported that heat related emergency visits were up 600 percent. That’s 600 percent higher than the average rate for June. Extreme heat is suspected of killing tens of thousands of people every year. Now around the world, that number could be much higher. Here in the United States, extreme heat claimed 2,300 lives in 2023. That’s a 26 percent increase from the previous year. Communities from Mali to Mexico have reported scores of excess deaths from record breaking heat in April, in May, and in June. And of course, tragically, in Saudi Arabia, more than 1300 deaths have been reported during the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, as pilgrims endured temperatures reaching 125 degrees Fahrenheit.

There are so many other impacts as well – on education, health systems, economies. Students can struggle to learn in high temperatures, especially in schools without air conditioning, which causes performance to drop. Workers around the globe are at higher risk for serious health conditions because of extreme heat, especially in developing countries, where they are more commonly required to work outdoors.

Heat related medical issues are placing a greater strain on health care systems around the world. And rising temperatures are estimated to cost the global economy $2.4 trillion by just the end of this decade. And yet communities around the world remain unprepared for the growing impacts of climate change and extreme heat. Today, only half of the world’s countries have heat warning systems. This deprives communities of the information they need to survive the heat, like how to access cooling centers near them, or where to be treated for heat related illnesses. Legal protections shielding workers from high temperatures are still thin on the ground in the U.S. and elsewhere. And only 8 percent of the nearly 3 billion people living in the world’s hottest areas live in homes equipped with air conditioning.

So again, the urgency cannot be overstated. We have to focus our attention, yes, but also our resources on preparing communities and economies to adapt to rising temperatures. A search of the 400 projects funded from the climate investment funds, for example, found only seven on extreme heat – seven out of 400 – for a crisis that kills more people than any other kind of extreme weather.

Funding for combating extreme heat remains far lower than needed to address the severity and urgency of this crisis. Especially domestic resources from governments in developing countries where budgets are already stretched thin, due to significant debt in many cases and other urgent challenges. Collectively, we have the power to change this. And that is why I’m so pleased that we’ve all gathered here today.

In fact, the multilateral development banks are our only hope of securing enough funding to sufficiently address the scale of the extreme heat crisis. It is only by combining our expertise, resources, connections, and sheer willpower reflected by the incredible turnout here today, that we can hope to help communities better prepare for rising temperatures and curb the impacts of extreme heat on humanity. Even as – sadly – the world continues to warm.

Now I am pleased to turn the floor over to Secretary [Janet] Yellen to take us through how exactly we go about doing this. Secretary Yellen, welcome and thank you.