{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://omar.house.gov/media/press-releases/reps-omar-and-bowman-lead-letter-calling-biden-administration-support-loss", "Reps. Omar and Bowman Lead Letter Calling on Biden Administration to Support Loss & Damage Funding for Developing Countries at COP27", "2022-11-16", "2022", "2022-11", "Democrat", "House", "MN", "Ilhan Omar", "O000173", "omar.house.gov", "omar", "https://omar.house.gov/media/press-releases", "scraper", "November 16, 2022\n\nThe Honorable John F. Kerry\n\nSpecial Presidential Envoy for Climate\n\nU.S. Department of State 2201 C Street N.W. Washington, D.C. 20520\n\nDear Special Envoy Kerry,\n\nAs you know, the United States is the world\u2019s largest historical contributor to climate change. Yet as we\u2019ve seen with the historic flooding in Pakistan, the fourth consecutive drought in the Horn of Africa, the painfully slow recovery from hurricane damage in Central America, among many other examples, it is the Global South that disproportionately suffers the harms. We have both a moral and a strategic responsibility to provide comprehensive support for countries facing climate disaster, including debt forgiveness and reparations. While we work toward those crucial goals, there are also smaller but no less important mechanisms we should be supporting.\n\nOne specific step we urge you to take immediately is to throw the United States\u2019 support behind the establishment of a Loss & Damage Finance Facility under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) for the purpose of channeling new, grant-based public finance from developed to developing countries to help them recover from climate catastrophes.\n\nWe are encouraged that the Biden administration has accepted formal discussions of Loss & Damage at the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP27. We hope you will build on that commitment and continue engaging in good faith discussion to ensure the world\u2019s most vulnerable communities receive life-saving resources in times of crisis.\n\nAd hoc humanitarian assistance flows, insurance schemes, debt-based financing, and neglected existing funds under the UNFCCC are wholly insufficient to address the current reality in which countries are facing billions of dollars in loss and damage needs. A collaborative international effort is needed to make more high-quality, accessible, and fit-for-purpose financing available, especially to account for losses and damages caused by climate emergencies. Such financing must be supplementary to climate financing for mitigation and adaptation and should be unconditional public funding that does not deepen the debt crises faced by many vulnerable countries.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-08T03:24:37Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://omar.house.gov/media/press-releases/reps-omar-and-bowman-lead-letter-calling-biden-administration-support-loss"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.4207728672772646, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}