Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen on Climate Change

Please consider Remarks by Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen at the Goeldi Museum in Belém, Brazil

Good afternoon. I am very glad to be here at the Goeldi Museum with Inter-American Development Bank President Ilan Goldfajn and Governor Helder Barbalho and to have spent the day engaging with ministers from the region and leaders from the IDB and the private sector. I have seen today and throughout my week in Brazil the value of three key aspects of the Treasury Department's approach to advance the Biden-Harris Administration's international climate and nature and biodiversity agenda: strengthening relationships with allies and partners; making the international financial architecture work better for countries; and harnessing the power of markets.

Climate change poses a daily and existential threat to individuals, communities, and countries. It harms human health, damages homes and businesses, and strains government budgets. It poses risks across sectors of our economies, from agriculture to infrastructure. And the harsh reality is that the people and countries with fewer resources to prepare and respond often must bear even greater costs.

In the Amazon and elsewhere, we also see another concerning trend: the unprecedented and accelerating loss of nature and biodiversity. Like climate change, this loss has wide-ranging impacts, from driving migration and fragility to increasing food and water insecurity. And we are in a vicious cycle: Climate change accelerates nature and biodiversity loss, while this loss turns carbon sinks into carbon sources and eliminates natural infrastructure that supports resilience to climate change.