Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh
[Remarks as Prepared]
DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR ISOBEL COLEMAN: Good afternoon. Thanks again to you, Dr. Jaishankar, for India’s bold leadership of this year’s G20 presidency.
And thank you to our Indian partners, in particular Prime Minister Modi, for bringing Green Development and the LiFE approach to the forefront of the G20 agenda. We are disappointed that the High Level Principles no longer include a direct reference to LiFE.
Since day one of the Biden-Harris administration, climate change has been a top priority, domestically and globally.
President Biden pledged to quadruple U.S. public climate finance by 2024, including raising $3 billion annually for international climate adaptation.
And through the President’s Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience, the United States is working to make half a billion people in developing countries more resilient to climate change this decade by expanding access to tools like early warning systems and access to drought-resistant seeds.
Last year, USAID launched a Climate Strategy to guide our efforts to advance climate-positive development practices across all that we do.
I would also like to commend our Indian partners for their work to incorporate a robust behavioral science element into the LiFE approach, now included in these High Level Principles.
Evidence-based, behavioral science has accelerated important development objectives such as gender equality, biodiversity conservation, and improved health.
For example, USAID's biodiversity conservation programming has shown how focusing on behavior change in Thailand reduced consumers’ intention to buy illegal wildlife products, such as elephant ivory and tiger parts, by more than 40 percent.
And through the Save Our Seas Initiative, USAID is collaborating with partners in rapidly urbanizing cities to promote social and behavior change campaigns to reduce single-use plastics.
These examples are part of the United States’ broad strategy on combating climate change, alongside our country partners.
And because the state of the climate crisis cuts across nearly every other development challenge we face, we’re employing unique approaches to stretch our investments further including increasing locally led development, and leveraging our commitments to attract more funding from the private sector.
We’re tackling the food and climate crises side-by-side. With millions at risk of famine worldwide, increased access to climate-resilient seeds – an approach pioneered by USAID – is helping millions of farmers better withstand drought and reducing the need for humanitarian assistance.
Through our investments and partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research, smallholder farmers in Africa gained access to improved seeds that increased their yields by 25 percent, benefitting more than 44 million people in 2022 alone.
Progress on so many of the issues we’re facing – from the emergence of infectious diseases to famine and food security – is hindered by the existential threat posed by climate change.
But just as we partnered eight years ago in Paris to lead nearly 200 countries to reach the most ambitious climate agreement in history, I am confident that we can set our sights even higher.
We look forward to continued engagement with you to accelerate action.
Thank you.