U.S. Senators Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen (both D-Md.) have joined a Senate resolution outlining key findings of the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report and the recent National Climate Assessment. The resolution affirms the signing members’ recognition and acceptance of these findings, and calls for bold action to combat climate change. The senators were joined on the resolution by 23 of their Senate colleagues.

Notably, the IPCC report found that the Northeast Region of the United States ― which includes Maryland ― will see the largest temperature increase in the country, and the warming will occur here as much as two decades before global average temperatures reach such a similar milestone. The report also finds that the Chesapeake Bay will experience stronger, more frequent storms, an increase in precipitation events, an increase in bay water temperatures and a rise in sea level.

“The Trump Administration wants to bury this new report because it doesn’t align with the president’s completely unhinged claim that climate change is a ‘hoax.’ Unfortunately for them, ignoring facts never succeeds in making them any less true,” said Cardin, a senior member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. “The consequences of our inaction on climate change can be found everywhere, from the record-breaking wildfires in California to the repeated, historic flooding in Ellicott City. This report highlights how these and other climate consequences will have an increasingly catastrophic effect on our economy ― unless we act now.”

On Oct. 8, the IPCC released a report outlining the consequences of rising global temperatures and the ways in which climate chaos will become substantially worse as the planet continues to experience pre-industrial levels of warming. The report showed that the difference between warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius and 2 degrees Celsius is substantial, and limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is affordable, feasible and necessary to protect people from the worst impacts of climate change.

The report concludes that unless the current path of climate change is slowed, massive impacts — such as limited water supply availability, sea-ice free Arctic summers, mass die-offs of coral reefs, and intense and unprecedented heat waves — will become reality as soon as 2040.