Governor Kathy Hochul announced nearly $300 million in climate resiliency funding during Pope Francis's three-day summit, 'From Climate Crisis to Climate Resilience.' This funding supports new grant opportunities made available this week to build upon New York’s sustained investments to protect communities from the devastating impacts of climate change, particularly those communities most vulnerable to pollution, flooding, extreme heat and other effects of a warming climate.

VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

AUDIO of the Governor's remarks is available.

PHOTOS of the event are available on the Governor's Flickr page.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Good afternoon. It is such an honor to be among leaders of states like the very modest California. Gavin Newsom. We have this bicoastal camaraderie, competition — but it all benefits the people of our states. And certainly, my great friend, my neighbor in Massachusetts, Maura Healey. I want to thank both of you.

But also, our mayors. I spent most of my life in local government and have such a deep appreciation for the power that you possess at the local level, but it's up to you whether you use it or not. And so, one could not spend part of a morning with the inspirational leadership of Pope Francis and not come away with one strong sense of our moral responsibility — not just to our own constituents, but to those who've been left behind on God's great creation known as Mother Earth.

And I'm often struck by the fact that we talk about Mankind’s assault on Mother Earth. Yes, I can say that. It's mostly men who ran the companies that destroyed our environment. Things are starting to change. We're making up for lost time. But I also could not become an elected official without thinking about my history as the daughter of social justice Catholics, who taught us every day — my parents taught us, though they had very little, they lived in a trailer park — but we have a responsibility to others.

So, that taught us to march for freedom and march for civil rights. March in support of those who have less. My parents helped literally clothe the hungry, setting up places for migrants who had come into searching for a better life; people with mental illness; anyone who needed help, my family was there. So, as a leader — so honored to be the Governor of the great State of New York — these are the lessons that I take with me when I approach the issue of climate change and ask, “Is there justice for all under how we are approaching this?” And sadly, the answer is not yet.

We're on a quest, and that is what our Holy Father put us on a quest to do this morning. Read his words carefully. That is your guide to what we need to take back to our localities, our states, our countries, and use our voices for the voiceless, because that is the teaching I was raised with as well.

But I also was raised in a place where I marveled at the fact that I still survived, and I'll tell you why. As a child, we used to see the skies were filled with orange smoke. I didn't know skies are supposed to be blue. We grew up near a steel plant that was spewing smoke into the air. We slam in one of God's greatest creations, the Great Lakes. Largest freshwater bodies on this planet. While we watch them dump what looked like molten lava into the water every night. Discharge out of our factories.

And yet, we swam in them by day. And just down the road was Love Canal: the birthplace of the Superfund initiative. And finally, we're realizing that these chemicals that were buried underground were killing people who called that land their home.

So, that's my history. And I'm the Governor of a state where the environmental movement started. Storm King Mountain, the first time residents stood up and said, “No, we're taking back our communities.” That was decades and decades ago. But we have that same sense of urgency today. It drives us every day of our lives to know that we have a moral responsibility to our children and grandchildren to not just protect earth but build the resiliency that's required to head off all those storms.

And I would say between California and New York, we have been beaten with extreme weather. I've been Governor for two years. I had two hurricanes my first week on the job – more than Florida had that year. I had an earthquake – an earthquake in New York. Tornadoes, 1,000-year flooding event. I ask, who was keeping track a thousand years ago, but they tell me it was a 1,000-year flooding event. Scores of times they say this is a 100-year flooding event. The shoreline of Long Island has been battered. Our lakes and streams upstate, where people have drowned, flooded in their homes. Extreme heat, hottest temperatures we've ever had in our history.

The most snow ever. I'm from Buffalo – never thought I'd see seven feet of snow in just over a 24-hour period. 40 people died during one of our worst blizzards, and I'm only on the job two years. So, think about the scale of those cataclysmic events, of what it has done to our communities.

So, yes, I made sure that the voters passed a $4.2 billion Bond Act to do everything to number one, build resiliency, because I don't want anyone else flooding in their basements like happened in Queens. My first week on the job, 17 people drowned in their basements, mostly immigrants. That was the only life they could live was in a basement that was illegal. I want to make sure that we have money to electrify everything. Our buildings, our school buses, making sure that we wean ourselves from the fossil fuel industries that Gavin Newsom spoke about.

Most of you do not know this, but over 100 years ago, the very first electric vehicles were invented in Buffalo, New York. And that was going to be the future until the oil companies came in and said, “Oh, we have a better way.” Imagine our planet if we had stayed the course following Buffalo's lead. Think about that.

So, we know what we have to do. The State of New York is investing billions of dollars in the resiliency required, but also generating that clean power. We have over $9 billion in projects, bringing hydroelectric power all the way from Quebec, down onto the Hudson River, to power the City of New York. Wind and solar coming in from the Catskills. Offshore wind, the largest offshore wind, utility grade power is being driven off the shores of Long Island. But we have so much more to do.

On May 16th, I'm announcing $300 million more to help the communities that have been battered, to help build that resiliency. So, governments, yes, we have to have the vision to lead the way forward, have the courage to do it. But you better put money behind it, or else it's just talk.

And we talk about what is happening to our beautiful farmland. Most people think of New York State as New York City. There's an entire state – number one, two, or three in major agricultural production. Our apple farmers are getting battered. Just as an example, thank God for Cornell that's represented here for finding ways that we can innovate technologies to build resiliency for our farmers. Seeds that are climate resistant. Brilliant, we need to get them out there, not just in New York, they need to be all over the world. This is how we look after our brothers and our sisters, as God has called us to do. So, we're just getting started in the State of New York. I am excited about this opportunity, and I think optimism is the proper word because you can watch the news and just feel overwhelmed and defeated.

But that's not what is called for right now. Listen to the words of the Pope, who joined our responsibility to earth and also taking care of the poor. They are one in the same. And we have people in our own state, children growing up in areas where asthma rates are too high because their families couldn't leave an area where the peaker plants and other plants are contaminating the air.

We are stopping that. We are focused on helping those underserved communities. Disadvantaged communities should not be any worse environmentally than any other affluent community because that is an injustice. That is an injustice. And we'll continue to fight that. That's why a community like Mount Vernon, New York – beautiful community, neglected, forgotten for so long. People in that community lived for 20 solid years having raw sewage come up through their basements on a daily basis, destroying any habitation. Businesses felt the same. It required $150 million and that's why it never happened for 20 years. I said, “These people matter. We can find the $150 million to let them live in a house that does not smell like raw sewage.” We need to be working on those communities first because they're the ones that got left behind originally. And not just in our own states, but the rest of the world.

Lastly, we are a magnet – our three states are magnets – for refugees, for migrants who are looking for a better life coming up from South America, West Africa. All over the world, they're finding ways to our states and our cities. But those who are the climate refugees, local circumstances, environmental challenges, that are driving people from their homes because they can no longer sustain themselves in the agricultural jobs that were once there for them, that's not their fault. We have to help them. Help them in their home countries. Help them survive these climate changes that are just so exacerbated right now. That's what I wanted to say to all of you today.

I'm inspired by the Pope. I grew up in a house where my grandparents had a picture of the current Pope on the wall every day. It was right up there next to John Kennedy, so, I thought they were equally important, and I'm Irish Catholic. I found out today they weren't.

But all of us have life's experiences, and those of us who are blessed and honored to have been voted into office by the people of our communities, our states, our cities, we have a moral responsibility. Look no further than the words of Pope Francis. You heard them today. He laid it out – who we need to be looking for, what God expects us to do during our time on this planet, and all of us working together will make it a better place for our children and future generations to come. And someday they'll look back at all the effort that went into this incredible gathering and say, “Yes, it was worth it because we were able to change the world.”

Thank you very much.