Leadership Quote by Andrew Cuomo

Cuomo’s line isn’t trying to be poetic; it’s trying to be positioned. In the mid-2010s, saying “global warming and climate change are real threats” was less a scientific contribution than a political signal flare: I’m not on the denialist side of the culture war, and I’m willing to treat climate as a governing issue rather than a talk-show argument. The phrasing does a careful two-step - “global warming and climate change” - a belt-and-suspenders pairing that nods to public confusion over terminology while expanding the umbrella of concern. It’s meant to sound plain, even obvious, because the audience he’s courting wants leaders who treat climate reality as settled enough to act on.

The verb “believe” is doing stealth work. Science doesn’t require belief, but politics does. By framing it as belief, Cuomo lowers the threshold for agreement, inviting moderates and skeptics to enter through a softer door: you don’t have to parse IPCC reports, just concede the threat. The word “threats” also matters: it translates abstract data into the language of security, risk management, and executive responsibility - the dialect of governors.

Context sharpens the intent. Cuomo’s tenure in New York aligned with state-level climate ambition (clean energy targets, resilience planning after extreme weather) and a national moment when federal action was volatile. The subtext: if Washington stalls, states can still claim moral and practical leadership - and a politician can claim competence by treating climate like infrastructure, not ideology.