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For Immediate Release June 25, 2013

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

Remarks by the President on Climate 

Change

the WHITE HOUSE PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA



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Georgetown University

Washington, D.C.

1:45 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you! (Applause.) Thank you, Georgetown! Thank you 

so much. Everybody, please be seated. And my first announcement today is that 

you should all take off your jackets. (Laughter.) I’m going to do the same. 

(Applause.) It’s not that sexy, now. (Laughter.) 

It is good to be back on campus, and it is a great privilege to speak from the steps of 

this historic hall that welcomed Presidents going back to George Washington. 

I want to thank your president, President DeGioia, who’s here today. (Applause.) I 

want to thank him for hosting us. I want to thank the many members of my Cabinet 

and my administration. I want to thank Leader Pelosi and the members of Congress 

who are here. We are very grateful for their support.

And I want to say thank you to the Hoyas in the house for having me back. 

(Applause.) It was important for me to speak directly to your generation, because 

the decisions that we make now and in the years ahead will have a profound impact 

on the world that all of you inherit.

On Christmas Eve, 1968, the astronauts of Apollo 8 did a live broadcast from lunar 

orbit. So Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, William Anders -- the first humans to orbit the 

moon -– described what they saw, and they read Scripture from the Book of Genesis 

to the rest of us back here. And later that night, they took a photo that would 

change the way we see and think about our world.

It was an image of Earth -– beautiful; breathtaking; a glowing marble of blue oceans, 

and green forests, and brown mountains brushed with white clouds, rising over the 

surface of the moon. 

And while the sight of our planet from space might seem routine today, imagine what 

it looked like to those of us seeing our home, our planet, for the first time. Imagine 

what it looked like to children like me. Even the astronauts were amazed. “It makes 

you realize,” Lovell would say, “just what you have back there on Earth.”

And around the same time we began exploring space, scientists were studying 

changes taking place in the Earth’s atmosphere. Now, scientists had known since 

the 1800s that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide trap heat, and that burning 

fossil fuels release those gases into the air. That wasn’t news. But in the late 1950s, 

the National Weather Service began measuring the levels of carbon dioxide in our 

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atmosphere, with the worry that rising levels might someday disrupt the fragile 

balance that makes our planet so hospitable. And what they’ve found, year after 

year, is that the levels of carbon pollution in our atmosphere have increased 

dramatically. 

That science, accumulated and reviewed over decades, tells us that our planet is 

changing in ways that will have profound impacts on all of humankind. 

The 12 warmest years in recorded history have all come in the last 15 years. Last 

year, temperatures in some areas of the ocean reached record highs, and ice in the 

Arctic shrank to its smallest size on record -- faster than most models had predicted 

it would. These are facts. 

Now, we know that no single weather event is caused solely by climate change. 

Droughts and fires and floods, they go back to ancient times. But we also know that 

in a world that’s warmer than it used to be, all weather events are affected by a 

warming planet. The fact that sea level in New York, in New York Harbor, are now a 

foot higher than a century ago -- that didn’t cause Hurricane Sandy, but it certainly 

contributed to the destruction that left large parts of our mightiest city dark and 

underwater.

The potential impacts go beyond rising sea levels. Here at home, 2012 was the 

warmest year in our history. Midwest farms were parched by the worst drought 

since the Dust Bowl, and then drenched by the wettest spring on record. Western 

wildfires scorched an area larger than the state of Maryland. Just last week, a heat 

wave in Alaska shot temperatures into the 90s. 

And we know that the costs of these events can be measured in lost lives and lost 

livelihoods, lost homes, lost businesses, hundreds of billions of dollars in emergency 

services and disaster relief. In fact, those who are already feeling the effects of 

climate change don’t have time to deny it -- they’re busy dealing with it. Firefighters 

are braving longer wildfire seasons, and states and federal governments have to 

figure out how to budget for that. I had to sit on a meeting with the Department of 

Interior and Agriculture and some of the rest of my team just to figure out how we're 

going to pay for more and more expensive fire seasons.

Farmers see crops wilted one year, washed away the next; and the higher food 

prices get passed on to you, the American consumer. Mountain communities worry 

about what smaller snowpacks will mean for tourism -- and then, families at the 

bottom of the mountains wonder what it will mean for their drinking water. 

Americans across the country are already paying the price of inaction in insurance 

premiums, state and local taxes, and the costs of rebuilding and disaster relief.

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So the question is not whether we need to act. The overwhelming judgment of 

science -- of chemistry and physics and millions of measurements -- has put all that 

to rest. Ninety-seven percent of scientists, including, by the way, some who 

originally disputed the data, have now put that to rest. They've acknowledged the 

planet is warming and human activity is contributing to it. 

So the question now is whether we will have the courage to act before it’s too late. 

And how we answer will have a profound impact on the world that we leave behind 

not just to you, but to your children and to your grandchildren.

As a President, as a father, and as an American, I’m here to say we need to act. 

(Applause.) 

I refuse to condemn your generation and future generations to a planet that’s 

beyond fixing. And that’s why, today, I'm announcing a new national climate action 

plan, and I'm here to enlist your generation's help in keeping the United States of 

America a leader -- a global leader -- in the fight against climate change. 

This plan builds on progress that we've already made. Last year, I took office -- the 

year that I took office, my administration pledged to reduce America's greenhouse 

gas emissions by about 17 percent from their 2005 levels by the end of this decade. 

And we rolled up our sleeves and we got to work. We doubled the electricity we 

generated from wind and the sun. We doubled the mileage our cars will get on a 

gallon of gas by the middle of the next decade. (Applause.) 

Here at Georgetown, I unveiled my strategy for a secure energy future. And thanks 

to the ingenuity of our businesses, we're starting to produce much more of our own 

energy. We're building the first nuclear power plants in more than three decades -- 

in Georgia and South Carolina. For the first time in 18 years, America is poised to 

produce more of our own oil than we buy from other nations. And today, we 

produce more natural gas than anybody else. So we're producing energy. And 

these advances have grown our economy, they've created new jobs, they can't be 

shipped overseas -- and, by the way, they've also helped drive our carbon pollution 

to its lowest levels in nearly 20 years. Since 2006, no country on Earth has reduced 

its total carbon pollution by as much as the United States of America. (Applause.) 

So it's a good start. But the reason we're all here in the heat today is because we 

know we've got more to do. 

In my State of the Union address, I urged Congress to come up with a bipartisan, 

market-based solution to climate change, like the one that Republican and 

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Democratic senators worked on together a few years ago. And I still want to see 

that happen. I'm willing to work with anyone to make that happen. 

But this is a challenge that does not pause for partisan gridlock. It demands our 

attention now. And this is my plan to meet it -- a plan to cut carbon pollution; a plan 

to protect our country from the impacts of climate change; and a plan to lead the 

world in a coordinated assault on a changing climate. (Applause.) 

This plan begins with cutting carbon pollution by changing the way we use energy -- 

using less dirty energy, using more clean energy, wasting less energy throughout 

our economy.

Forty-three years ago, Congress passed a law called the Clean Air Act of 1970. 

(Applause.) It was a good law. The reasoning behind it was simple: New 

technology can protect our health by protecting the air we breathe from harmful 

pollution. And that law passed the Senate unanimously. Think about that -- it 

passed the Senate unanimously. It passed the House of Representatives 375 to 1. 

I don’t know who the one guy was -- I haven’t looked that up. (Laughter.) You can 

barely get that many votes to name a post office these days. (Laughter.) 

It was signed into law by a Republican President. It was later strengthened by 

another Republican President. This used to be a bipartisan issue.

Six years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that greenhouse gases are pollutants 

covered by that same Clean Air Act. (Applause.) And they required the 

Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA, to determine whether they’re a threat to 

our health and welfare. In 2009, the EPA determined that they are a threat to both 

our health and our welfare in many different ways -- from dirtier air to more common 

heat waves -- and, therefore, subject to regulation.

Today, about 40 percent of America’s carbon pollution comes from our power 

plants. But here’s the thing: Right now, there are no federal limits to the amount of 

carbon pollution that those plants can pump into our air. None. Zero. We limit the 

amount of toxic chemicals like mercury and sulfur and arsenic in our air or our water, 

but power plants can still dump unlimited amounts of carbon pollution into the air for 

free. That’s not right, that’s not safe, and it needs to stop. (Applause.)

So today, for the sake of our children, and the health and safety of all Americans, 

I’m directing the Environmental Protection Agency to put an end to the limitless 

dumping of carbon pollution from our power plants, and complete new pollution 

standards for both new and existing power plants. (Applause.) 

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I’m also directing the EPA to develop these standards in an open and transparent 

way, to provide flexibility to different states with different needs, and build on the 

leadership that many states, and cities, and companies have already shown. In fact, 

many power companies have already begun modernizing their plants, and creating 

new jobs in the process. Others have shifted to burning cleaner natural gas instead 

of dirtier fuel sources. 

Nearly a dozen states have already implemented or are implementing their own 

market-based programs to reduce carbon pollution. More than 25 have set energy 

efficiency targets. More than 35 have set renewable energy targets. Over 1,000 

mayors have signed agreements to cut carbon pollution. So the idea of setting 

higher pollution standards for our power plants is not new. It’s just time for 

Washington to catch up with the rest of the country. And that's what we intend to 

do. (Applause.)

Now, what you’ll hear from the special interests and their allies in Congress is that 

this will kill jobs and crush the economy, and basically end American free enterprise 

as we know it. And the reason I know you'll hear those things is because that's what 

they said every time America sets clear rules and better standards for our air and 

our water and our children’s health. And every time, they've been wrong.

For example, in 1970, when we decided through the Clean Air Act to do something 

about the smog that was choking our cities -- and, by the way, most young people 

here aren't old enough to remember what it was like, but when I was going to school 

in 1979-1980 in Los Angeles, there were days where folks couldn't go outside. And 

the sunsets were spectacular because of all the pollution in the air. 

But at the time when we passed the Clean Air Act to try to get rid of some of this 

smog, some of the same doomsayers were saying new pollution standards will 

decimate the auto industry. Guess what -- it didn’t happen. Our air got cleaner.

In 1990, when we decided to do something about acid rain, they said our electricity 

bills would go up, the lights would go off, businesses around the country would 

suffer -- I quote -- “a quiet death.” None of it happened, except we cut acid rain 

dramatically.

See, the problem with all these tired excuses for inaction is that it suggests a 

fundamental lack of faith in American business and American ingenuity. 

(Applause.) These critics seem to think that when we ask our businesses to 

innovate and reduce pollution and lead, they can't or they won't do it. They'll just 

kind of give up and quit. But in America, we know that’s not true. Look at our 

history. 

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When we restricted cancer-causing chemicals in plastics and leaded fuel in our cars, 

it didn’t end the plastics industry or the oil industry. American chemists came up 

with better substitutes. When we phased out CFCs -- the gases that were depleting 

the ozone layer -- it didn’t kill off refrigerators or air-conditioners or deodorant. 

(Laughter.) American workers and businesses figured out how to do it better without 

harming the environment as much. 

The fuel standards that we put in place just a few years ago didn’t cripple 

automakers. The American auto industry retooled, and today, our automakers are 

selling the best cars in the world at a faster rate than they have in five years -- with 

more hybrid, more plug-in, more fuel-efficient cars for everybody to choose from. 

(Applause.) 

So the point is, if you look at our history, don’t bet against American industry. Don’t 

bet against American workers. Don’t tell folks that we have to choose between the 

health of our children or the health of our economy. (Applause.) 

The old rules may say we can’t protect our environment and promote economic 

growth at the same time, but in America, we’ve always used new technologies -- 

we’ve used science; we’ve used research and development and discovery to make 

the old rules obsolete. 

Today, we use more clean energy –- more renewables and natural gas -– which is 

supporting hundreds of thousands of good jobs. We waste less energy, which 

saves you money at the pump and in your pocketbooks. And guess what -- our 

economy is 60 percent bigger than it was 20 years ago, while our carbon emissions 

are roughly back to where they were 20 years ago. 

So, obviously, we can figure this out. It’s not an either/or; it’s a both/and. We’ve got 

to look after our children; we have to look after our future; and we have to grow the 

economy and create jobs. We can do all of that as long as we don’t fear the future; 

instead we seize it. (Applause.)

And, by the way, don’t take my word for it -- recently, more than 500 businesses, 

including giants like GM and Nike, issued a Climate Declaration, calling action on 

climate change “one of the great economic opportunities of the 21st century.” 

Walmart is working to cut its carbon pollution by 20 percent and transition 

completely to renewable energy. (Applause.) Walmart deserves a cheer for that. 

(Applause.) But think about it. Would the biggest company, the biggest retailer in 

America -- would they really do that if it weren’t good for business, if it weren’t good 

for their shareholders? 

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A low-carbon, clean energy economy can be an engine of growth for decades to 

come. And I want America to build that engine. I want America to build that future -- 

right here in the United States of America. That’s our task. (Applause.) 

Now, one thing I want to make sure everybody understands -- this does not mean 

that we’re going to suddenly stop producing fossil fuels. Our economy wouldn’t run 

very well if it did. And transitioning to a clean energy economy takes time. But 

when the doomsayers trot out the old warnings that these ambitions will somehow 

hurt our energy supply, just remind them that America produced more oil than we 

have in 15 years. What is true is that we can’t just drill our way out of the energy 

and climate challenge that we face. (Applause.) That’s not possible. 

I put forward in the past an all-of-the-above energy strategy, but our energy strategy 

must be about more than just producing more oil. And, by the way, it’s certainly got 

to be about more than just building one pipeline. (Applause.) 

Now, I know there’s been, for example, a lot of controversy surrounding the proposal 

to build a pipeline, the Keystone pipeline, that would carry oil from Canadian tar 

sands down to refineries in the Gulf. And the State Department is going through the 

final stages of evaluating the proposal. That’s how it’s always been done. But I do 

want to be clear: Allowing the Keystone pipeline to be built requires a finding that 

doing so would be in our nation’s interest. And our national interest will be served 

only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution. 

(Applause.) The net effects of the pipeline’s impact on our climate will be absolutely 

critical to determining whether this project is allowed to go forward. It’s relevant.

Now, even as we’re producing more domestic oil, we’re also producing more 

cleaner-burning natural gas than any other country on Earth. And, again, 

sometimes there are disputes about natural gas, but let me say this: We should 

strengthen our position as the top natural gas producer because, in the medium 

term at least, it not only can provide safe, cheap power, but it can also help reduce 

our carbon emissions. 

Federally supported technology has helped our businesses drill more effectively and 

extract more gas. And now, we'll keep working with the industry to make drilling 

safer and cleaner, to make sure that we're not seeing methane emissions, and to put 

people to work modernizing our natural gas infrastructure so that we can power 

more homes and businesses with cleaner energy.

The bottom line is natural gas is creating jobs. It's lowering many families' heat and 

power bills. And it's the transition fuel that can power our economy with less carbon 

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pollution even as our businesses work to develop and then deploy more of the 

technology required for the even cleaner energy economy of the future. 

And that brings me to the second way that we're going to reduce carbon pollution -- 

by using more clean energy. Over the past four years, we've doubled the electricity 

that we generate from zero-carbon wind and solar power. (Applause.) And that 

means jobs -- jobs manufacturing the wind turbines that now generate enough 

electricity to power nearly 15 million homes; jobs installing the solar panels that now 

generate more than four times the power at less cost than just a few years ago. 

I know some Republicans in Washington dismiss these jobs, but those who do need 

to call home -- because 75 percent of all wind energy in this country is generated in 

Republican districts. (Laughter.) And that may explain why last year, Republican 

governors in Kansas and Oklahoma and Iowa -- Iowa, by the way, a state that 

harnesses almost 25 percent of its electricity from the wind -- helped us in the fight 

to extend tax credits for wind energy manufacturers and producers. (Applause.) 

Tens of thousands good jobs were on the line, and those jobs were worth the fight. 

And countries like China and Germany are going all in in the race for clean energy. I 

believe Americans build things better than anybody else. I want America to win that 

race, but we can't win it if we're not in it. (Applause.) 

So the plan I'm announcing today will help us double again our energy from wind 

and sun. Today, I'm directing the Interior Department to green light enough private, 

renewable energy capacity on public lands to power more than 6 million homes by 

2020. (Applause.) 

The Department of Defense -- the biggest energy consumer in America -- will install 

3 gigawatts of renewable power on its bases, generating about the same amount of 

electricity each year as you'd get from burning 3 million tons of coal. (Applause.)

And because billions of your tax dollars continue to still subsidize some of the most 

profitable corporations in the history of the world, my budget once again calls for 

Congress to end the tax breaks for big oil companies, and invest in the clean-energy 

companies that will fuel our future. (Applause.) 

Now, the third way to reduce carbon pollution is to waste less energy -- in our cars, 

our homes, our businesses. The fuel standards we set over the past few years 

mean that by the middle of the next decade, the cars and trucks we buy will go twice 

as far on a gallon of gas. That means you’ll have to fill up half as often; we’ll all 

reduce carbon pollution. And we built on that success by setting the first-ever 

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standards for heavy-duty trucks and buses and vans. And in the coming months, 

we’ll partner with truck makers to do it again for the next generation of vehicles.

Meanwhile, the energy we use in our homes and our businesses and our factories, 

our schools, our hospitals -- that’s responsible for about one-third of our greenhouse 

gases. The good news is simple upgrades don’t just cut that pollution; they put 

people to work -- manufacturing and installing smarter lights and windows and 

sensors and appliances. And the savings show up in our electricity bills every 

month -- forever. That’s why we’ve set new energy standards for appliances like 

refrigerators and dishwashers. And today, our businesses are building better ones 

that will also cut carbon pollution and cut consumers’ electricity bills by hundreds of 

billions of dollars. 

That means, by the way, that our federal government also has to lead by example. 

I’m proud that federal agencies have reduced their greenhouse gas emissions by 

more than 15 percent since I took office. But we can do even better than that. So 

today, I’m setting a new goal: Your federal government will consume 20 percent of 

its electricity from renewable sources within the next seven years. We are going to 

set that goal. (Applause.) 

We’ll also encourage private capital to get off the sidelines and get into these 

energy-saving investments. And by the end of the next decade, these combined 

efficiency standards for appliances and federal buildings will reduce carbon pollution 

by at least three billion tons. That’s an amount equal to what our entire energy 

sector emits in nearly half a year. 

So I know these standards don’t sound all that sexy, but think of it this way: That’s 

the equivalent of planting 7.6 billion trees and letting them grow for 10 years -- all 

while doing the dishes. It is a great deal and we need to be doing it. (Applause.)

So using less dirty energy, transitioning to cleaner sources of energy, wasting less 

energy through our economy is where we need to go. And this plan will get us there 

faster. But I want to be honest -- this will not get us there overnight. The hard truth 

is carbon pollution has built up in our atmosphere for decades now. And even if we 

Americans do our part, the planet will slowly keep warming for some time to come. 

The seas will slowly keep rising and storms will get more severe, based on the 

science. It's like tapping the brakes of a car before you come to a complete stop 

and then can shift into reverse. It's going to take time for carbon emissions to 

stabilize. 

So in the meantime, we're going to need to get prepared. And that’s why this plan 

will also protect critical sectors of our economy and prepare the United States for the 

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impacts of climate change that we cannot avoid. States and cities across the 

country are already taking it upon themselves to get ready. Miami Beach is 

hardening its water supply against seeping saltwater. We’re partnering with the 

state of Florida to restore Florida’s natural clean water delivery system -- the 

Everglades. 

The overwhelmingly Republican legislature in Texas voted to spend money on a 

new water development bank as a long-running drought cost jobs and forced a town 

to truck in water from the outside. 

New York City is fortifying its 520 miles of coastline as an insurance policy against 

more frequent and costly storms. And what we’ve learned from Hurricane Sandy 

and other disasters is that we’ve got to build smarter, more resilient infrastructure 

that can protect our homes and businesses, and withstand more powerful storms. 

That means stronger seawalls, natural barriers, hardened power grids, hardened 

water systems, hardened fuel supplies. 

So the budget I sent Congress includes funding to support communities that build 

these projects, and this plan directs federal agencies to make sure that any new 

project funded with taxpayer dollars is built to withstand increased flood risks. 

And we’ll partner with communities seeking help to prepare for droughts and floods, 

reduce the risk of wildfires, protect the dunes and wetlands that pull double duty as 

green space and as natural storm barriers. And we'll also open our climate data and 

NASA climate imagery to the public, to make sure that cities and states assess risk 

under different climate scenarios, so that we don’t waste money building structures 

that don’t withstand the next storm. 

So that's what my administration will do to support the work already underway 

across America, not only to cut carbon pollution, but also to protect ourselves from 

climate change. But as I think everybody here understands, no nation can solve this 

challenge alone -- not even one as powerful as ours. And that’s why the final part of 

our plan calls on America to lead -- lead international efforts to combat a changing 

climate. (Applause.) 

And make no mistake -- the world still looks to America to lead. When I spoke to 

young people in Turkey a few years ago, the first question I got wasn't about the 

challenges that part of the world faces. It was about the climate challenge that we 

all face, and America's role in addressing it. And it was a fair question, because as 

the world's largest economy and second-largest carbon emitter, as a country with 

unsurpassed ability to drive innovation and scientific breakthroughs, as the country 

that people around the world continue to look to in times of crisis, we've got a vital 

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role to play. We can't stand on the sidelines. We've got a unique responsibility. 

And the steps that I've outlined today prove that we're willing to meet that 

responsibility. 

Though all America's carbon pollution fell last year, global carbon pollution rose to a 

record high. That’s a problem. Developing countries are using more and more 

energy, and tens of millions of people entering a global middle class naturally want 

to buy cars and air-conditioners of their own, just like us. Can't blame them for that. 

And when you have conversations with poor countries, they'll say, well, you went 

through these stages of development -- why can't we?

But what we also have to recognize is these same countries are also more 

vulnerable to the effects of climate change than we are. They don’t just have as 

much to lose, they probably have more to lose. 

Developing nations with some of the fastest-rising levels of carbon pollution are 

going to have to take action to meet this challenge alongside us. They're watching 

what we do, but we've got to make sure that they're stepping up to the plate as well. 

We compete for business with them, but we also share a planet. And we have to all 

shoulder the responsibility for keeping the planet habitable, or we're going to suffer 

the consequences -- together.

So to help more countries transitioning to cleaner sources of energy and to help 

them do it faster, we're going to partner with our private sector to apply private 

sector technological know-how in countries that transition to natural gas. We’ve 

mobilized billions of dollars in private capital for clean energy projects around the 

world. 

Today, I'm calling for an end of public financing for new coal plants overseas -- 

(applause) -- unless they deploy carbon-capture technologies, or there's no other 

viable way for the poorest countries to generate electricity. And I urge other 

countries to join this effort. 

And I'm directing my administration to launch negotiations toward global free trade in 

environmental goods and services, including clean energy technology, to help more 

countries skip past the dirty phase of development and join a global low-carbon 

economy. They don’t have to repeat all the same mistakes that we made. 

(Applause.)

We've also intensified our climate cooperation with major emerging economies like 

India and Brazil, and China -- the world’s largest emitter. So, for example, earlier 

this month, President Xi of China and I reached an important agreement to jointly 

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phase down our production and consumption of dangerous hydrofluorocarbons, and 

we intend to take more steps together in the months to come. It will make a 

difference. It’s a significant step in the reduction of carbon emissions. (Applause.)

And finally, my administration will redouble our efforts to engage our international 

partners in reaching a new global agreement to reduce carbon pollution through 

concrete action. (Applause.) 

Four years ago, in Copenhagen, every major country agreed, for the first time, to 

limit carbon pollution by 2020. Two years ago, we decided to forge a new 

agreement beyond 2020 that would apply to all countries, not just developed 

countries. 

What we need is an agreement that’s ambitious -- because that’s what the scale of 

the challenge demands. We need an inclusive agreement -– because every country 

has to play its part. And we need an agreement that’s flexible -- because different 

nations have different needs. And if we can come together and get this right, we 

can define a sustainable future for your generation. 

So that’s my plan. (Applause.) The actions I’ve announced today should send a 

strong signal to the world that America intends to take bold action to reduce carbon 

pollution. We will continue to lead by the power of our example, because that’s what 

the United States of America has always done.

I am convinced this is the fight America can, and will, lead in the 21st century. And 

I’m convinced this is a fight that America must lead. But it will require all of us to do 

our part. We’ll need scientists to design new fuels, and we’ll need farmers to grow 

new fuels. We’ll need engineers to devise new technologies, and we’ll need 

businesses to make and sell those technologies. We’ll need workers to operate 

assembly lines that hum with high-tech, zero-carbon components, but we’ll also 

need builders to hammer into place the foundations for a new clean energy era. 

We’re going to need to give special care to people and communities that are 

unsettled by this transition -- not just here in the United States but around the world. 

And those of us in positions of responsibility, we’ll need to be less concerned with 

the judgment of special interests and well-connected donors, and more concerned 

with the judgment of posterity. (Applause.) Because you and your children, and 

your children’s children, will have to live with the consequences of our decisions. 

As I said before, climate change has become a partisan issue, but it hasn’t always 

been. It wasn’t that long ago that Republicans led the way on new and innovative 

policies to tackle these issues. Richard Nixon opened the EPA. George H.W. Bush 

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declared -- first U.S. President to declare -- “human activities are changing the 

atmosphere in unexpected and unprecedented ways.” Someone who never shies 

away from a challenge, John McCain, introduced a market-based cap-and-trade bill 

to slow carbon pollution. 

The woman that I’ve chosen to head up the EPA, Gina McCarthy, she’s worked -- 

(applause) -- she’s terrific. Gina has worked for the EPA in my administration, but 

she’s also worked for five Republican governors. She’s got a long track record of 

working with industry and business leaders to forge common-sense solutions. 

Unfortunately, she’s being held up in the Senate. She’s been held up for months, 

forced to jump through hoops no Cabinet nominee should ever have to –- not 

because she lacks qualifications, but because there are too many in the Republican 

Party right now who think that the Environmental Protection Agency has no business 

protecting our environment from carbon pollution. The Senate should confirm her 

without any further obstruction or delay. (Applause.) 

But more broadly, we’ve got to move beyond partisan politics on this issue. I want to 

be clear -- I am willing to work with anybody –- Republicans, Democrats, 

independents, libertarians, greens -– anybody -- to combat this threat on behalf of 

our kids. I am open to all sorts of new ideas, maybe better ideas, to make sure that 

we deal with climate change in a way that promotes jobs and growth. 

Nobody has a monopoly on what is a very hard problem, but I don’t have much 

patience for anyone who denies that this challenge is real. (Applause.) We don’t 

have time for a meeting of the Flat Earth Society. (Applause.) Sticking your head in 

the sand might make you feel safer, but it’s not going to protect you from the coming 

storm. And ultimately, we will be judged as a people, and as a society, and as a 

country on where we go from here. 

Our founders believed that those of us in positions of power are elected not just to 

serve as custodians of the present, but as caretakers of the future. And they 

charged us to make decisions with an eye on a longer horizon than the arc of our 

own political careers. That’s what the American people expect. That’s what they 

deserve.

And someday, our children, and our children’s children, will look at us in the eye and 

they'll ask us, did we do all that we could when we had the chance to deal with this 

problem and leave them a cleaner, safer, more stable world? And I want to be able 

to say, yes, we did. Don’t you want that? (Applause.) 

Americans are not a people who look backwards; we're a people who look forward. 

We're not a people who fear what the future holds; we shape it. What we need in 

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this fight are citizens who will stand up, and speak up, and compel us to do what this 

moment demands. 

Understand this is not just a job for politicians. So I'm going to need all of you to 

educate your classmates, your colleagues, your parents, your friends. Tell them 

what’s at stake. Speak up at town halls, church groups, PTA meetings. Push back 

on misinformation. Speak up for the facts. Broaden the circle of those who are 

willing to stand up for our future. (Applause.) 

Convince those in power to reduce our carbon pollution. Push your own 

communities to adopt smarter practices. Invest. Divest. (Applause.) Remind folks 

there's no contradiction between a sound environment and strong economic growth. 

And remind everyone who represents you at every level of government that 

sheltering future generations against the ravages of climate change is a prerequisite 

for your vote. Make yourself heard on this issue. (Applause.)

I understand the politics will be tough. The challenge we must accept will not reward 

us with a clear moment of victory. There’s no gathering army to defeat. There's no 

peace treaty to sign. When President Kennedy said we’d go to the moon within the 

decade, we knew we’d build a spaceship and we’d meet the goal. Our progress 

here will be measured differently -- in crises averted, in a planet preserved. But can 

we imagine a more worthy goal? For while we may not live to see the full realization 

of our ambition, we will have the satisfaction of knowing that the world we leave to 

our children will be better off for what we did. 

“It makes you realize,” that astronaut said all those years ago, “just what you have 

back there on Earth.” And that image in the photograph, that bright blue ball rising 

over the moon’s surface, containing everything we hold dear -- the laughter of 

children, a quiet sunset, all the hopes and dreams of posterity -- that’s what’s at 

stake. That’s what we’re fighting for. And if we remember that, I’m absolutely sure 

we'll succeed. 

Thank you. God bless you. God bless the United States of America. (Applause.)

END

2:32 P.M. EDT

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