Obama aims at the climate

During a video message to the bipartisan Governors Global Climate Summit in Los Angeles, California, Barack Obama looks to turn the US tide on emissions.

“Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response. The stakes are too high. The consequences, too serious."

“Few challenges facing America and the world are more urgent than combating climate change,” Mr. Obama said. “The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear. Sea levels are rising. Coastlines are shrinking. We’ve seen record drought, spreading famine, and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season.”

Mr. Obama promised to set “strong annual targets that set us on a course to reduce emissions to their 1990 levels by 2020, and reduce them an additional 80 percent by 2050.”

This goes beyond even the planned EU reductions.

Mr. Obama vowed to invest $15 billion a year to support private clean-energy initiatives in solar and wind power, biofuels, clean coal technologies and nuclear power.

“When I am president, any governor who’s willing to promote clean energy will have a partner in the White House. Any company that’s willing to invest in clean energy will have an ally in Washington. And any nation that’s willing to join the cause of combating climate change will have an ally in the United States of America.”

More analysis from the New York Times.