President Obama faces a seemingly impossible situation in Copenhagen this week: The world looks to him for climate leadership at a time when the U.S. government is conspicuously lagging on this issue. He will be representing the only major industrialized country at the Copenhagen climate talks that has not set serious greenhouse gas reduction targets. One argument says that Obama can't lead -- he can't commit to any legally binding targets that his own legislature has not endorsed. Obama does have the constitutional authority to rubber-stamp global targets without consent from Congress, but going rogue could inflame political tensions in Washington and hurt efforts to move climate legislation through the Senate this spring.
Obama can still succeed in Copenhagen and reclaim America's position of global leadership. He can define the climate targets dictated by science, come clean about America's failures, and motivate the citizens of the world to care and act. Here's what I hope he will say:
"I'm honored to participate in a historic act of global diplomacy. Climate change presents the most complex--and perhaps the gravest--foreign policy challenge humanity has ever faced. A challenge that imperils global security but will also propel a new era of innovation and economic progress. A challenge that knows no national boundaries, that does not discriminate by income, race or creed. No population will be untouched and no economy will be spared if current warming trends continue. As I've said before, the decisions of any nation on climate change will affect every nation.
I am sobered and humbled by the United States' role as the world's biggest contributor of greenhouse gasses. Americans emit nearly 20 pounds of CO2 per capita each year; the people of Japan, France and China emit per capita less than half that. I recognize, moreover, that the United States has been slow to act on climate change, and slow to engage in the global treaty process.
But we are ready to participate, to hold ourselves accountable, and to lead. In the past year the United States has made more environmental progress than in three decades, taking steps to cut carbon emissions with a legally binding executive mandate, increase efficiency with stronger fuel-economy standards, and develop clean alternatives to oil and coal. Still we have a long road ahead. America urgently needs to pass bold domestic climate legislation, and my administration will do everything possible to move that process along when Senate deliberations resume this spring. Once our targets are set at home, we will join the world in legally binding commitments to greenhouse gas reductions. A broad coalition of scientists has defined the safe upper-limit of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere as 350 parts per million. With current global levels at 390ppm, we must rigorously hew to this goal.
We cannot succeed without the support of citizens. While we in Washington have been locking heads over a federal climate plan, grassroots action on this issue has been growing within businesses and local governments, in streets, schools and social networks. Let us draw inspiration from civic leaders within labor unions, communities of faith, student, veteran, and social-justice organizations. Solutions are emerging, lives are changing, consciousness is spreading. I think of Melba Leggett, a cafeteria worker with five grandchildren who lives in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward in a solar home that uses 75 percent less energy than its conventional counterpart, with energy bills averaging $25 a month. She's one of the first residents of a 150-home settlement that represents the future of affordable green living. I think of Jim Rogers, the CEO of Duke Energy, the second-biggest utility in America and one of the most polluting, who has vowed to cut his coal use by more than half by 2030, replacing it with cleaner alternatives. I think of ranches in Texas that once housed oil derricks and are now dotted with windmills. I think of the tens of thousands of youth climate activists in America who have chosen as their symbol the green hard hat, symbolizing a new era of clean jobs.
I call on citizens in the U.S. and throughout the world to build this momentum, to participate in innovative and peaceful actions that will raise popular awareness on global warming and increase pressure on our leaders to do the right thing.
I am confident that the United States will do the right thing. Anything else will be far too costly. Hurricane damage, real estate losses, energy bills and water distribution could rack up an estimated $3.8 trillion price tag annually in the U.S. by 2100 -- 3.6 percent of our GDP. The cost of human life from drought, heat, flooding and intensified storms could be equally severe.
More motivating than the costs are the economic benefits: climate change presents possibly the best job-creation engine the world has ever seen. The solar, wind and biofuels industries have collectively seen blistering annual growth rates of nearly 50 percent annually in recent years. The United States government is making an $80 billion federal investment in a new energy economy, in turn creating millions of jobs in areas like energy efficiency, solar and wind installation, smart-grid construction and electric-car manufacturing.
In 1978, President Jimmy Carter said: "The solutions to our energy crisis can also help us to conquer the crisis of the spirit in our country. It can rekindle our sense of unity, our confidence in the future, and give our nation and all of us individually a new sense of purpose." The same is true today on a global level. We will solve the climate challenge not as Americans or Danish or Brazilians or Maldivians or Chinese, but as citizens of a common planet. In spite of its grave threats, climate change can propel innovation, inspire our collective sense of purpose, and unify our global community."