President Obama expressed hope during his regular Saturday radio address that the United Nations will agree later this year to limit carbon emissions.
Obama said he’ll visit the Florida Everglades on Wednesday to commemorate Earth Day to speak about how climate change is threatening the region’s tourism industry. The area has suffered from flooding problems and an intrusion of saltwater threatening the freshwater ecosystem.
He’s pressing world leaders to agree on capping carbon emissions beyond 2020, an initiative to be debated at the United Nations near the end of the year. In March, Obama committed the U.S. to participate by curbing emissions at least 26 percent.
“Climate change can no longer be denied or ignored,” Obama said in his address. “The world is looking to the United States, to us, to lead.”
Obama also talked about several ways climate change could harm Americans, and noted U.S. advances in solar, wind and clean energy that help reduce carbon pollution. He pointed to conclusions by NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists that 2014 was the planet’s warmest year on record.
And he praised China for agreeing with the U.S. in November to limit greenhouse gases.
“Because the world’s two largest economies came together, there’s new hope that with American leadership this year, the world will finally reach an agreement to prevent climate change before it’s too late,” Obama said.
Many scientists agree climate change is occurring, but whether that’s caused by humans is a politically charged topic. The GOP-led Senate voted overwhelmingly in January to affirm that climate change isn’t a “hoax,” but blocked language that would have blamed human activity.
“This winter was cold in parts of our country — as some folks in Congress like to point out — but around the world, it was the warmest ever recorded,” Obama said.
