With the right infrastructure in place, home solar will be recognized publicly as affordable, easy, and smart, and every new home built in the developed world can have clean energy sources built into it.

Climate change is a matter of great peril but also one of great promise. We can pioneer the industries of the future, create millions of good-paying jobs, and build the clean energy economy of the future.

Nine times out of 10, you see electric bikes being used for deliveries, but you're getting in a taxi, using a commuter train, not realizing that you can be a part of the green, clean energy movement as well.

As governor, I'll work to make New Mexico a national leader in clean energy by moving to renewable energies such as solar and wind and through innovative, smart policy and practices such as methane mitigation.

Nations around the world - including Canada - are working to shift the global economy from dirty fossil fuels to clean energy. We must be vigilant in working to accelerate this transition, not slow or reverse it.

It really matters whether people are working on generating clean energy or improving transportation or making the Internet work better and all those things. And small groups of people can have a really huge impact.

No clean energy development is complete without extensive environmental protections, and I've been proud to work in a bipartisan fashion with my colleagues in Congress to protect our most precious natural resources.

Today, President Obama is making smart investments in clean energy - wind, solar, biofuels - as part of an all-of-the-above energy strategy that supports thousands of jobs, not in the Middle East, but in the Midwest.

As governor of Washington, I've seen firsthand what's possible when you invest in clean energy - reducing carbon pollution and supporting family-wage jobs that are growing twice as fast as those in any other industry.

In Kansas, we are uniquely positioned to capitalize on renewable energy, as our region has some of the highest wind production potential in the world, to create good-paying jobs while growing our clean energy economy.

Where are the jobs going to come from? Small business, manufacturing and clean energy. Where's the money to finance them? The banks and the corporations in America today have lots of money that they can invest right now.

The most effective role for the Oregon Treasury is to continue to demand responsible business practices and use our influence to push for the development of profitable investment opportunities in the clean energy sector.

Most of us have not heard about Master Limited Partnerships. These special financing arrangements allow oil and gas investors to avoid paying certain corporate income taxes, but are not available to clean energy businesses.

Transitioning our households, businesses and government operations in Portland and Multnomah County to 100 percent clean energy by 2050 is achievable, but it will require strong policy guidance and innovative new sources of funding.

I have a dream that in the not-too-distant future, Visy Tumut will spend around $100 m to expand our clean energy generation here and take in additional waste forest wood to generate clean renewable energy and sell it into the power grid.

Clean energy jobs can exist across the state and create micro-economies to support struggling communities. Local governments can use advanced energy to retrain workers and create local jobs, and the positive economic impacts can remain local.

I applaud the work of Clean Power Lake County in their leadership to call for Lake County to build a just transition from coal to clean energy, and I'm proud their work will be highlighted on the national stage for TV viewers around the country.

If we can come up with innovations and train young people to take on new jobs, and if we can switch to clean energy, I think we have the capacity to build this world not dependent on fossil-fuel. I think it will happen, and it won't destroy economy.

As the U.S. did during the Space Race, we must invest in our businesses and intellect to ensure America leads the clean energy economy of the future. As we all know, the best way to reduce our deficit and bring down our debt is by putting Americans back to work.

Clean energy is about offering people the opportunity to do what's right for themselves and the people they love. It's about reducing the pollution that makes people sick. It's about helping the low-income families struggling to pay their gas and electricity bills.

I know coal is dirty, but that's all we got. So as much as I'd love to have clean energy - solar panels everywhere - right now, all we have is coal. The people I love, and the people that I grew up with, that's their livelihood, and I don't want to see them starve.

Information, education, skills, healthcare, livelihood, financial inclusion, small and village enterprises, opportunities for women, conservation of natural resources, distributed clean energy - entirely new possibilities have emerged to change the development model.

With millions of family wage manufacturing jobs lost since 2001, we need an energy bill that takes bold action to tap into American ingenuity in order to lead the world in new clean energy technology, rather than playing catch-up to the Japanese, Danish, and Germans.

Democrats have laid out a program that, if adopted, would make us independent of Middle Eastern oil in ten years, and create a new economy especially for those in rural America. Our program invests in clean energy alternatives and provides energy assistance for those in need.

The truth is that transitioning to clean energy like wind and solar will create millions of new, good jobs that can't be outsourced, and spur economic growth - all while avoiding the inevitable, significant damages our economy will suffer should we keep building more pipelines.

America can win the global energy race of the future, but only if we act boldly. We can and should seize the massive economic opportunity of leading the world in clean energy, by making investments that would create countless high-paying jobs and clean up our air and water in the process.

Working together, we can meet our shared goal to combat climate change. From harmonizing vehicle emissions standards to using our trading relationship to boost investment in clean energy, the actions the United States and Canada take together will help both nations meet international goals.

Exxon, one of the companies that has spent tens of millions of dollars denying climate change, denying any responsibility to deal with, taking government subsidies on a massive scale, now their ads are all about, 'Oh, we want a clean future. We're looking at clean energy and all that stuff.'

My sense is that we're ready for another industrial revolution in this country. The great minds and innovators of Silicon Valley would come through China and say, The pipeline is full of ideas - there's personalized medicine, biotechnology, new forms to power ourselves, clean energy, etc., etc.

We are not trying to prevent new clean energy businesses from succeeding. Any business that's economical, that can succeed in the marketplace, any form of energy, we're all for. As a matter of fact, we're investing in quite a number of them, ourselves - whether that's ethanol, renewable fuel oil.

If you think about it, candidate Obama, Sen. Obama, was running on sort of long-run economic issues, like restoring prosperity to the middle class, dealing with the perennial problem of health care in the United States. He talked a lot about the budget deficit, about the need to transition to clean energy.

There are a lot of different ways of building a prosperous society, and some of them use much less energy than others. And it is possible and more practical to talk about rebuilding systems to use much less energy than it is to think about trying to meet greater demands of energy through clean energy alone.

Our message to leaders from every continent was simple: California has succeeded on climate and clean energy because we've emphasized local, human values and built a coalition that includes community and environmental leaders, working families, and communities of color - as well as unions and progressive business.

If we can speed up the deployment of clean energy technologies in developing countries with investments from the Green Climate Fund, hundreds of millions of people will be able to access electricity for the first time - with all the education, health, communication and entrepreneurial opportunities electricity enables.

The scientific community should work as hard as possible to address major issues that affect our everyday lives such as climate change, infectious diseases and counterterrorism; in particular, 'clean energy' research deserves far higher priority. And science and technology are the prime routes to tackling these issues.

As the world's 'most dynamic' cities seek to manage their own urban growth, American state and local officials have much to offer. Our mayors can share their experiences in urban design, clean energy projects, Smart Grids, codes for energy efficient buildings, transportation safety, and innovative environmental solutions.

In reality, Republicans have long been at war with clean energy. They have ridiculed investments in solar and wind power, bashed energy-efficiency standards, attacked state moves to promote renewable energy and championed laws that would enshrine taxpayer subsidies for fossil fuels while stripping them from wind and solar.

The Environmental Protection Agency's first-ever limits on carbon pollution from power plants will create clean- energy jobs, improve public health, bring greater reliability to our electric power grid, bolster our national security, demonstrate the United States' resolve to combat climate change and maybe even reduce our utility bills.

We believe it is essential to establish federal emission reduction targets that can vary by state or region with policy flexibility for states to design solutions that work for their unique circumstances. Such targets would level the playing field and send a clear signal to business and industry as we transition to a clean energy economy.

After a century of trying, we declared that healthcare in America is not a privilege for a few, it is a right for everybody. After decades of talk, we finally began to wean ourselves off foreign oil. We doubled our production of clean energy. We brought more of our troops home to their families, and we delivered justice to Osama bin Laden.

Share This Page