http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/218644-obama-climate-change-will-define-contours-of-this-century By Laura Barron-Lopez - 09/23/14 01:15 PM EDT
President Obama on Tuesday announced major new commitments to battle climate change while asserting that this is the "last generation that can do something" to prevent devastating increases in global temperatures.
Speaking at the United Nations, Obama pushed back at critics who say world leaders face more pressing issues than climate change, from the threat posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to the spread of the Ebola virus.
"There is one issue that will define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other and that is the urgent and growing threat of a changing climate," Obama said.
"We are the first generation to feel the effects of climate change and the last generation that can do something about it," he said.
Obama unveiled a new set of tools on Tuesday that the U.S. will provide vulnerable countries to help them bulk up their defenses against devastating weather conditions brought on by climate change. The assistance will include scientific data and advanced technology.
Obama said the world must come together to fight climate change, quoting Martin Luther King Jr. in adding that "there is such as a thing as being too late."
Obama also signed a new executive order on Tuesday that directs every federal agency to consider climate resilience to drought, wildfires, floods, and more extreme weather when crafting international development programs and investing overseas.
"No nation is immune," Obama said, stressing the need for countries to work together as a "global community."
"We cannot condemn our children and their children to a future that is beyond their capacity to repair," Obama said. "Not when we have the means and the technological innovation and scientific imagination to begin repairing it right now."
The U.S. aid to aid poorer nations could help bring them to the negotiating table as Obama and other world leaders seek to seal a global accord on reducing carbon emissions next year in Paris.
Poor countries have been hesitant to set high targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, citing the cost to their economies and the potential for reducing growth.
