Page 26

CHANGE AND THE CLEAN ECONOMYWe live in a time of extraordinary change – change that is reshaping the way we live, the way we work, our planet, our place in the world. It is change that promises amazing medical breakthroughs, but also economic disruptions that strain working families. It promises education for girls in the most remote villages, but also connects terrorists plotting an ocean away. It is change that can broaden opportunity, or widen inequality. And whether we like it or not, the pace of this change will only accelerate.Last year, Vice President Biden said that with a new moonshot, America can cure cancer. Last month, he worked with the Congress to give scientists at the National Institutes of Health the strongest resources that they have had in over a decade. I am now announcing a new national effort to get it done. And because he has gone to the mat for all of us on so many issues over the past 40 years, I am putting him in charge of Mission Control. For the loved ones we have all lost, for the families that we can still save, let us make America the country that cures cancer once and for all.Medical research is critical. We need the same level of commitment when it comes to developing clean energy sources. If anybody still wants to dispute the science around climate change, have a go at it. You will be pretty lonely, because you will be debating our military, most of America’s business leaders, the majority of the American people, almost the entire scientific community, and 200 nations around the world who agree it is a problem and intend to solve it.But even if – even if the planet was not at stake, even if 2014 was not the warmest year on record (until 2015 turned out to be even hotter), why would we want to pass up the chance for American businesses to produce and sell the energy of the future?Seven years ago, we made the single biggest investment in clean energy in our history. Here are the results. In fields from Iowa to Texas, wind power is now cheaper than dirtier, conventional power. On rooftops from Arizona to New York, solar is saving Americans tens of millions of dollars a year on their energy bills, and employs more Americans than coal “ RATHER THAN SUBSIDIZE THE PAST, WE SHOULD INVEST IN THE FUTURE ”BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT, THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA026 G7 MEMBER STATESPhoto Credit: Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy