Audience: Good afternoon.

The President: Gina, I want to thank you not just for the

introduction, but for the incredible work that you and

your team have been doing -- not just on this issue,

but on generally making sure that we've got clean air,

clean water, a great future for our kids.

I want to thank all the members of Congress who

are here, as well, who have been fighting this issue,

and sometimes at great odds with others,

but are willing to take on what is going to be one of the key

challenges of our lifetimes and future generations.

I want to thank our Surgeon General,

who's just been doing outstanding work

and is helping to make the connection between this

critical issue and the health of our families.

Over the past six and a half years,

we've taken on some of the toughest challenges of our time

-- from rebuilding our economy after a devastating recession,

to ending our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and bringing

almost all of our troops home, to strengthening our

security through tough and principled diplomacy.

But I am convinced that no challenge poses a greater

threat to our future and future generations than

a changing climate.

And that's what brings us here today.

Now, not everyone here is a scientist --

(laughter)

-- but some of you are among the best scientists

in the world.

And what you and your colleagues have been

showing us for years now is that human activities

are changing the climate in dangerous ways.

Levels of carbon dioxide, which heats up our atmosphere,

are higher than they've been in 800,000 years;

2014 was the planet's warmest year on record.

And we've been setting a lot of records in terms

of warmest years over the last decade.

One year doesn't make a trend, but 14

of the 15 warmest years on record have fallen

within the first 15 years of this century.

Climate change is no longer just about the future that

we're predicting for our children or our grandchildren;

it's about the reality that we're living with

every day, right now.

The Pentagon says that climate change poses immediate risks

to our national security.

While we can't say any single weather event is entirely

caused by climate change, we've seen stronger storms,

deeper droughts, longer wildfire seasons.

Charleston and Miami now flood at high tide.

Shrinking ice caps forced National Geographic

to make the biggest change in its atlas since

the Soviet Union broke apart.

Over the past three decades, nationwide asthma rates have

more than doubled, and climate change puts those Americans

at greater risk of landing in the hospital.

As one of America's governors has said,

"We're the first generation to feel the impact

of climate change and the last generation that can

do something about it."

And that's why I committed the United States

to leading the world on this challenge, because

I believe there is such a thing as being too late.

Most of the issues that I deal with -- and I deal with some

tough issues that cross my desk -- by definition,

I don't deal with issues if they're easy to solve

because somebody else has already solved them.

And some of them are grim.

Some of them are heartbreaking.

Some of them are hard.

Some of them are frustrating.

But most of the time, the issues we deal with are ones that are

temporally bound and we can anticipate things getting

better if we just kind of plug away at it,

even incrementally.

But this is one of those rare issues -- because of its

magnitude, because of its scope -- that if we don't get

it right we may not be able to reverse,

and we may not be able to adapt sufficiently.

There is such a thing as being too late when

it comes to climate change.

(applause)

Now, that shouldn't make us hopeless;

it's not as if there's nothing we can do about it.

We can take action.

Over the past several years, America has been working

to use less dirty energy, more clean energy,

waste less energy throughout our economy.

We've set new fuel economy standards that mean our cars

will go twice as far on a gallon of gas by the middle

of the next decade.

Combined with lower gas prices, these standards are on pace

to save drivers an average of $700 at the pump this year.

We doubled down on our investment in renewable energy.

We're generating three times as much wind power,

20 times as much solar power as we did in 2008.

These steps are making a difference.

Over the past decade, even as our economy has continued

to grow, the United States has cut our total carbon

pollution more than any other nation on Earth.

(applause)

That's the good news.

But I am here to say that if we want to protect our

economy and our security and our children's health,

we're going to have to do more.

The science tells us we have to do more.

This has been our focus these past six years.

And it's particularly going to be our focus this month.

In Nevada, later in August, I'll talk about the extraordinary

progress we've made in generating clean energy --

and the jobs that come with it -- and how we can

boost that even further.

I'll also be the first American President to visit

the Alaskan Arctic, where our fellow Americans have already

seen their communities devastated by melting ice

and rising oceans, the impact on marine life.

We're going to talk about what the world needs

to do together to prevent the worst impacts

of climate change before it's too late.

And today, we're here to announce America's Clean Power

Plan -- a plan two years in the making,

and the single most important step America has ever taken

in the fight against global climate change.

(applause)

Right now, our power plants are the source

of about a third of America's carbon pollution.

That's more pollution than our cars,

our airplanes and our homes generate combined.

That pollution contributes to climate change,

which degrades the air our kids breathe.

But there have never been federal limits on the amount

of carbon that power plants can dump into the air.

Think about that.

We limit the amount of toxic chemicals like mercury

and sulfur and arsenic in our air or our water --

and we're better off for it.

But existing power plants can still dump unlimited

amounts of harmful carbon pollution into the air.

For the sake of our kids and the health and safety

of all Americans, that has to change.

For the sake of the planet, that has to change.

So, two years ago, I directed Gina and the Environmental

Protection Agency to take on this challenge.

And today, after working with states and cities and power

companies, the EPA is setting the first-ever

nationwide standards to end the limitless dumping

of carbon pollution from power plants.

(applause)

Here's how it works.

Over the next few years, each state will have the chance

to put together its own plan for reducing emissions --

because every state has a different energy mix.

Some generate more of their power from renewables;

some from natural gas, or nuclear, or coal.

And this plan reflects the fact that not

everybody is starting in the same place.

So we're giving states the time and the flexibility they

need to cut pollution in a way that works for them.

And we'll reward the states that take action sooner

instead of later -- because time is not on our side here.

As states work to meet their targets,

they can build on the progress that our

communities and businesses are already making.

A lot of power companies have already begun modernizing

their plants, reducing their emissions --

and by the way, creating new jobs in the process.

Nearly a dozen states have already set up their own

market-based programs to reduce carbon pollution.

About half of our states have set energy efficiency targets.

More than 35 have set renewable energy targets.

Over 1,000 mayors have signed an agreement to cut carbon

pollution in their cities.

And last week, 13 of our biggest companies,

including UPS and Walmart and GM, made bold,

new commitments to cut their emissions and deploy

more clean energy.

So the idea of setting standards and cutting carbon

pollution is not new.

It's not radical.

What is new is that, starting today,

Washington is starting to catch up with the vison

of the rest of the country.

And by setting these standards, we can actually

speed up our transition to a cleaner, safer future.

With this Clean Power Plan, by 2030,

carbon pollution from our power plants will

be 32 percent lower than it was a decade ago.

And the nerdier way to say that is that we'll

be keeping 870 million tons of carbon dioxide pollution

out of our atmosphere.

(applause)

The simpler, layman's way of saying that

is it's like cutting every ounce of emission due

to electricity from 108 million American homes.

Or it's the equivalent of taking 166 million cars

off the road.

By 2030, we will reduce premature deaths from power

plant emissions by nearly 90 percent -- and thanks to this

plan, there will be 90,000 fewer asthma attacks among

our children each year.

(applause)

And by combining this with greater investment in our

booming clean energy sector, and smarter investments in energy

efficiency, and by working with the world to achieve a climate

agreement by the end of this year, we can do more to slow,

and maybe even eventually stop, the carbon pollution

that's doing so much harm to our climate.

So this is the right thing to do.

I want to thank, again, Gina and her team for doing

it the right way.

Over the longest engagement process in EPA history,

they fielded more than 4 million public comments;

they worked with states, they worked with power companies,

and environmental groups, and faith groups,

and people across our country to make sure that what we were

doing was realistic and achievable, but still ambitious.

And some of those people are with us here today.

So, Tanya Brown -- Tanya, wave, go ahead -- there's Tanya.

(applause)

Tanya Brown has joined up with moms across

America to spread the word about the dangers

climate change pose to the health of our children --

including Tanya's daughter, Sanaa.

There's Sanaa, right there.

Dr. Sumita Khatri has spent her career researching

the health impacts of pollution at the Cleveland Clinic,

and helping families whose lives are impacted

every single day.

Doctor, thank you.

(applause)

Sister Joan Marie Steadman has helped rally

Catholic women across America to take on climate.

Sister, thank you so much for your leadership.

(applause)

And she's got a pretty important guy on her side --

as Pope Francis made clear in his encyclical this summer,

taking a stand against climate change is a moral obligation.

And Sister Steadman is living up to that obligation

every single day.

Now, let's be clear.

There will be critics of what we're trying to do.