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President Barack Obama pledged his commitment to U.S. energy independence by investing in natural gas and solar energy. He also talked about shifting to a “cleaner energy economy” that will benefit the environment.
In his 2014 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama addressed the country’s need for energy independence and a “clean energy economy.” He pledged his commitment to developing the country’s natural gas and solar power industries. The president said these changes are necessary to address climate change, a topic he has often addressed during his administration.
“Climate change is a fact,” he said. “And when our children’s children look us in the eye and ask if we did all we could to leave them a safer, more stable world, with new sources of energy, I want us to be able to say yes, we did.”
Mr. Obama made climate change a cornerstone of his campaign in the 2012 election, and in his State of the Union address in 2013, he pledged greater action on climate change. In June, the president unveiled his plan to address climate change, which included curbing carbon dioxide emissions and investment in climate change adaptation for farmers and coastal residents, and loans for renewable energy and fuel efficiency projects.
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Rob Stavins, a professor of environmental economics at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, commented on the NewsHour that Obama’s climate change policy could succeed.
But the president has also come under fire from the environmental community for his inaction on the Keystone XL pipeline, a 1,700 mile pipeline that would carry tar sands oil from Canada through the Great Plains to refineries in Texas.
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