My fellow Americans … and myfellow citizens of Planet Earth. Today I want to address you all. We are all onepeople. We may live in different parts of the globe. We may speak differentlanguages. We may worship different gods—or no god at all. We may have leaderswho don’t always agree with one another. We may have voted in support of ideasthat did not win out at the ballot box, or we may live in parts of the worldwhere our voices are not heard. But despite all of this, we all share just onehome. Just one planet. This planet has been the home for humanity for more thantwelve thousand generations. We have no other home, and we never will have. Andnow, for the first time in our history, for the first time in our planet’shistory, it falls to just one generation, and one generation alone, ourgeneration, to make sure that this beautiful, bountiful, extraordinaryworld can remain a sustainable, hospitable home for the next thousand years andbeyond.

Weknow. All of us know. We know the damage we have done to our home. We areentering an era of Fire and Flood, of Heat and Famine. We human beings havealready inflicted changes on our world that we know are irreversible. Ourplanet is warmer than it has been for centuries. Ice caps are melting. Theclimate is in crisis.  We see the firesin California. We see floods. We see droughts. We see the shrinking of forestsand the growth of deserts and the melting of the ice caps that keep our planetcool.  Our descendants are going to livewith the fallout from these changes perhaps for millennia to come.  But we do have an opportunity, a narrow andtantalising opportunity, to rein back some of the harm we have done, and maybeeven to reverse some of the things that are reversible.

Myfellow citizens, this will not be easy. This may be the single most difficultchallenge that has ever faced humankind. Difficult because it will demandcompromise and change for every single one of us. Difficult because it willabsolutely require every county, every state, every nation, and every leader toput aside their differences and work together. Difficult because there will besome who may still deny the urgent need for change. And doubly difficultbecause the solutions we need are enormous in scale, unlike anything we haveever seen before.

Thisis a new beginning for America and a new beginning for the world. From today,from this moment, we are all living in a new world order. Our lives willchange, sometimes for the better, and sometimes in ways we would notnecessarily choose. They will change whether we choose change or not. It willbe better for us to seize this opportunity to drive the changes ourselves, thento wait to see what changes the climate might inflict upon us. I ask you now,as thinking caring beings, to be courageous and resilient in the times ahead.We do this, not for ourselves, not even for our children. We do this for ourgrandchildren, our great grandchildren, and for the next thousand generationsof humans for whom this planet will always be their only home.

Fromtoday we, in America, will begin to enact huge changes in the way we use ourplanet. We will no longer subsidise fossil fuels in any form. We will insteadstart a program of steady increase in taxes on carbon fuels. There will be noceiling on these taxes. Within a year these taxes will represent a 100%increase in prices. Within two years it will be 200%. And so they will rise. Wewill look to the ingenuity and enterprise of the market, of businesses andindividuals to fill the demand vacated by carbon energy and I have no doubt atall that the demand will be satisfied by clean, cheap , plentiful energy.

Myfellow citizens, I have more to ask of you than rising prices for dirty fuels.We will, today, start a programme to plant one trillion trees around theplanet. We will look to the leaders of every county and every state to identifyland for rewilding. And this is where we have a very tough decision to face.Half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture and eight out ofevery ten acres of this land is used to grow food for livestock. We need thatland for trees and for biofuels. We need it to restore the wild, and to repairour climate. As a nation we must eat less meat, fewer eggs, less dairy. I amnot insisting that everyone becomes vegan. But I am asking you, each one ofyou, to make a personal sacrifice and reduce significantly the livestockcomponents of your diet. We will look for ways to make this change as voluntaryas possible. We will find ways to subsidise farmers for growing trees andbiofuels on land that once grew feed for livestock. One trillion trees can remove400 billion tonnes of carbon out of the atmosphere—equivalent to more than 10years of carbon emissions.

Thisis difficult for Americans. I know that. But Americans do not shirk ourresponsibilities. That is not our nature. For too many years our nation hasbeen the world’s biggest polluter. We cannot allow future generations to blameour nation for the collapse of our climate. We will not turn our backs when weare called. We will do this. We will lead the world in new technologies forenergy production, for carbon capture, for transport—just as we have alwaysdone. We will change our behaviour and our diets and our lifestyles not becauseanyone is making us, but because these are the right things to do, and we dothe right things. That is what makes me proud to be an American, proud to leadthis great nation.

Butwe are not alone. We will not be alone in this effort. I know that every leaderin the free world would like to be standing and making this speech right now.Not one leader wants their nation to be the one that holds back this globaleffort. But it is harder for a leader of most countries to make this standalone. We know, and you know, and they know, that there is only one countrythat can and must lead this effort and it is us. The United States of America.I cannot tell you how proud that makes me. So we will work with every nation onearth to make this happen. We will measure and track our progress and we willreport to you how every nation steps up to the plate. Today I am calling for anew global security council. This council for the planet will seekrepresentation from every country, representatives that must include climatescientists, biologists, engineers, and entrepreneurs. We will look to this newCouncil for the Planet to advise us all on the actions we must take, and wewill take the actions they advise.

Weknow that every country will have different challenges. But we look to everycountry to demonstrate total commitment in words and in deeds to the climaterescue plan. I am confident, very confident, that nations around the world willjoin us within the next few weeks.

 And what if one country chooses denial? Whatif a single nation or a group of states decides that their individual interestsare better served by ignoring the climate challenge. My fellow Americans I amhere to tell you that any nation that follows this route will be no friend ofAmerica. I cannot imagine the United States trading, or dealing in any form atall with rogue states who choose to thwart the climate rescue plan.

Myfellow citizens of Planet Earth. I call upon you all to make this day the firstday in the most extraordinary communal programme of work our world will eversee. In years to come, as we each grow old, we will rejoice to have lived atthis time, to have been a part of this great project, to have bequeathed tofuture generations a planet full of beauty and spectacle, to have savedcountless lives, to have restored the climate that nurtures us all.  We embrace this challenge. And with every oneof us behind it, we will succeed.

Godbless the United States of America. God bless and save Planet Earth.