But I think we know better than that.
Every week , we're seeing new and undeniable climate events, evidence that accelerated climate change is here right now.
Droughts are intensifying, our oceans are acidifying, with methane plumes rising up from the ocean floor.
We are seeing extreme weather events, and the West Antarctic and Greenland ice-sheets melting at unprecedented rates, decades ahead of scientific projections.
None of this is rhetoric, and none of it is hysteria.
It is fact. The scientific community knows it, industry knows it, governments know it, even the United States military knows it.
The Chief of the U.S. Navy's Pacific Command, Admiral Samuel Locklear, recently said that climate change is our single greatest security threat.
My Friends, this body – perhaps more than any other gathering in human history – now faces this difficult, but achievable task.
You can make history… or be vilified by it.
To be clear, this is not about telling people to change their light bulbs or buy a hybrid car.