President Obama’s message on climate change

AS they near the end of their terms, presidents tend to choose their legacy, something they want to be remembered for. And obviously President Obama has selected climate change. In a 24-minute speech he made in Anchorage, Alaska, after his trip to the Arctic, he declared, “We’re not moving fast enough” four times, a message he will underscore at the United Nations conference on climate change in Paris in December.

Alaska was the president’s last stop on a climate change tour designed to enhance his record on the issue. At a conference in Las Vegas, he made a powerful endorsement of the solar energy industry and unveiled initiatives aimed at increasing energy efficiency. In New Orleans, on the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, he addressed the need to make coastal cities more resilient as they face rising seas and stronger storms that will come with climate change.

In his trip to Arctic Alaska, which was the first such visit by a sitting American president, he emphasized that in no other state are the effects of climate change more visible than there.

Yet America also suffers a conflict of interest between the need to reduce greenhouse gases and the need for economic development. While the Arctic is warming faster than any part of the world, it is also among the most economically dependent on natural resources, predominately oil. Last month, the Obama administration approved Shell Oil’s plan to explore for oil off Alaska’s northwest coast, although it imposed extensive safeguards against oil spills.

The retreat of Arctic sea ice has raised both economic and security issues. Russia, which controls a long stretch of the Arctic coast, has expanded its military presence in the Arctic, while American forces in Alaska have been reduced.

Mr. Obama’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions from power plants drives home the reality of what is happening to the planet. And his trip to the Arctic is drawing attention to the challenge of the thawing Arctic, including the fact that the same greenhouse gases that are raising temperatures are also opening access to vast deposits of fossil fuels.