JAY CARNEY/WHITE HOUSE: Well, I think the president has long supported congressional action on climate change. And while it’s clear that bipartisan opposition to legislative action is still a reality, the president’s position remains the same as it was in the first term. He looks forward to building on the achievements made in the first term, and he looks at this in a broad way because this isn’t deficit reduction, for example, is not a goal unto itself. We pursue it in a way that helps our economy grow and helps it create jobs. Otherwise, it’s not worth the effort, in his mind.

Climate change is not — you don’t pursue action that helps deal with that problem just because of the problem itself, but because there are huge opportunities in alternative energy.

Whether anyone in Washington or elsewhere likes it or not, clean energy technology is going to be a huge part of the 21st century global economy. We can make choices now that ensure that those industries are domestic, that we dominate those fields of endeavor and we create the jobs associated with those industries here in America, or we can substitute our dependence on foreign oil for a dependence on imports of clean energy technology.