The United States is the only nation that can lead the world toward a solution on climate change.

Our way of life is at stake, our grandchildren are at stake, the future of civilization is at stake.

Today we're dumping 70 million tons of global-warming pollution into the environment, and tomorrow we will dump more, and there is no effective worldwide response. Until we start sharply reducing global-warming pollution, I will feel that I have failed.

The oil industry has outpaced the building of a public consensus of the implications of climate science.

There's such a wide variation in tax systems around the world, it's difficult to imagine a harmonized CO2 tax that every country agrees to. That's not in the cards in the near term. But the countries that are doing the best job, like Sweden, are already doing both of these. I think that eventually we'll use both of them but we need to get started right away and the cap-and-trade is a proven and effective tool.

When it comes to climate, we can all make a big difference.

You're going to see new processes that utilize waste as the source of energy, so there's no petroleum consumed in the process - that makes the energy balance uniformly positive.