During his trip to Alaska this week, President Barack Obama will tread gingerly on a receding glacier, talk to coastal villagers whose homes are threatened by eroding shorelines and salmon fishermen whose livelihoods are endangered — all in an aggressive and high profile effort to highlight the impact of global climate change, NBC News reported.
The visit to the Alaskan Arctic — the first by a sitting president — is the culmination of an increasingly forceful climate change policy push over the past two years by the Obama administration.
This week alone Obama invoked climate change during visits to the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas and New Orleans to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
With these trips, Obama is attempting to set the stage for a major international climate change agreement he hopes will come from a summit in Paris in December.
That agreement could help secure his legacy as the first sitting president to address global climate change in a substantive way, environmental policy experts said.
