The Barack Obama Administration will take office at a moment when the world, and this country in particular, has lagged way behind in tackling the greatest environmental problem of all time: climate change. Global emissions now exceed the worst-case scenario of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change, and annual emissions of developing nations have begun to exceed those of the industrialized ones. The time is long overdue for U.S. leadership. Meaningful steps need to take place at home with cap and trade or some other form of legislation that elevates the price of carbon while cushioning the impacts for the less advantaged sectors of society. Such legislation needs to be coupled with serious investment in energy research and incentives for clean energy, including energy conservation and efficiency.

Climate change needs to be accorded an urgency and priority hitherto lacking. Ecosystem considerations support James Hansen's conclusion that greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations above 350 parts per million (ppm) are not safe. Current concentrations are 389 ppm. It is important to peak at as low a concentration as possible and then return rapidly to 350 ppm. In the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) this is referred to as mitigation, or reducing the amount of future climate change. The convention also references adaptation, which means enhancing the resilience of natural and human systems in the face of the climate change that is taking place and will take place.