President Obama presses for a climate pact while in the Philippines

Reporting from Manila — President Obama made the case Wednesday that his quest for an ambitious climate pact during an upcoming conference in Paris is in the best financial interest of developing nations and top business leaders, projecting that the final outcome was “inevitable.”

“Your businesses can do right by your bottom lines and by our planet and future generations,” Obama told attendees at a CEO Summit before the APEC Summit in Manila. “The old rules that said we couldn’t grow our economies and protect our environment at the same time – those are outdated. We can transition to clean energy without squeezing businesses and consumers.”

Obama said few regions have as much at stake in the climate change talks as Southeast Asia, noting the powerful typhoons and rising sea levels that are putting growing populations at risk.

As he and other world leaders prepare to travel to Paris for the United Nations climate change talks in less than two weeks, the president said he was “optimistic that we can get an outcome that we’re all proud of” and could help spark a global economy “that frankly needs a boost right now.”

“An ambitious agreement in Paris will prompt investors to invest in clean energy technologies because they will understand that the world is committed to a low-carbon future,” he said. “That’s a signal to the private sector to go all-in on renewable energy technologies.”

Obama praised U.S. corporate giants like Google, Apple and Costco that have become some of the biggest corporate investors in renewable energy. He noted that Wal-Mart has more solar capacity than any industry in the U.S.

“This is the way that the world is headed,” he said. “It’s going to go in fits and starts. There will be some countries and some sectors that resist. But it is inexorable, it is inevitable that we move in this direction, and I hope that the companies that are represented here see this as an opportunity.”

Hours before Obama was set to deliver his remarks, the Republican-led U.S. Senate took a symbolic step to counter his sweeping climate goals. Two separate resolutions seek to roll back the administration’s regulatory efforts to curb carbon emissions and its Clean Power Plan.

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