Last night I met up with a friend who was lucky enough to attend the Global Climate Summit hosted by Arnold Schwarzenegger in California last month. He told me about conversations he had with governors from Indonesia and Brazil, and how incredible it was to hear diverse ideas from around the world on solving climate change, ushering the old out and the new in.

One of the most exciting parts, he said, was when Schwarzenegger started the conference by showing this video from President-Elect Obama, recorded specially for this event, where he pledges new leadership in the fight against climate change. According to my friend, many in this audience of people who have been engaged with these issues for years wept openly to hear Obama’s plans to engage America in the pursuit of solutions to our environmental problems.

“I promise you this,” he says. “When I am president, any governor who is willing to promote green energy will have a partner in the White House. Any company that’s willing to invest in clean energy will have an ally in Washington. And any nation that is willing to join the cause of combatting climate change will have an ally in the United States of America.”