Romney speech to mock Obama climate pledge

Mitt Romney’s speech accepting the GOP nomination will mock President Obama’s claim that 2008 would mark a turning point in the battle against climate change.

“President Obama promised to slow the rise of the oceans and to heal the planet. My promise ... is to help you and your family,” Romney intends to say at the GOP convention in Tampa, Fla., according to excerpts of the address.

Romney's speech Thursday night will also tout the energy plan he released last week.

“By 2020, North America will be energy independent by taking full advantage of our oil and coal and gas and nuclear and renewables,” he will say.

The Hill has much more on Romney's speech here.

His line about the oceans is a reference to a speech Obama made in June of 2008 when he secured enough delegates to ensure he would be the Democrats’ nominee.

Here’s a piece of what Obama said:

[I]f we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that, generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless, this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.

Climate change has played just a minor role in the 2012 contest, but it has surfaced several times in recent days.

The GOP platform, approved Tuesday, calls for thwarting climate-change regulations that Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency is rolling out, arguing they will hurt the economy.

Obama, meanwhile, has mocked Republicans who reject the widely held scientific view that the planet is warming and human activities are a major reason why.

“Denying climate change doesn’t make it stop,” Obama said at the University of Virginia Wednesday, a line he also used in speeches before students in Iowa and Colorado earlier in the week.

Obama, in campaign stops this week, has been touting the greenhouse gas reductions from new auto mileage rules completed Tuesday.