From the fruitless discussions at Copenhagen to the stubborn refusal of the U.S. Congress to pass a cap-and-trade bill, climate-conscious leaders like President Obama have been running up against a brick wall of resistance lately.  In a time of global economic crisis, political consensus on anything perceived as hurting the economy simply will not happen.

Thus, to succeed politically, the argument must be reframed in terms of economic growth – the kind that will come from heavy investments in renewable technologies.

Obama reflected this focus in his comments to Jim Lehrer on PBS.

My main responsibility here is to convince the American people that it is smart economics and it is going to be the engine of our economic growth for us to be a leader in clean energy.And if we pass a bill in the Senate, reconcile it with the House, that says we are going to invest in wind energy and solar energy and we’re going to be the guys who are producing wind turbines, and we’re going to be the folks who are producing solar panels on rooftops, and we’re going to be the country that is retrofitting all its homes and businesses so that we are 30 percent more energy-efficient than we are right now, that produces jobs that can’t be exported; it reduces our dependence on foreign oil; it is good economics; it will increase our exports – oh, and by the way, it also solves the climate problem. And that is, I think, an argument that I’m going to be making not just next year but for several years to come.

Obama is right to shift the climate conversation that just doesn’t seem to resonate with the American people to the background.  The public cares about the economy, which clean-energy does have the potential to grow, but only with sufficient investment.  And the way it stands now, we’re not getting there.

Even with the bill Obama mentions, federal investment would still fall far short of the $15 billion minimum annual requirement supported by energy experts.  But framing the argument in terms of investment and economic growth ought to at least seed the groundwork to build up to the necessary investment target.

This call for clean-energy investment comes against a background  in recent weeks of the argument for environmentalism flailing helplessly against a Congress full of obstructionists and skeptics and an American public that just doesn’t seem to get it, with poll numbers showing only 36% of Americans believing in human-caused climate change.  To counter this wave of doubt, proponents of a low-carbon path are increasingly beginning to point to a different type of green: the money that would come from clean-tech growth.

And as the President showed in these comments, the argument is starting to change course.