President Joe Biden urged a gathering of business and climate policy leaders in New York Tuesday to build on the historic climate action during his term and push forward with more ambitious clean energy investments.

“We’re better positioned than other nation of the world to promote a clean energy future,” Biden told the Bloomberg Global Business Forum during Climate Week NYC. “In fact, it’s the perfect time to go big.”

Biden listed the accomplishments of his climate and clean energy agenda in a speech aimed at securing his legacy for climate action while taking a few shots at Republicans who have opposed it.

He noted that his signature piece of climate legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act, passed without a single Republican vote of support, then turned attention to his predecessor, former president and current Republican nominee Donald Trump.

Biden said Trump “moved the world backwards” when he pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement, the international commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and avoid the most dangerous levels of warming.

“His denial of climate change condemns our future generations to a more dangerous world,” Biden said of Trump, then leaned forward with a whisper. “And by the way, windmills do not cause cancer.”

Trump has made the unfounded claim that wind turbines are linked to cancer and other ill health effects for those living near them, frequently dismisses government support for renewable energy and EVs as a “green scam” and has called climate change a hoax.

As he has from the beginning of his presidency, Biden touted the economic benefits of a clean energy transition.

“When I think climate, I think jobs,” he said. He called his strategy of linking pollution reduction to job growth the “new formula on climate” that has allowed him and Vice President Kamala Harris to break the old paradigm that pits the economy against ecology.

“Rather than a conversation about sacrifice, Kamala and I have pursued an ambitious program focused on growth,” he said and added that the approach is working.

In a fact sheet accompanying Biden’s speech, the White House said the tax incentives, loan guarantees and other support in the IRA have unleashed a torrent of private sector investment in renewable energy and clean technology. Companies have announced investments of nearly $1 trillion in clean energy manufacturing in the U.S. during his term as president, Biden said.

A recent report from the Department of Energy showed that clean energy jobs in the last year grew at nearly twice the rate of overall jobs growth, and Biden pointed out that the clean energy bounty has been shared across all parts of the country.

“I was criticized very much for having done more to invest in red states than blue states,” Biden said about analyses that showed states such as Ohio, Texas and the Carolinas receiving a disproportionate share of benefits from IRA spending. “But I made a commitment that when I ran, I’d be president for all people, whether they voted for me or not.”

While historic in their reach and impact, analysis shows that Biden’s achievements on climate and clean energy are not alone enough for the U.S. to meet its greenhouse gas reduction commitments under the Paris Agreement. Some environmental critics also take the administration to task for its continued support of oil and gas production.

As the U.S. has advanced clean energy in the electricity sector it has also increased petroleum output to become the world’s largest oil and gas producer during Biden’s term. And Biden’s climate record did not translate into enough political support to overcome voter concerns about inflation and the President’s advancing age.

With Vice President Kamala Harris taking over as the Democratic nominee, Biden passed on to her the task of completing the climate action he started, and he concluded his speech with an appeal to business and financial leaders at the Bloomberg event that might be “on the sidelines” of the climate fight.

“I’m calling on other companies with the capital in the room to invest more,” he said. “Now’s the time.”