U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday called on private businesses to move rapidly away from fossil fuels—both to prevent devastating climate change and to drive global economic growth.

“If we’re going to stave off the worst impacts of climate change, we have to accelerate this transition,” Kerry said in a speech. “When we talk about the future of energy, we are actually talking about the future of everything.”

The address, delivered at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance Summit in New York, comes as the Obama administration continues to push for expanded commitments to address climate change. Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping on March 31 vowed to sign the Paris Agreement to address global warming later this month and encouraged leaders of other countries to do the same. And on Monday the White House issued a new report showing that climate change could damage public health in the U.S.