It was the first visit by a French head of state to Asia’s fourth largest economy for 15 years and coincided with the 130th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two countries.
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Li’s comments come ahead of a United Nations climate summit in Paris, which will seek to unite all the world’s nations in a single agreement on tackling climate change.
Park and Hollande also agreed to expand bilateral cooperation from the area of satellite development to include research and development in aerospace and climate change.
“To my mind, that is what will decide success or failure”, he added.
South Korea hosts the Green Climate Fund – the global fund created to spearhead climate change financing – and is seen as a key go-between in negotiations on whether developed or developing countries should bear more of the burden for reducing emissions.
The rich nations had promised 92 billion euros to sustain the fund for developing countries from 2020 and a few 60 billion euros have already been secured.
A Government statement issued today says this is among the issues highlighted by Fiji’s Ambassador to Belgium and the European Union non-resident envoy Deo Saran when he presented credentials to President Hollande at the Elysee Palace in Paris yesterday. The agreement will be backed by a roster of national pledges for reducing greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming.
While Hollande was in Seoul, it emerged that China has likely been under-reporting its coal consumption for years, after official statistics were revised upwards by hundreds of millions of tonnes a year.
He also noted that the statistical revision showed the importance of the compliance checks agreed to during his trip to Beijing. “That gives more room for technological cooperation in the field of energy saving and environmental protection between the two countries”, Li said.
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Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and French President Francois Hollande addressed the meeting.
