French President Francois Hollande disclosed at the climate change summit in Paris that the country has earmarked about $6.4 billion, over the next four years to help with electrification in Africa.
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“France will devote six billion euros between 2016 and 2020 for electricity provision on the continent”, he said at a meeting of African leaders on the sidelines of a United Nations climate conference.
Obama is joining Hollande and other world leaders in launching Mission Innovation, a new clean energy initiative built on commitments from 19 countries, including India and China, to double investments in clean energy research and development over five years.
“To resolve the climate crisis, good will, statements of intent are not enough”, Hollande said, telling world leaders that the future of humanity rested on their shoulders.
The summit gathered 12 African heads of state, the President of the Commission of the African Union and representatives of several governments as well as worldwide institutions such as the World Bank and the African Development Bank.
The United States has cast doubt on whether an agreement reached in Paris would be legally binding.
During the next two weeks, 30,000 diplomats and delegates will hammer out a new global pact that would, for the first time, commit almost every country on earth to enact new policies to reduce their planet-warming greenhouse-gas emissions.
But while the relatively short speeches by world leaders pledged to do something about climate change, not all of them advocated ambitious worldwide action, perhaps giving a glimpse of sticking points to come in negotiations.
Talks on how to reduce the effect of climate change topped talks at the conference.
Furthermore, he said that he would increase his funds for Africa’s battle with desertification and other climate change challenges by three times to 1 billion euros a year by 2020.
The Republican opposition leader of the U.S. Senate said last month, quote, “The Obama administration is putting facts and compassion to the side in order to advance their ideological agenda”. President Barack Obama asked his fellow world leaders.
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But he says their populations are “among the most vulnerable to the ravages of climate change”. Some of them are using the talks to announce substantial donations to help the cause of reducing emissions, developing alternative energy sources, conservation, and aiding poor and low-lying countries expected to be most affected by climate change.
