Fabius said the draft text would set that figure as a floor by 2020.
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The draft text maintains a global goal of limiting warming to “well below 2 °C” while committing nations to strive for an even more ambitious target of 1.5 °C.
Kerry, on his fifth straight day in France trying to iron out differences with developing countries, said he’s “hopeful” for an accord and has been working behind the scenes to reach compromises.
For the new universal climate change agreement to come into effect, all 196 Parties to the United Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will need to adopt the outcome document. But climate policy experts appeared largely satisfied with the draft presented Saturday afternoon.
China has stood firm on demands that developed countries should assume most responsibility for the costs and argued against an agreement that sets too-tough goals for weaning the world off using oil, gas and coal – the biggest source of carbon emissions.
“There’s been a lot of discussion whether the long-term goal will give a clear signal to phase out fossil by mid-century or is there a risk that it will be much later?” he said. One option said such “loss and damage” would be addressed in a way that doesn’t involve liability and compensation – a US demand.
If climate change goes unabated, scientists warn of increasingly severe droughts, floods and storms, as well as rising seas that would engulf islands and coastal areas populated by hundreds of millions of people.
In a statement, Greenpeace International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo said the deal, while not ideal, “puts the fossil fuel industry on the wrong side of history”.
Ministers from more than 190 countries have been engaged in “shuttle diplomacy” and diplomatic wrangling to find common ground for the agreement, which aims to limit global temperature rises to avoid unsafe climate change.
“We all worked a great deal”.
Some of the delegates had pushed for the pact to limit warming even more.
French President Francois Hollande and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sat on stage alongside Fabius as he made a lengthy speech imploring ministers to approve the blueprint on Saturday.
The plan, if approved, would be the first time all countries are expected to pitch in.
Unlike the Kyoto Protocol, the last major climate deal agreed in 1997, the Paris pact will also not be a legally binding treaty.
Zavis reported from Paris and Megerian from Le Bourget.
Hollande has previously raised the possibility that the Paris talks could end in failure, including if rich nations did not fulfil their pledge to mobilise $100 billion (91 billion euros) per year by 2020 in climate financing for developing nations.
The Eiffel Tower spells out a call for World Unity for COP21. “Let us now finish the job”, United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon told climate delegates before they engaged in a debate and vote on the text.
“We must protect the planet that sustains us”, Ban told the negotiators.
“We need heating. We need air conditioner”.
Hopes are high for the historic deal but countries could still raise objections. All nations will subscribe to the same system for monitoring, reporting and verification of climate pledges, but developing countries will be given flexibility – and financial support – to get up to speed.
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The U.S. resisted legally binding emissions targets because of opposition in a Republican-controlled Congress. Instead U.S. negotiators wanted robust transparency rules to make sure countries live up to their commitments.
