He’s been in Paris throughout the week, the second half of the formal negotiations for the agreement.
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That was a key demand of poor countries ravaged by the effects of climate change and rising sea levels. “Now it’s the ministers’ responsibility to make their choice tomorrow [Saturday]”.
“This agreement establishes a clear path to decarbonize the global economy within the lifetimes of many people alive today”, said Paul Polman, the CEO of consumer goods maker Unilever and a leading advocate for sustainable business practices. “Seize it so that the planet lives, humanity lives, and life lives”, he said. But there is still a mountain to climb.
The main body of the Paris Agreement, including the temperature targets and regular reviews, are binding under global law.
The previous emissions treaty, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, included only rich countries and the US never signed on.
But the United States and other rich nations say emerging giants must also do more.
The Indian side at the conference – under the aegis of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – is being led by Environment and Forests Minister Prakash Javadekar.
“The wheel of climate action turns slowly, but in Paris it has turned”. #ParisAgreement was trending on Twitter. “In fact, having a goal of even 1.5 in the text, which is fantastic”. He did call the agreement a “new imperative” and positive step.
Conservation International Chairman and CEO Peter Seligmann says the COP21 agreement “is a transformative diplomatic victory”, but he adds, “The hard work of delivery begins now”.
Fabius said he was optimistic for an agreement.
So has the planet been saved?
Said Jennifer Morgan of the World Resources Institute anticipated a “historic agreement that marks a turning point in the climate crisis”. “Australia’s domestic actions now need to match these fine outcomes and aspirations in Paris”, Mr Connor said.
Forging the agreement required negotiations at the highest levels, including a Thursday call by President Obama to China’s President Xi Jinping, which followed earlier calls to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. Nature is sending urgent signals.
“Even at 1.5 degrees, scientific consensus tells us very many of us will not be safe”, Giza Gaspar Martins, the Angolan chair of the Least Developed Countries negotiating group, said in a statement Saturday.
“History will remember this day”, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said.
As explained by the conference’s chief organiser, Christiana Figueres, this would amount to a total revolution in the way we all live: nothing less than to abandon the entire “economic development model” that has been shaping the world since the Industrial Revolution. “For that we need all hands on deck”.
An historic deal has been struck to limit global warming.
Failure to set a cap could result in superdroughts, deadlier heat waves, mass extinctions of plants and animals, megafloods and rising seas that could wipe some island countries off the map.
The agreement, adopted after 13 days of intense bargaining in a Paris suburb, puts the world’s nations on a course that could fundamentally change the way energy is produced and consumed, gradually reducing reliance of fossil fuels in favor of cleaner forms of energy.
Despite those dire predictions, getting 195 nations was a monumental task.
“Obviously, nobody will get 100% of what they want”, Fabius said Friday as he discussed the “balanced and as ambitious as possible” working document that will be voted on.
“The time to act is now”, Nevada’s Reid said.
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Negotiators gathered at a long-awaited climate conference in Paris have released the final draft of an ambitious plan to slow global warming, following nearly two weeks of strenuous negotiations. That draft has been modified throughout the week.
