Parts of a global climate agreement being worked on in Paris, France, should be legally binding, President Obama said Tuesday.
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The so-called disapproval resolutions, which already passed the Republican-controlled Senate, dealt a largely symbolic yet blunt rebuke to Obama, who attended the start of a major United Nations climate summit in the French capital. Things could be different this time around, according to President Obama, who believes that the global community now has a “sense of urgency… and a growing realization that it is within our power to do something about it”.
“This is not just one slug of funding that happens in one year”, Obama said. “We have to push away fear and have confidence that human innovation, our values, our judgment, our solidarity, it will win out and I guess I’ve been at this long enough where I have some cause for confidence”.
“I know some have asked why the world would dedicate some of our focus right now to combating climate change- even as we work to protect our people and go after terrorist networks”, Obama said. “And that’s going to be critical in us having high ambitions and holding each other accountable”, Obama told reporters in Paris.
“Resources will be there for countries willing to do their part to skip the dirty phase of development”, President Obama said.
Helping the continent develop renewables is also a way to ensure its security, he said at his meeting with more than a dozen heads of state and government.
Obama’s statement in Paris came as the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology heard from the controversial Danish economist, Bjorn Lomborg, who claimed that a climate deal at Paris would reduce warming by only fractions of a degree and would cost close to $2 trillion a year by 2030. The climate change agreement being negotiated in Paris would come into effect after 2020 when the life of Kyoto Protocol, an existing worldwide treaty on climate change, would come to an end.
But she said the biggest gap was over climate finance.
“This is the moment we finally determine we will save our planet”, said President Barack Obama.
So the administration is looking to keep the targets out while including binding procedures on when and how countries should periodically review and raise their targets.
At his press conference, the President got wonky, noting the goal of seeking to cut the increase in global temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius, although the current commitments from world leaders would still result in a 2.7 degree increase. Bill Gates and 29 other billionaires took advantage of the timing to announce the largest private fund in history.
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Obama said he believes Moscow eventually may align itself with the US-led coalition fighting ISIL militants.
