“It took hard work, grit and guts, but countries have finally united around a historic agreement that marks a turning point on the climate crisis”. That doesn’t necessarily mean all 196 parties approved it; French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who served as the president of the conference, had the authority to decide if a consensus had been reached.
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“It’s the most skillful diplomacy I’ve seen in the more than two decades that I’ve been going to this kind of meetings”, former U.S. vice president Al Gore told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The accord does represent a breakthrough in climate negotiations.
President Barack Obama speaks about the Paris climate agreement from the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, Saturday. The Prime Minister has said that the deliberations at COP 21 and Paris Agreement has demonstrated the collective wisdom of world leaders to mitigate climate change. “Together, we’ve shown what’s possible when the world stands as one”. “I believe this moment can be a turning point for the world”, Obama said in an address to the nation from the White House.
The World Coal Association responded to the Paris Agreement by calling for support for “low emissions coal technologies” and the need to speed up efforts to deploy technology which captures emissions from power stations and industry and stores them permanently underground.
Ending the vicious circle requires a switch to cleaner sources, such as solar and wind, and improving energy efficiency. Cheap extraction of shale gas as a replacement for coal also helped; natural gas combustion emits half the carbon dioxide as coal.
The accord sets a sweeping long-term goal of eliminating net man-made greenhouse gas emissions this century.
Kumi Naidoo, global executive director at Greenpeace, said at a news conference. However, the agreement absolves rich, developed nations of responsibility for any damages caused, which critics see as a license to maraud. However, following U.S. objections, it was not included in the legally binding section of the deal. But scientists say that, even if the pledges were fully honoured, Earth would be on track for warming far above safe limits. The worldwide agreement was ambitious, for the first time enshrining clearly methods to protect vulnerable countries, including natural ecosystems.
He acknowledged that a Republican president could undo the agreement, but said there is already plenty of evidence that climate change is having a damaging and expensive impact with more intense storms, wildfires and melting glaciers.
The big division to overcome in the talks was that between industrialised nations, including the USA and Australia, and the bigger emerging economies of China, India, Brazil and South Africa.
Xie Zhenhua, the Chinese climate envoy, addressing the Plenary at the Climate Conference, CoP21, said the pact may not be ideal, and some areas needed improvement. “Tomorrow we have to act”.
Tuvalu, a Pacific island nation of about 10,000 people at risk of being submerged by rising oceans, celebrated. He had said the draft text was a “balanced” one and was a way forward for the world. They won over developing nations at the last hour by exempting them from obligations to help pay the bill for confronting climate change.
They also argue that though language that says developed countries “should continue to take the lead in mobilizing climate finance … noting the significant role of public funds”, there is no binding commitment on making the majority of those funds public or grant-based. Temperatures have already increased by about 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times.
The world will aim for climate-altering greenhouse gas emissions to peak “as soon as possible”, with “rapid reductions” thereafter.
JOYCE: But it means that regardless of how a country’s economy fares in the future, it will have to keep reducing emissions.
China pushed for a deal because of its own environmental challenges and because the effects of climate change are becoming clearer each year, said Jiang Kejun, senior researcher at the Energy Research Institute under the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s top economic planning agency.
Ahead of the talks, most nations submitted voluntary plans to curb greenhouse gas emissions from 2020, a process widely hailed as an important platform for success. Over the next five years, governments will have to complete the rules for the various mechanisms set up in the agreement on transparency and technology transfer.
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In the cajoling and urging of China to increase its financial pledges to the environment campaign, Kerry announced a planned doubling of American assistance for climate change adaptation by developing countries, to $860 million in 2020 instead of $430 million, subject to Congressional approval.
