“The Paris conference should reject the narrow minded mentality of a zero-sum game and call on all countries – developed countries in particular – to assume more shared responsibilities for win-win outcomes”. “The agreement being worked out in Paris must not undermine the second commitment period of Kyoto Protocol”, China said at the start of the talks on Tuesday.
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“I’m optimistic”, he said.
US President Barack Obama has indicated a desire to reach an agreement despite a recalcitrant Congress, and China has committed to limiting its carbon intensity by 2030.
He said negotiators should insist upon “a single transparency mechanism that all countries are adhering to”.
From deserts encroaching on African farmland to rising sea levels shrinking islands of the South Pacific, leaders of poor nations most affected by climate change shared their stories of global warming with leaders of some of the richest on Tuesday.
The goal of the summit is to limit average global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, perhaps less, compared to pre-Industrial Revolution levels, by curbing fossil fuel emissions that are blamed for climate change.
Even the Pope weighed in on the magnitude of the conference.
“We don’t want to get hurt and we don’t want [anyone] to get hurt…” The U.S., then the world’s biggest emitter, didn’t take part.
The Obama administration pledged during the climate negotiations to reduce USA emissions by as much as 28 percent over the next decade. “We’ve multiplied wind power threefold, and solar power more than twentyfold, helping create parts of America where these clean power sources are finally cheaper than dirtier, conventional power”.
Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a speech at the opening ceremony of the United Nations (UN) climate change conference in Paris, France, Nov. 30, 2015. “At the same time, countries should be allowed to pursue their own solutions that best suit their respective national conditions”.
In Paris, Obama said the specific emissions targets each country is setting to reduce greenhouse gas emissions may not have the force of treaties.
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“So I think, with Prime Minister Modi, there was a recognition and a commitment to pursuing an ambitious agreement here in Paris”. Security has been tightened after Islamist militants killed 130 people on November 13, and Hollande said he could not separate “the fight with terrorism from the fight against global warming”.
