The development comes after almost two weeks of tough negotiations at the COP21 conference. US’s secretary of state John Kerry has already threatened to walkout of the agreement with other developed countries if they are pushed to commit to differentiation or financial obligations.
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It also calls for achieving a balance between man-made emissions and the Earth’s ability to absorb them by the second half of this century.
Global warming will be limited to “well below” 2C with an aim to keep it to 1.5C, according to the final draft of what could be a historic worldwide climate deal”.
With 2015 forecast to be the hottest year on record, world leaders and scientists have warned the accord is vital for capping rising temperatures and averting the most catastrophic consequences of a shifting climate.
In the pact, the countries pledge to limit the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by human activity to the same levels that trees, soil and oceans can absorb naturally, beginning at some point between 2050 and 2100. I hope so because I want to go back home, ‘ Izabella Teixeira, Brazil’s minister of environment, said on Friday.
“The decisive agreement for the planet is here and now”, Hollande said.
Island nations like Tuvalu are especially vulnerable to rising seas and global warming and have been vocal about the needs for the strongest possible efforts to limit climate change.
The new version removed disputed concepts like “climate neutrality” or “emissions neutrality” which had appeared in earlier drafts but met opposition from countries including China.
Laurent Fabius hoped within hours to secure a sweeping agreement to curb rising greenhouse gas emissions. The Paris conference is the 21st time world governments are meeting to seek a joint solution to climate change. One option said such “loss and damage” would be addressed in a way that doesn’t involve liability and compensation – a USA demand.
Said Jennifer Morgan of the World Resources Institute anticipated a “historic agreement that marks a turning point in the climate crisis”.
Fabius said Friday he was “sure” the project would succeed.
If agreed, the deal will be the world’s first comprehensive climate agreement with all countries taking action to tackle the problem.
Negotiators from China, the US and other nations are haggling over how to share the burden of fighting climate change. “Billions of people are relying on your wisdom”, he said.
Still, if the 190 nations gathered in Paris agree to the accord, it would be a breakthrough.
“We all worked a great deal, we didn’t sleep very much, several ministers, facillitators worked to reach a deal, a compromise”.
This accord is the first time all countries are expected to pitch in. The previous emissions treaty, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, included only rich countries and the USA never signed on.
Rich countries promised six years ago in Copenhagen to muster $100 billion (92 billion euros) a year by 2020 to help developing nations make the energy shift and cope with the impacts of global warming.
Calling on delegates not to let a quest for perfection to become “an enemy of the public good”, United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon said they had to “act as science dictates and protect the planet that sustains us”, adding that the deal “promises to set the world on a new path to a climate-resilient future”.
“We need to accept that many scientific uncertainties do remain but they are not a reason for inaction”.
Efforts to craft a global accord to combat climate change stumbled early on Friday after a “hard night” of talks, forcing host nation France to extend the United Nations summit by a day to overcome stubborn divisions. I remember many tears at this event, with most attendees going home with a feeling of hopelessness. Hundreds of climate activists have stretched a block-long red banner through the Paris climate talks to symbolize “the red lines” that they don’t want negotiators to cross in trying to reach an worldwide accord to fight global warming.
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At the same time, the negotiations have had to factor in the circumstances of every other country, from the least developed African countries, to vulnerable small islands states, to forested South America nations.
