Last chance to fight climate change, UN conference told

30 novembre 2015

2 min di lettura

(AGI) Nov 30 - The world has never faced so great a challengeas climate change, French President Francois Hollande told the21st UN conference on the issue. The 150 world leaders at asummit in Paris are attempting to reach an agreement that willprevent an irreversible environmental catastrophe. The aim isto cut emissions and increase investment in renewable energiesto offset a rise of more than two degrees in the earth'stemperature. The conference ends on Dec. 11, hopefully with abinding deal. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who ispresiding, said: "Success is not yet acquired but it is withinour reach.The stakes are far too high for us to make do with aminimalist agreement." UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon askedfor a minute's silence for the victims of the Paris attacks twoweeks ago. He said: "The future of the people of the world, ourplanet is in your hands." President Hollande said they need tofight for the climate as well as against terrorism. Climatechange created more migration than wars. U.S. President BarackObama said: "The United States of America not only recognisesour role in creating this problem, we embrace ourresponsibility to do something about it." He said this was thelast generation capable of changing things. China's PresidentXi Jinping, said his country was committed to the globalcampaign for climate change and that ecological commitmentswould be at the top of the agenda for the next multi-annualprogrammes. Russian President Vladimir Partin said that growthwas possible while cutting emissions and proposed a UN-ledglobal forum. Italy's Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said thefuture of the planet was "a challenge that concerns us all, ourchildren and our grandchildren". It was time to "get away fromthe rhetoric that Italy doesn't do enough". The conferencemarked a diplomatic crossroads, with talks between Mr Obama andMr Putin and the first handshake between Israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu and Palestine National Authority PresdientAbu Mazen since 2010. However, Mr Putin refused to talk to his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. About 785,000people from 175 countries are said to have taken part inclimate change demonstrations. (AGI). .