Obama visits site of Paris concert massacre
PARIS — President Barack Obama said Sunday that American leadership was helping make gains in the global fight against climate change as he tried to reassure world leaders assembling for a historic conference in Paris that the U.S. can deliver on its own commitments.
Obama was joining more than 150 leaders for the opening days of a two-week conference where countries are trying to negotiate an agreement aimed at avoiding a calamitous increase in global temperatures.
But his first stop in the city was at the saddest of destinations.
Obama landed in Paris just before midnight Sunday and his motorcade took on unexpected route along the Seine. He rode past the Eiffel Tower, the French Assembly building, the Bastille. Then, he arrived at the Bataclan.
The American president strode purposefully toward the shuttered French concert hall where terrorists wrought so much horror two weeks ago.
Obama, French President Francois Hollande and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo walked side by side to a makeshift memorial. Each added a single white rose.
The three bowed their heads for a long moment of silence, paying tribute to the 130 people who died in the worst attack on French soil in more than a half-century.
And then Obama was gone, ready to turn his focus to the climate change conference that brought him to France.
“What makes this gathering different is that more than 180 nations have already submitted plans to reduce the harmful emissions that help cause climate change, and America’s leadership is helping to drive this progress,” Obama said in a Facebook posting hours before his arrival after midnight in the French capital.
“Our businesses and workers have shown that it’s possible to make progress toward a low-carbon future while creating new jobs and growing the economy,” he wrote. “Our economic output is at all-time highs, but our greenhouse gas emissions are down toward 20year lows.”
The goal in Paris, he said, was a long-term framework for more reductions, with each nation setting targets that other countries can verify. Leaders also will try to support “the most vulnerable countries” in expanding clean energy and “adapting to the effects of climate changes that we can no longer avoid.”
He said he was “optimistic about what we can achieve because I’ve already seen America take incredible strides these past seven years.”
Eager to leave a legacy of environmental protection, Obama scheduled meetings with the leaders of China and India to underscore how developing nations are embracing the effort to combat climate change.
Also on the agenda were sessions with the leaders of a few island nations, to highlight “the existential challenge” they face from rising sea levels, in the words of the president’s deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes.