Climate talks hailed as ‘an act of defiance’ against terror
Leaders strike united, upbeat note on opening day of Paris summit
LE BOURGET, FRANCE— Pushing for a powerful climate deal, President Barack Obama called the global talks opening Monday outside Paris an “act of defiance” against terrorism that proves the world stands undeterred by Islamic State-linked attacks in Europe and beyond.
Obama used his speech to more than 150 world leaders at the UN’s 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) summit to salute Paris and its people for “insisting this crucial conference go on” just two weeks after attacks that killed 130 in the French capital. He said leaders had converged to show resolve to fight terrorism and uphold their values at the same time.
“What greater rejection of those who would tear down our world than marshalling our best efforts to save it?” Obama said.
Obama’s remarks came at the start of two weeks of make-or-break negotiations to finalize a sweeping global agreement to cut carbon emissions and hopefully stave off the worst effects of climate change. He exhorted leaders to fight the enemy of cynicism: “the notion we can’t do anything” about the warming of the planet.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s address dovetailed perfectly with these sentiments. In his opening comments on Monday, he told delegates that Canada “will take on a new leadership role internationally.”
“Canada is back, my friends,” Trudeau declared. “We’re here to help.”
“What greater rejection of those who would tear down our world than marshalling our best efforts to save it?”
BARACK OBAMA “Canada is back, my friends. We’re here to help.”
JUSTIN TRUDEAU
French President François Hollande, the host of the 21st climate conference, painted the climate battle in existential terms for humankind, explicitly linking security issues and global warming in this city.
Trudeau focused on his own backyard.
“Indigenous peoples have known for thousands of years how to care for our planet,” he said. “The rest of us have a lot to learn. And no time to waste.”
Trudeau said national governments like his own also have a lot they can learn from cities, and from the provincial premiers who’ve accompanied him to these talks.
The United Nations conference comes at a time of record high temperatures, more extreme droughts and storms, shrinking glaciers and melting ice packs — events that have helped make climate science more widely accepted. That, coupled with major advances in cleaner energy sources, has increased the willingness of some of the world’s biggest polluters to act.
After sketching dire threats of submerged nations, abandoned cities and ever-worsening flooding and natural disasters, Obama insisted that grim future “is one that we have the power to change.” He urged leaders to “rise to this moment,” invoking the late Martin Luther King Jr.’s observation that there’s such a thing as being too late to a cause.
“That hour is almost upon us,” Obama said.
Efforts to secure a climate deal have been hampered by a long-running dispute about whether developing nations share the same burden as industrialized nations that have historically polluted much more. The U.S. and other nations have insisted that all countries chip in under the new agreement.
Aiming to put a finer point on that argument, Obama met Monday with President Xi Jinping of China, which has started taking aggressive action to curb emissions, and with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has argued repeatedly that climate change isn’t India’s fault.
As he sat down with Modi, Obama said he agreed that India has the right to pursue economic development and fight poverty, but said those priorities must also reflect “serious and ambitious action by all na- tions” to curb its carbon pollution. Modi pledged that India will fulfil its climate responsibilities in full, declaring that “development and protection of the environment go hand in hand.”
In his meeting with Xi, Obama said that nowhere had co-ordination with Beijing been more critical or fruitful than on climate change. He credited U.S. and Chinese leadership with leading 180 nations to make their own pledges to curb emissions in the run-up to the Paris talks.
“Our leadership on this issue has been absolutely vital,” Obama said. China emits about 30 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gases and the U.S. about 16 per cent.
Yet Obama also hinted at hot button issues that have long vexed U.S.China relations. The United States has complained bitterly about cyberattacks against the U.S. emanating from China, and Obama has spoken out regularly against China’s assertive moves in disputed waters in the East China Sea and South China Sea.
“Our teams have found ways to work through these tensions in a constructive fashion,” Obama said.
After their meeting, the White House said Obama had urged China to live up to commitments on cyberattacks that Xi made when he visited the White House in September, and that Obama had “stressed the need to address regional issues, including maritime differences, peacefully and in accordance with international law.” Obama also encouraged Xi to move ahead with economic reforms that would let U.S. companies “compete fairly in the Chinese market,” the White House said.
Xi, speaking through a translator, said that global worries made it even more important for the U.S. and China to work together.
As the conference kicked off, the Obama administration announced it was pledging $51 million (U.S.) to a global fund to help poorer countries adapt to climate change. The U.S. contribution joins pledges from Germany, Canada, Italy and others to total $248 million.
Meanwhile, Canada’s federal minister of environment and climate change, Catherine McKenna, said Canada will contribute $30 million to a special fund aimed at helping the world’s least-developed and most vulnerable countries. With files from The Canadian Press and Tyler Hamilton