'Historic' climate change accord presented in Paris

TO CHEERS and applause the French hosts submitted a proposed 195-nation accord yesterday aimed at curbing emissions of heat-trapping gases that threaten to wreck Earth’s climate system.
Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, on the brink of tears after presiding over nearly a fortnight of talks in Paris that ran into overtime despite all-night negotiations, delivered the accord to ministers who must now decide whether or not to approve it.
“The world is holding its breath and counting on all of us,” said Fabius, his voice occasionally breaking with emotion.
The landmark global climate accord was described as a “historic” measure for transforming the world’s fossil fuel-driven economy within decades and turn the tide on globalwarming. Describing it as “an historic accord”, Fabius said the agreement would aim to limit warming of the planet since the Industrial Revolution to “well” below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) and strive for an even more ambitious goal of 1.5C (2.7F).
The deal would also mean mobilising a minimum of $100 billion (92 billion euros) a year from 2020 to help the developing world cope with global warming, he said.
Importantly, a new figure for the financing would be set by 2025, Fabius said.
Fabius said the overall agreement would be “legally binding”.
Observers said that as the draft document had yet to be unveiled, it was not immediately clear if the financing would be a legal commitment, which the United States had been resisting.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon pressed the world’s envoys to approve the pact.
“The end is in sight. Let’s now finish the job. The world is watching. Millions of people depend on your wisdom.”
At the tail end of the hottest year on record and after four years of fraught UN talks often pitting the interests of rich nations against poor, imperilled island states against rising economic powerhouses, Fabius urged officials from nearly 200 nations to support what he hopes will be a final deal.
“Our responsibility to history is immense,” Fabius told thousands of officials, including President Francois Hollande and US Secretary of State John Kerry, in the main hall of theconference venue on the outskirts of Paris.
Barring any last-minute objections, negotiators were due to meet again in the afternoon (late last night Bangkok time) to approve the deal, a major breakthrough in global efforts to avert the potentially disastrous consequences of an overheated planet.
Fabius called it an “ambitious and balanced” agreement that would mark a “historic turning point” for the world. The official text of the accord would be made available within the next hour, he said.
In talks that lasted into the early morning on Friday, officials appeared to have resolved the final sticking points, and Fabius highlighted the key points: a more ambitious goal forlimiting the rise in global temperatures to less than 2C; a $100 billion a year floor for funding developing nations beyond 2020; and a five-year cycle for reviewing national pledges to take action on greenhouse gas emissions.
While some climate change activists and US Republicans will likely find fault with the accord – either for failing to take sufficiently drastic action, or for overreacting to an uncertain threat – many of the estimated 40,000 officials and environmentalists who set up camp on the outskirts of Paris see it as long overdue.
Six years after the previous climate summit in Copenhagen ended in failure and acrimony, the Paris pact appears to have rebuilt much of the trust required for a concerted global effort to combat climate change, delegates say.