UNITED NATIONS: US President Barack Obama yestersday urged all nations including emerging economies to act against climate change, warning that time was running out to prevent further damage.
Obama, addressing a UN climate summit hours after ordering strikes on Syria, said that the “urgent and growing threat of climate change” would ultimately “define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other” issue.
“We know what we have to do to avoid irreparable harm. We have to cut carbon pollution in our own countries to prevent the worst effects of climate change,” Obama said.
The world also has to “adapt to the impacts that unfortunately we can no longer avoid,” he said.
Obama said that he met in New York with Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli of China, which has surpassed the United States as the world’s top emitter of greenhouse gases blamed for climate change.
Obama said he “reiterated my belief that as the two largest economies and emitters in the world, we have a special responsibility to lead. It’s what big nations have to do.”
“Today I call on all countries to join us—not next year or the year after that but right now—because no nation can meet this global threat alone,” he said.
World leaders at the summit billed as the largest-ever gathering on climate change faced calls yesterday to take bold action to reverse global warming.
“Today, we must set the world on a new course,” United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said at the opening of the summit at UN headquarters in New York. “I am asking you to lead.”
Diplomats and climate activists hope the summit attended by 120 leaders will pave the way for a deal to be reached in Paris on reducing greenhouse gas emissions after 2020.
But no-shows from the leaders of China, the world’s biggest polluter, and India, the number-three carbon emitter, cast a cloud over the event.
France pledged up to $1bn to the UN Green Climate Fund, which helps finance climate change reform in poorer countries, and the United States was expected to make pledges later in the day.
Agencies
