Prime Minister Narendra Modi leaves for Paris Climate Conference

Some 150 leaders, including US President Barack Obama, China’s Xi Jinping, India’s Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin, will attend the start of the Paris conference, which is tasked with reaching the first truly universal climate pact.

The prime minister also on Friday announced an Australian contribution of $A1 million to the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub to be based in Mauritius.

In his welcome address, Prime Minister of Malta Joseph Muscat said combating terrorism and extremism should be the top most priority of Commonwealth and sought wider discussion among the member countries to deal with the challenge of climate change.

Policemen patrol outside the main entrance of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Le Bourget, outside Paris, Saturday, Nov. 28, 2015.

Trudeau will attend a United Nations environmental summit in Paris next week.

Canada under Stephen Harper and Australia under former prime minister Tony Abbott were both criticized for being climate change policy laggards but Trudeau suggested the two countries have changed their tune.

“We must all do our part”.

India has long stuck to its “Equity and Common but differentiated responsibility and respective capabilities”, which Minister Prakash Javadekar described as absolutely fair and rejected USA criticism.

Javdekar said there was also no problem in raising the $2.5 trillion that is needed to fund the solar alliance proposed by India over the next decade.

The grouping includes some of the world’s largest, smallest, richest and poorest countries.

“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 scheduled late-night arrival in the French capital.

These submissions, asked from the 196 members, will serve as the basis for negotiations.

“Now I hope this will [also] be the last place to talk about this and I hope we have a good and ambitious agreement in Paris”, he stressed, citing the years of effort to rein in greenhouse gas emissions that threaten to radically impact the world as we know it, from rising sea levels overwhelming low-lying island States to devastating droughts and floods.

India has been consistently maintaining that developed countries must ensure financing and technology transfer to developing countries to help them bringing down carbon emission. “We look forward to a concrete outcome in Paris within the framework of UN Convention on Climate Change”.