Here are the best ways to follow the Paris climate talks

President Francois Hollande’s pledge came in a meeting with 12 African leaders about the threats from climate change, including coastal erosion, advancing deserts and rivers that are drying up.

In the 2009 Copenhagen conference, it was agreed that poorer nations vulnerable to global warming impacts would receive $100 billion per year by 2020 to give up fossil fuels and shore up defenses against climate-driven food scarcity, heat waves and storm damage.

Xi’s BRICS partner, Indian Prime Minister Modi also referred to “climate justice” stressing that the “Innovation Summit” in Paris “unites us behind a common purpose”.

“The future is one that we have the power to change, right here, right now”, said Obama.

Statistics since 1959 from the U.S. Department of Energy show the United States has been by far the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, the top man-made greenhouse gas.

So will we get a carbon tax?

Many powerful nations are comfortable with aiming to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) from pre-Industrial Revolution levels, even though this goal is a long way from being achieved.

Twitter has multiple hashtags for the event, with #cop21 being the most popular.

“Countries should be allowed to seek their own solutions, according to their national interest”, he said. Ben Carson has said it’s just temperatures naturally fluctuating, and Jeb Bush has said it’s “just really arrogant” to say the science is decided on climate change. Sen.

The question of whether the worldwide climate agreement would be binding was a major point of contention in the lead up to the Paris talks.

His prescription was limited to only the process of transparency, and a periodic review of the targets each country has set for itself.

And German Chancellor Angela Merkel reminded the leaders of the “billions of people pinning their hopes on what we do in Paris”.

The announcements were made as world leaders began heading home, leaving their negotiators to deal with the tough job of finding consensus on a climate plan. “Let us build a durable climate regime with clear rules of the road that all countries can agree to follow”. The Kyoto Protocol was a nonbinding agreement of 192 parties to lower greenhouse gas emissions to 5 percent below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012.

They gathered at a conference centre in Le Bourget on the northern outskirts of Paris, swathed by heavy security following terror attacks in the city which appear to have spurred the push for a climate breakthrough.