John Kerry reaches France for Climate Change Meeting

Ministers from around the world are continuing talks to get a new worldwide climate deal amid an atmosphere of “cautious optimism”.

Obama and Rousseff spoke by phone on Monday.

“I think we should embrace it as a legitimate aspiration”, he said of the more ambitious goal. “I foresee tough negotiations in the next two to three days.” he said.

The Eiffel Tower lights up with the slogan ” Action Now ” referring to the COP21, United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris, Sunday, Dec. 6, 2015.

Speaking to Singaporean journalists after delivering the national statement, Mr Masagos said that the climate accord “is not an easy agreement to arrive at”. I think this is what we understand at this time.

Ministers from around the planet launched a five-day scramble in Paris Monday to answer “the call of history” with a deal to spare mankind from climate disaster.

The Paris conference is the 21st time world governments are meeting to seek a j…

Among the slew of fundamental issues in dispute are how far and how fast to limit global warming, and how to review national commitments to curb greenhouse gas emissions. “Let’s be frank: all the hard political issues remain unresolved”, European Climate and Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete said at the weekend.

It’s already been a week – and there have been some important developments, according to diplomats there.

While most scientists say man-made emissions are warming the planet and causing increasingly extreme weather, many Republicans in the U.S. Congress doubt climate change is a serious problem, and worry that cutting emissions would hurt U.S. industry and jobs.

“COP21 will be the last opportunity for the world to seal the agreement we desperately needed if we are to avert the worst impacts of climate change”.

The most vulnerable developing countries are also pushing for the climate agreement to have a more aggressive target.

The U.S. and other countries have collectively pledged to scale up climate financing to developing countries to $100 billion annually by 2020 to help them adapt to climate change and reduce their emissions.

How to define those responsibilities is the biggest challenge in the Paris talks. United Nations Environmental Programme estimates that the cost of adaptation alone for developing countries will be US$150 billion a year by 2025/30.

“It is time to get rid of this rigid differentiation between developed and developing countries that prevents us from maximizing our progress forward”, he said.

Renewable energy including hydro, wind and solar power, represented about half of all new power plants previous year, International Energy Agency director Fatih Birol said. And so we see California Gov. Jerry Brown, Quebec Premiere Philippe Couillard, and Ontario Premiere Kathleen Wynne exemplifying the role that subnational actors can play in advancing climate action.

US Secretary of State John Kerry gestures upon his arrival at Le Bourget airport in the outskirts of Paris on December 7, 2015. He was hopeful, he told reporters. He did not elaborate.

In an interview with The Associated Press in Paris, McCarthy said the clean power plan is “alive and well”, and adds that “it’s going to be the law of the land and it’s going to last”.

The projected dip of 0.6 percent over 2014 levels, if confirmed, marks the first decline in heat-trapping pollutants in a year when the world economy was not in recession, a new analysis shows. We urge other countries to join us.

“The clock is ticking towards a climate catastrophe”, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told ministers, who face a Friday deadline to reach an accord that has proved elusive in more than two decades of wrangling.

Ban spoke to government ministers from around the world as Paris climate talks entered their crucial second week Monday, aimed at a lasting pact to fight global warming.

They point to the fact that six out of the 10 richest nations in the world in terms of economic output per person are not included among the “annex 1” or developed countries.

Negotiators submitted a 48-page draft agreement Saturday that is full of competing options, leaving it to ministers to work out sticking points over what different countries will do and how much it will cost.

At a plenary session, Maldives environment minister and representative of the small island nations bloc, Thoriq Ibrahim, called for decisive action against climate change.

Indian Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar affirmed, “India is here to ensure that rich countries pay back their debt for overdraft that they have drawn on the carbon space”.