Final Text of Climate Accord Expected Early Saturday

She’s stressed, “most importantly, they still need to actually deliver on that goal going forward, which must include assistance for the poor and vulnerable who will suffer from the immediate impacts of climate change”.

Activists plan protests Saturday across Paris to call attention to populations threatened by melting glaciers, rising seas and expanding deserts linked to climate change.

“Our responsibility to history is enormous”, Fabius said.

It indicates apparent agreement on seeking a more ambitious goal to restrain the rise in temperatures to less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, delivers a speech during a conference at the COP21, the United Nations Climate Change Conference Thursday, Dec. 10, 2015 in Le Bourget, north of Paris. Exhausted negotiators cheered and clapped as the deal was sealed.

Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, called the agreement a “transformative moment” in addressing the ravages of climate change and developing markets for clean energy production.

“You have to take the final step, the decisive step which allows us to reach the goal”.

“This is a tremendous victory for all our citizens… for all of the planet and for future generations”, said US Secretary of State, Mr John Kerry. “But we must not let the quest for perfection become the enemy of the public good”, he warned.

“We need to show the world that our collective effort is worth more than the sum of our individual actions”.

The proposed agreement came after negotiators missed an initial deadline of Friday to sign an accord, as feuding ministers refused to budge on entrenched positions. “There is no way to meet the targets laid out in this agreement without keeping coal, oil, and gas in the ground”.

The draft text acknowledges “climate change represents an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human societies and the planet and thus requires the widest possible cooperation by all countries, and their participation in an effective and appropriate worldwide response, with a view to accelerating the reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions”.

Finance for poor countries to deal with climate change, and the different responsibilities of developed and developing countries to tackle and pay for it, were also key.

The draft text, which is subject to ratification by parties later today, states that developed countries like Ireland must play their part in moving to “sustainable lifestyles and sustainable patterns of consumption and production”.

However, it will be voluntary for developing countries, if they want to do so.

The U.S. resisted legally binding emissions targets because of opposition in a Republican-controlled Congress. Instead U.S. negotiators wanted robust transparency rules to make sure countries live up to their commitments.

The French Foreign Minister banged the gavel to announce that the Paris agreement has been adopted, marking consensus among the ministers, who stood for several minutes to clap and shout their joy.

Anticipation was building in the conference centre outside Paris after two weeks of talks, culminating a four-year effort to produce the first worldwide pact asking all countries to limit their greenhouse gas emissions.

But scientists say that, even if the pledges were fully honoured, Earth would be on track for warming far above safe limits.