Historic Climate Change Pact Sealed in Paris, India Approves

“We welcome the historic agreement that has just been reached in Paris”.

The speeches and the cliches at the adoption of the Paris Agreement flowed like good champagne – success after all has many fathers! He and Kerry predicted it would prompt widespread spending on clean energy and help stem carbon pollution blamed for global warming.

This is based on the fact that developed countries burnt a lot of carbon through the years of their industrialisation that made them rich. These emissions from rich countries have taken a toll on developing countries whose poor citizens are the worst affected by climate change.

The agreement, signed by 195 countries, is partly legally binding and partly voluntary. “We met the moment”. And recognizing the risk of grave consequences, you have further agreed to pursue efforts to limit temperature increase to 1.5 degrees,”he said”.

Environment groups said the Paris agreement was a turning point in history and spelt the demise of the fossil fuel industry, pointing particularly to the significance of the 1.5C goal.

“For us, this agreement is yet another step in a journey we have already started”.

India and China, the world’s two most populous nations and biggest developing country greenhouse-gas polluters said the pact will lead the world to a greener future.

“We have today reassured this future generation that we all together will mitigate the challenge posed by climate change and will give them a better Earth”, Prakash Javadekar said.

A historic new global climate agreement has been struck at the United Nations conference on climate change in Paris.

What we can take from this is that perhaps the world shouldn’t only focus on reducing energy use but also on finding new technologies to diversify energy resources. Scientists estimate that these commitments would put the planet on course for at best 2.7 degrees Celsius of warming – and that’s only if countries actually follow through on them.

“In striking this deal, the nations of the world have shown what unity, ambition and perseverance can do”.

Xie stressed that China, as a responsible developing country, will take global obligations commensurate with its own national condition, development stage and actual capacity.

Developing nations insist rich countries must shoulder the lion’s share of responsibility for tackling climate change as they have polluted most since the Industrial Revolution – a principle known as “differentiation”.

“Today the human race has joined in a common cause, but it’s what happens after this conference that really matters”, he said.

Obama has long sought to make combating climate change a significant part of his domestic presidential legacy but has been stymied by Congress, which hasn’t approached significant legislative action on climate change since a cap-and-trade bill failed in 2009 and 2010. “Over the past seven years, we’ve transformed the United States into the global leader in fighting climate change”.

As previously agreed, all developed countries will collectively mobilise $100 billion per year from both the public and private sector, to help the poorest and most vulnerable countries to protect themselves from the effects of climate change and support low carbon development.