Obama says parts of climate deal must be legally binding

“An worldwide climate deal must be based on equity and science”, Benjamin Schreiber, the climate and energy program director for Friends of the Earth U.S. said in a statement.

At the summit, Obama also brought up the importance of calming the tensions between Turkey and Russian Federation and refocusing efforts on destroying ISIS, who he called the common enemy. Yvo de Boer, former head of the United Nations climate change agency, told The Associated Press.

The old goal of seeking a legally binding worldwide treaty, certain to be dead on arrival in the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress, has been replaced by a system of national pledges to reduce emissions. Some also say the increasing desperation is driving people into the extremists’ ranks. It is imperative to respect differences among countries, especially developing countries, in domestic policies, capacity building, and economic structure.

McConnell raised the possibility of a Republican successor to Obama tearing up the power plant plan, claiming that the regulations “could result in the elimination of as many as a quarter of a million United States jobs” without any significant impact upon world temperatures.

Obama added that climate change was an issue that many world leaders have started taking “really seriously”.

The White House has said Obama would veto the resolutions and Congress does not appear to have sufficient votes to override the veto.

Church leaders attending the fringes of the global climate have longed campaigned to rein in the use of fossil fuels and to combat harmful emissions in a bid to limit warming to 2C (3.6F). “Quite frankly, there’s more tension in the climate between the races in this country seven years after Barack Obama was elected than before”.

Obama says those countries aren’t the most populous or influential.

Unlike the 2009 Copenhagen talks widely seen as a failure, Obama and other world leaders visited Paris at the beginning of the United Nations conference, rather than at the end, helping to build momentum for a deal rather than setting up an expectation the leaders would swoop in at the end. The leaders agreed that something must be done to protect the planet for future generations, but now must overcome disagreements over who should shoulder the economic responsibility for cutting emissions and protecting countries already hit by climate change.

Will climate change hurt me personally?

This vocal group, which goes under the name of Association of Small Island States, or AOSIS, has been demanding stricter climate action from the rest of the world and insisting that countries must try to keep the rise in global average temperatures within 1.5 degree of pre-industrial times and not 2 degree which most other countries agree on.

Developing countries say they need financial support and technology to relocate threatened populations and make their own transition to cleaner energy.

Ultimately, one of the most important things Paris may accomplish is allowing us to measure where we actually are when it comes to trying to minimize harm from climate change and ultimately, over decades, get the problem under a measure of control.