The French foreign minister says immediate action is needed to ensure the success of a major United Nations conference on climate change at the end
ADVERTISEMENTThe French foreign minister says immediate action is needed to ensure the success of a major United Nations conference on climate change at the end of the year is a success.
He was speaking in Paris on Monday at a meeting of 60 countries aimed at adding impetus to the negotiations ahead of the COP21 convention.
Opening the informal talks Peruvian Minister Manuel Pulgar said his country is already under threat from climate change, and the French Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius, warned of the consequences of not reaching a meaningful accord between nations.
“If temperatures continue to rise, we won’t be dealing with hundreds of thousands of people but hundreds of millions of people”, said Fabius. “I believe, and the approach of everyone here was that we have to mobilise to achieve a significant result in Paris in December.”
The aim of the UN COP21 conference is to get almost 200 countries to agree on an update to the the existing Framework Convention on Climate Change.
But delegates in Paris were warned that all the efforts risked failure if some of the concerns of emerging nations were not resolved.
Some of those countries are refusing to commit until until they receive assurances that developing nations will receive 100 billion dollars (89.5 billion euros) per year from 2020 onwards, to adapt to the impact of climate change.