Staff Writer and Reuters
“NEVER before has a responsibility so great been in the hands of so few.”
These were the words of Christiana Figueres, head of the UN’s climate convention, who urged countries in her opening address at the COP21 climate talks in Paris yesterday to reach a climate deal that would tackle climate change effectively.
Speaking to about 150 world leaders, Figueres said: “The world is looking to you. The world is counting on you.”
Negotiators from 195 countries are attending COP21, where they will try to reach a deal within two weeks that will cut global carbon emissions and limit global temperature rise to 2°C.
The climate talks began the day after 700 000 people in cities around the world took to the streets in climate action marches, urging leaders to take strong action at the talks.
At the COP21 opening, a coalition of 40 governments, hundreds of businesses and international organisations called for the phasing out of fossil fuel subsidies, which they said would cut greenhouse gas emission by 10 percent, by 2050.
Governments collectively spend more than $500 billion (about R7.18 trillion) of public money a year on subsidies that keep the price of coal, oil and gas artificially low.
New Zealand Prime Minister John Key, who presented a communique from the Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform to Figueres, said it was estimated that more than a third of carbon emissions between 1980 and 2010 had been driven by fossil fuel subsidies.
“Fossil fuel subsidy reform is the missing piece of the climate change puzzle. Their elimination would represent one seventh of the effort needed to achieve our target of ensuring global temperatures do not rise by more than 2°C,” Key said.
Britain’s Prince Charles said in a keynote address that while humanity faced many threats, none was greater than climate change.
“In damaging our climate, we become the architects of our destruction. While our planet can survive the scorching of the Earth and the rising of the waters, mankind cannot,” he said. However, humanity had the knowledge, the tools and the money to solve the climate crisis.”
French President Francois Hollande called for a “universal and binding” agreement to come out of the talks.
“The greatest threat is not that we aim too high and miss. The greatest danger is that we aim too low and only do that. To resolve the climate crisis, goodwill, statements of intent are not enough. We are at breaking point.”
UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon urged world leaders to instruct their negotiators to choose a path of compromise and consensus. “Bold action is in the interests of every single country represented at this conference.”
It is hoped that the talks will lead to an agreement that will come into effect from 2020, when current commitments from the Kyoto Protocol end.