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Euphoria as landmark Paris climate deal adopted
By Karl MALAKUNAS, Mari�tte Le Roux
Le Bourget, France (AFP) Dec 13, 2015


Tears, cheers and selfies as climate pact sealed in Paris
Le Bourget, France (AFP) Dec 12, 2015 - They erupted into cheers, broke into tears, took selfies and quoted great figures of history after the gavel came down in Paris on Saturday, launching the quest to save mankind from global warming.

The roughly 2,000 ministers, negotiators and activists in the cavernous plenary hall on the outskirts of the French capital took to their feet in a joyous uprising as their French hosts beamed onstage.

After almost three minutes of cheering died down French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who presided over 13 days of gruelling talks, picked up the green leaf-shaped gavel and brought it down again.

"It may be a small gavel but it can do big things," he said, drawing more elated cries and clapping.

In bringing down the tiny hammer, Fabius sealed an agreement that French diplomats spent more than a year criss-crossing the globe and preparing with meticulous detail.

The mood in the room was celebratory even before the emotional approval of the accord, with broad smiles, back-slapping, hugs and handshakes.

Former vice president Al Gore, who co-won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on climate change, posed for pictures and selfies with admirers.

Suspense was high right up to the end, with the session to approve the accord starting about two hours late.

When Fabius finally took the stage -- to thunderous applause -- he told the crowd: "There had been a couple questions to settle".

It turned out the negotiators, bleary after two sleepless night spent hammering out the agreement had left a few mistakes in the text. One was a whopper.

- 'World we'll not see' -

A key section of the text on emissions-cutting obligations -- erroneously -- said rich nations "shall" take the lead in undertaking economy-wide absolute emission reduction targets.

In a complex legal agreement such as the Paris accord, "shall" carries a more onerous level of responsibility. It was supposed to say "should", which does not have the same binding nature.

Pascal Canfin, a senior climate advisor at the World Resources Institute, wrote on Twitter the difference could have forced the Paris deal before the US congress for approval.

For the accord's boosters, that possibility was terrifying as the Republican-dominated legislature would have -- with near-certainty -- rejected the agreement.

Among those fighting for the accord it must have felt like deja vu, with the US failing to adopt the carbon-cutting Kyoto Protocol, which the Paris agreement will succeed when it takes effect in 2020.

But Fabius, showing the calmness that became a hallmark of the French diplomatic effort, then reassured ministers the text would be tweaked to reflect the correct language.

The final hurdle blocking the agreement dropped away.

Many ministers, who were brought in on Monday to close the deal following talks among lower-level negotiators, noted the history-making nature of the moment, referring to great figures of the 20th century, especially South African democracy hero Nelson Mandela.

"We hope that Paris will mark a new beginning where commitments made will be fulfilled," said Indian Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar.

"It is India's hope that the Paris agreement will fulfil the wishes of Mahatma Gandhi who used to say we should care for a world we will not see."

Cheering envoys from 195 nations on Saturday approved a historic accord in Paris to stop global warming, offering hope that humanity can avert catastrophic climate change and usher in an energy revolution.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius ended nearly a fortnight of gruelling UN negotiations on the outskirts of Paris with the bang of a gavel, marking consensus among the ministers, who stood for several minutes to clap and shout their joy, with some shedding tears of relief.

"I see the room, I see the reaction is positive, I hear no objection. The Paris climate accord is adopted," declared Fabius, the president of the talks.

The post-2020 Paris Agreement ends decades-long rows between rich and poor nations over how to carry out what will be a multi-trillion-dollar campaign to cap global warming and cope with the impact of a shifting climate.

With 2015 forecast to be the hottest year on record, world leaders and scientists had said the accord was vital for capping rising temperatures and averting the most calamitous effects of climate change.

Without urgent action, they warned, mankind faced increasingly severe droughts, floods and storms, and rising seas that would engulf islands and coastal areas populated by hundreds of millions of people.

- 'Met the moment' -

"The Paris agreement establishes the enduring framework the world needs to solve the climate crisis," US President Barack Obama said.

"We came together around the strong agreement the world needed. We met the moment."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel added: "Paris will always be connected with this historic turning point in climate policy."

The crux of the fight entails slashing or eliminating the use of coal, oil and gas for energy, which has largely powered prosperity since the Industrial Revolution.

The burning of those fossil fuels releases invisible greenhouse gases, which cause the planet to warm and disrupt Earth's delicate climate system.

Ending the vicious circle requires a switch to cleaner sources, such as solar and wind, and improving energy efficiency. Some nations are also aggressively pursuing nuclear power, which does not emit greenhouse gases.

The Paris accord sets a target of limiting warming of the planet to "well below" 2.0 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) compared with the Industrial Revolution, while aiming for an even more ambitious goal of 1.5C.

To do so, emissions of greenhouse gases will need to peak "as soon as possible", followed by rapid reductions, the agreement states.

The world has already warmed by almost 1C, which has caused major problems in dry developing countries, according to scientists.

- 'Consternation in boardrooms' -

Some environmentalists said the Paris agreement was a turning point, predicting the 1.5C goal would help to doom the fossil-fuel industry.

"That single number, and the new goal of net zero emissions by the second half of this century, will cause consternation in the boardrooms of coal companies and the palaces of oil-exporting states," Greenpeace International chief Kumi Naidoo said.

Developing nations had insisted rich countries must shoulder the lion's share of responsibility for tackling climate change as they emitted most of the greenhouse gases since the Industrial Revolution.

The United States and other rich nations countered that emerging giants must also do more, arguing developing countries now account for most of current emissions and thus will be largely responsible for future warming.

On the crucial financing issue, developed countries agreed to muster at least $100 billion (92 billion euros) a year from 2020 to help developing nations.

However, following US objections, it was not included in the legally binding section of the deal.

Ahead of the talks, most nations submitted voluntary plans to curb greenhouse-gas emissions from 2020, a process billed as an important platform for success.

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

- 'Marvellous act' -

In an effort to get countries to scale up their commitments, the agreement will have five-yearly reviews of their pledges starting from 2023.

Nations most vulnerable to climate change lobbied hard for the wording to limit warming to 1.5C.

Big polluters, such as China, India and oil-producing giant Saudi Arabia, preferred a ceiling of 2C, which would have enabled them to burn fossil fuels for longer.

China's chief negotiator Xie Zhenhua said the pact was not perfect.

"However, this does not prevent us from marching historical steps forward," he said.

"This indeed is a marvellous act that belongs to our generation and all of us."

Tuvalu, a Pacific island nation of about 10,000 people at risk of being submerged by rising oceans, celebrated.

"We have saved Tuvalu, and in doing so we have saved the world," Tuvalu negotiator Ian Fry said.

Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party's front runner for the US presidential race, noted, however, that "the next decade of action is crucial".

"If we do not press forward with driving clean energy growth and cutting carbon pollution across the economy, we will not be able to avoid catastrophic consequences."


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CLIMATE SCIENCE
Historic UN climate pact 'extremely close': French host
Le Bourget, France (AFP) Dec 10, 2015
The French host of UN talks aimed at saving mankind from climate catastrophe said Thursday a historic accord was "extremely close", but called for unprecedented compromises during a second night of non-stop negotiations. Eleven days of bruising international diplomacy in the French capital have failed to resolve a host of decades-long arguments between rich and poor nations over how to cut g ... read more


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