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  Climate pact an act of defiance, says Barack Obama

Climate pact an act of defiance, says Barack Obama

PTI/REUTERS
Published : Nov 30, 2015, 11:55 pm IST
Updated : Nov 30, 2015, 11:55 pm IST

Pushing for a powerful climate deal, President Barack Obama called the global talks opening on Monday outside Paris an “act of defiance” against terrorism that proves the world stands undeterred by IS

Pushing for a powerful climate deal, President Barack Obama called the global talks opening on Monday outside Paris an “act of defiance” against terrorism that proves the world stands undeterred by ISIS-linked attacks in Europe and beyond.

Mr Obama used his speech to more than 150 world leaders to salute Paris and its people for “insisting this crucial conference go on” just two weeks after attacks that killed 130 in the French capital.

He said leaders had converged to show resolve to fight terrorism and uphold their values at the same time.

“What greater rejection of those who would tear down our world than martialing our best efforts to save it,” Mr Obama said.

His remarks came at the start of two weeks of make-or-break negotiations to finalise a sweeping global agreement to cut carbon emissions and hopefully stave off the worst effects of climate change.

Mr Obama exhorted leaders here to fight the enemy of cynicism, “the notion we can’t do anything” about the warming of the planet.

After sketching dire threats of submerged nations, abandoned cities and ever-worsening flooding and natural disasters, Mr Obama insisted that grim future “is one that we have the power to change.”

He urged leaders to “rise to this moment,” invoking the late Martin Luther King Jr’s observation that there’s such a thing as being too late to a cause. “That hour is almost upon us,” Obama said.

The US and other nations have insisted that all countries chip in under the new agreement. “No nation, eit-her wealthy or poor, is imm-une to what this means,” Mr Obama said as he desc-ribed spiraling effects of climate change if left unchecked.

Aiming to put a finer point on that argument, Mr Obama met on Monday wi-th President Xi Jinping of China and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for discussing aggressive action to curb emissions.

The US President said that his country accepted its responsibility as the wo-rld’s second biggest greenhouse gas emitter to help fix climate change, adding that global action need not damage economic growth. “As the leader of the world's largest economy and the second largest emitter... the United States of America not only recognises our role in creating this problem, we embrace our responsibility to do something about it,” Mr Obama said.