Francois Hollande: Climate success lies in cash deal with India, others

A “binding” climate agreement with assurances of cash for developing nations will be the measure of success for a UN summit starting in Paris next week, French President Francois Hollande said Tuesday.

“The solution will be found in finance,” Mr Hollande told L’Express magazine on how to avoid deadlock at the summit tasked with curbing dangerous climate change. “It will be a kind of revolution if the near-totality of countries in the world approve a binding agreement including obligations and commitments on finance,” he said, invoking France’s 1789 revolution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man it spawned.

The 12-day conference begins Monday. The 195-nation UN climate forum is negotiating a universal pact to cap global warming at 2° Celsius above mid-19th century levels, and lock in financial support for poor and vulnerable countries most exposed to rising seas, superstorms and crippling drought.

How much money, and where it will come from, have emerged as make-or-break issues at the fraught talks. “The emerging countries — India, Brazil, China, South Africa — do not want the fight against global warming to restrain their economies,” Mr Hollande told the weekly.

“We have to construct a system that can provide them with finance and access to new technologies to shorten the fossil energy phase” of their growth, he said. Developing nations — including India, the world’s third-biggest country emitter — have made CO2 emission curbs and greening their economies contingent on financial aid, especially for technology.