Paris: 147 nations to join climate talks

A total 147 heads of state and government so far will attend a climate summit due to start in Paris next week, the French government said on Tuesday.

The November 30-December 11 conference is tasked with signing the first-ever truly universal pact to curb global warming, and opens just two weeks after jihadists killed 130 people in the French capital.

France has said there had been no cancellations, and US President Barack Obama has urged fellow world leaders to come to Paris “to send a signal that the viciousness of a handful of killers does not stop the world from doing vital business”.

A French foreign ministry official said that “147 heads of state and government are expected” at the highly-anticipated conference of parties.

This would make it one of the biggest gatherings ever of world leaders outside the UN General Assembly in New York.

The previous largest climate gathering in Copenhagen in 2009 amassed some 115 world leaders, according to the UN climate forum.

France has insisted it will not “give in” to violence by postponing a summit which must produce a deal committing all the world’s nations to climate action starting in 2020.

Gunmen and suicide bombers killed 130 people out for dinner, drinks and a concert on the night of November 13, prompting the authorities to cancel two mass rallies that had been organised to coincide with the summit.

The conference itself will gather some 40,000 delegates, journalists, observers and exhibitors.

The meeting’s goal is to produce a pact that can limit average global warming to two degrees Celsius over pre-Industrial Revolution levels.

Climate experts say the need to agree on a global carbon price to cut pollution and aid clean technologies is a no-brainer, and yet the topic will have no place at the upcoming Paris climate talks.

World leaders, captains of industry, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank had all expressed hope that the Paris meeting would welcome the idea.

The idea of a setting a price for the cost of carbon is to encourage polluters to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases they emit by making them pay the bill and focus on the need to develop and invest in green technology.

But despite a myriad carbon pricing schemes having been experimented with across the world and plenty of big-name support behind the idea, the Paris gathering will not address putting a global price on pollution.

Nearly 690 million of the world’s 2.3 billion children live in areas most exposed to climate change, facing higher rates of death, poverty and disease from global warming, the Unicef said on Tuesday.

Almost 530 million children live in countries hardest-hit by high floods and tropical storms, mostly in Asia.

An additional 160 million kids are growing up in areas suffering severe droughts, mostly in Africa, Unicef said in the report titled Unless We Act Now.

“Children will bear the brunt of climate change. They are already bearing a lot of the impact,” said Nicholas Rees, a policy specialist at Unicef and one of the report’s authors.

“The sheer number of children exposed to climate risk is alarming,” said the report.