France regrets 'unfortunate' John Kerry’s remarks on climate summit

Kerry said that Paris summit will not deliver a binding treaty to cut carbon emissions

Valletta

: French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius expressed regret Thursday over reported remarks by US Secretary of State John Kerry that the Paris climate summit will not deliver a binding treaty requiring countries to cut carbon emissions.

"I think that it's a formulation which could have been more fortunate," Fabius told journalists on the sidelines of the EU-Africa summit in Malta.

"I saw my friend Kerry yesterday. Things must be very clear," Fabius said.

Kerry, interviewed by the Financial Times, said: "It's definitively not going to be a treaty. They're not going to be legally binding reduction targets like Kyoto or something."

Kerry was referring to the 1997 Kyoto protocol committing states to limit emissions.

The UN Conference of Parties (COP21) meeting of some 100 heads of state and government, which opens in the French capital on November 30, aims to secure a deal to stave off catastrophic levels of global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels.

The nations most at risk have appealed for a stricter goal than limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, which the vulnerable nations say will still leave one billion people at risk of rising sea levels and other dire impacts.