Talks a chance to ‘rise to history’

Ministers from around the planet on Monday launched a five-day scramble in Paris to answer “the call of history” and strike a deal to spare mankind from climate disaster.

The 195-nation UN talks in Paris have been billed as the last chance to avert the worst consequences of global warming: deadly drought, floods and storms, and rising seas that will obliterate islands and densely populated coastlines.

“The clock is ticking towards a climate catastrophe,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told ministers, who face a Friday deadline to reach an accord that has proved elusive in more than two decades of wrangling.

“The world is expecting more from you than half-measures and incremental approaches,” Mr Ban warned. “It is calling for a transformative agreement. Paris must put the world on track for long-term peace, stability and prosperity.”

He added: “The decisions you make here will reverberate down the ages.”Environment and foreign ministers, including US secretary of state John Kerry who landed in Paris Monday, were urged to rise to the moment and rip out hundreds of bracketed words or sentences in the draft accord that denote disagreement.

“The opportunity to rise to the call of history is not given to everyone or every day,” UN climate chief Christiana Figueres told the conference. “History has chosen you here, now.”

Taking effect from 2020, the Paris accord would seek to limit emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, driven especially by coal, oil and gas — the backbone of the world’s energy supply today.

The goal of the negotiations is to limit global warming to less than 2.0 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-Industrial Revolution levels. But scientists say the planet is already halfway to the 2 degrees Celsius figure, which means that the rise in fossil-fuel emissions must peak soon, and go quickly into reverse, to meet the precious objective.

The talks opened November 30 with a record-breaking gathering of 150 world leaders who issued a chorus of warnings about mankind’s fate if planet warming went unchecked.

After a week of talks, negotiators met a Saturday deadline to produce a draft 48-page blueprint that agreed on the need for urgent action but left unresolved many of the deep and complex divisions that condemned previous UN efforts to failure.