COP21: Obama Urges Leaders To 'Rise To Moment'

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The US President calls on world leaders to show they share a sense of responsibility to tackle climate change at a Paris summit.

US President Barack Obama has urged world leaders at the UN climate conference in Paris to "act now" to secure a future for humanity.

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More than 150 leaders, including Prime Minister David Cameron, are attending the first day of the 12-day summit, known as COP21.

Mr Obama said the US, as the world's number two greenhouse gas emitter, "recognises our role in creating this problem" and "we embrace our responsibility to do something about it".

And he called on world leaders to show they share a sense of responsibility too.

"2015 is on pace to be the warmest year of all. No nation - large or small, wealthy or poor - is immune to what this means," Mr Obama said.

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The "future is one that we have the power to change right here right now, but only if we rise to this moment," he said.

"If we act here, if we act now, if we place our own short-term interests behind the air that our young people will breathe and the food that they will eat and the water they will drink and the hopes and dreams that sustain their lives, then we won't be too late for them," he told the summit.

Prince Charles used his keynote speech to warn humanity faces many threats "but none is greater than climate change".











"In damaging our climate, we've become the architects of our own destruction," he said.

Charles urged the leaders and negotiators to "think of your grandchildren, as I think of mine".
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He added: "The absurd thing is that we know exactly what needs to be done ... to avoid catastrophe we must restrict climate change to less than 2C, which requires a dramatic drop in carbon emissions."

The 2C threshold is seen as the safe limit for temperature rise, beyond which the climate becomes dangerously unstable.

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As the summit opened, leaders held a minute's silence for the 130 people killed at the Paris terror attacks on 13 November.

French President Francois Hollande told the heavily guarded conference that climate change and terrorism were "two major global challenges that we must overcome".

He said there must be an agreement in Paris as "we are at breaking point".

"Never have the stakes of an international meeting been so high, because we are talking about the future of the planet, the future of life," he said.

The last major climate conference five years ago in Copenhagen failed to secure sign-up to a universal target for reducing emissions.

In advance of the Paris talks, 183 nations have submitted individual commitments, large or small, to slow global warming.






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But there are still major issues that need to be resolved.

The EU wants any deal to be legally enforceable, but that is being resisted by the US.

And poorer countries that are most vulnerable to climate change want richer nations to pay into a fund to help them adapt to a warmer world.

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In his speech, Chinese President Xi Jinping insisted rich nations should shoulder comparatively more of the responsibility for curbing global warming.

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"Addressing climate change should not deny the legitimate needs of developing countries to reduce poverty and improve their people's living standards," Mr Xi said.

Sky