France’s Hollande tells Trump to respect climate deal

A week after climate change denier Donald Trump’s election to the White House, world leaders addressed a key UN meeting in Marrakesh to keep a climate rescue plan on track.
France and the United Nations on Tuesday stepped up warnings to Trump about the risks of quitting a 2015 global plan to combat climate change, saying a historic shift from fossil fuels is unstoppable.
French President Francois Hollande, addressing almost 200 nations meeting in Morocco on ways to slow global warming, said that inaction would be “disastrous for future generations and it would be dangerous for peace.”
“The United States, the largest economic power in the world, the second largest greenhouse gas emitter, must respect the commitments it has undertaken,” Hollande said to applause. The agreement was “irreversible,” he said.
Both he and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Trump, who has called man-made global warming a hoax, to drop a campaign pledge to cancel the global 2015 Paris Agreement that aims to shift from fossil fuels to cleaner energies.
The UN chief said action on climate change has become “unstoppable,” and he expressed hopes that Trump would drop plans to quit a global accord aimed at weaning the world off fossil fuels.
At the meeting to work out ways to implement the 2015 Paris agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions, Ban said US companies, states and cities were all pushing to limit global warming.
“What was once unthinkable has become unstoppable,” he told a news conference of the Paris Agreement, agreed by governments last year, ratified in record time and formally adopted by more than 100 nations including the United States.
“We expect of the heads of state to reiterate their commitment (to the deal)... and send a strong message to Trump and the rest of the world,” Celia Gautier of the Climate Action Network, a grouping of NGOs, told AFP on Monday.
The election of Trump, who has called climate change a “hoax” and has threatened to “cancel” the Paris pact, has been uppermost on the minds of many delegates and negotiators gathered since last Monday to thrash out a roadmap for putting the agreement into action.
The hard-fought deal set an objective of limiting average global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-Industrial Revolution levels by cutting planet-heating greenhouse gases from burning coal, oil, and gas.
Many fear that withdrawal by the United States, a champion of the deal under Barack Obama, would shatter the political goodwill built up over years of negotiations, and put the very planet-saving goals of the deal at risk.
While waiting for news from Washington, many now look to the rest of the world to strongly restate their commitment to the pact, with or without the US.
All eyes will be on Marrakesh, where 39 kings and presidents and 18 prime ministers are scheduled to address the 22nd Conference of Parties (COP22 for short) of the UN’s climate convention, which gathers 196 nations and the EU bloc.
To date, 109 of the 197 parties have officially ratified the Paris Agreement, which entered into force on November 4 after crossing the threshold of 55 ratifications by countries representing 55 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.
They included the United States, which represents about 14 percent of global emissions, and China which accounts for 25 percent.
Beijing’s climate envoy Xie Zhenhua stressed Monday that tackling climate was a “common and shared responsibility.”
“International cooperation is a must for us to address climate change,” he said in Marrakesh.
In Marrakesh, developing nations have been pushing for stronger finance commitments from the developed world, particularly for infrastructure to help them better cope with climate change-induced harms.
Scientists say warming over 2C will yield dangerous sea level rise, harsher storms and droughts, disease spread and conflict over ever-scarcer resources.
“Now, more than ever, governments meeting in Marrakesh must commit to action to protect millions of vulnerable people from climate change,” said Oxfam, which fights for poor people’s interests at the climate talks.
Among the speakers on Tuesday’s agenda are Sudan’s Omar Al-Bashir, for whom the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Darfur.
Approached for comment, the UNFCCC said by e-mail on Monday Bashir was invited by Morocco, which is not a party to the court’s founding Rome Statute.
“If even Bashir can contribute to the global climate effort, then President-elect Donald Trump will have no excuse,” commented climate activist Mohamed Adow of ChristianAid.

Source: Arab news