Climate talks to hear of plan to spend billions on clean energy
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GOVERNMENT and business leaders plan to spend tens of billions of dollars in the next five years to develop clean energy technology in efforts to fight global warming, an official and a former official told The Associated Press.
The initiative, which will be announced today along with the opening of the UN climate summit, involves Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates, President Barack Obama and French President Francois Hollande, according to a French official and a former US official who weren’t authorized to talk on the record.
France, the US, India, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Canada and Norway have already decided to participate in the “ambitious” project that will aim at developing clean energies, the French official said.
The amount of money involved, from countries, companies and individuals would be in the tens of billions of dollars, according to the former US government official.
The money would be geared toward research and development of technologies, such as energy storage that could make clean power from wind and solar more usable regardless of weather vagaries.
“They are committed to making increased investments in existing technologies and new breakthrough technologies to lower the cost of emissions reductions,” the former US government official said.
Their pledges will be conditional on governments pledging more money for that purpose, the former official said.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands marched across Australia yesterday on a third day of rallies around the world as pressure mounts on global leaders to strike a pact on cutting greenhouse gases at the crucial talks in Paris.
Some 150 leaders, including China’s President Xi Jinping, Obama, India’s Narendra Modi and Russia’s Vladimir Putin will attend the start of the UN conference today, tasked with reaching the first truly universal climate pact.
The goal is to limit average global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, perhaps less, over pre-Industrial Revolution levels by curbing the fossil fuel emissions blamed for climate change.
Rallies demanding curbs to carbon pollution have been growing since Friday, with the marches across Australia kickstarting a final day of people-powered protest.
“There is no Planet B,” said one placard in Sydney where 45,000 people converged.
“There’s nothing more important that I can be doing at the moment than addressing climate change,” said Kate Charlesworth, a doctor and Sydney mother.
Hollande, host of the 12-day talks, has warned of obstacles ahead for the 195 nations seeking new limits on heat-trapping gas emissions from 2020.
“Man is the worst enemy of man. We can see it with terrorism,” Hollande said on Saturday, speaking after leading ceremonies in Paris to mourn the victims of the November 13 attacks.
About 2,800 police and soldiers will secure the conference site and 6,300 others will deploy in Paris. French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said nearly 1,000 people thought to pose security risks had been denied entry into France.
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