30 Nov (NucNet): US President Barack Obama has said the UN climate conference in Paris could be “a turning point” in global efforts to limit future temperature rises and led calls by a number of world leaders for developed nations to take the lead in efforts to do something about global warming.
Negotiators from 195 countries will try to reach a deal within two weeks aimed at reducing global carbon emissions and limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius. Leaders from 147 nations are addressing the meeting, known as COP21, which opened today.
Mr Obama urged negotiators to deliver a meaningful deal, because the “next generation is watching”. He told delegates: “Climate change could define the contours of this century more than any other [challenge].”
Mr Obama said: “I’ve come here personally as the leader of the world's largest economy and second largest emitter [of greenhouse gases] to say the USA not only recognises our role in creating this problem, we embrace our responsibility to do something about it.”
Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel echoed Mr Obama’s call for developed nations to take the lead, telling delegates: “We caused emissions in the past so must be at the vanguard in future,” she said.
India’s Prime Minister PM Narendra Modi wrote in this morning’s Financial Times of London that richer nations must “bear the greater responsibility” for tackling climate change and poorer nations such as his must be allowed to grow.
He wrote: “Justice demands that, with what little carbon we can still safely burn, developing countries are allowed to grow. The lifestyles of a few must not crowd out opportunities for the many still on the first steps of the development ladder.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin also spoke at the conference today, saying: “We hope we will be able to build a new climate agreement.” He said that by 2030, Russia will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 70 per cent compared with 1990. This will be achieved through “breakthrough technologies and nanotechnologies”.
The nuclear industry has said “significant expansion” of nuclear energy is needed for the world to achieve an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
The Nuclear for Climate initiative, which brings together more than 140 associations and technical societies, published a position paper urging negotiators at COP21 to develop “an achievable agreement” for the reduction of greenhouse gases which ensures countries have the right to choose nuclear energy in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while meeting their energy and development objectives.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Nuclear Energy Agency said in a report earlier this month that there are only two options – nuclear power and renewable energy sources – to decarbonise an ever increasing electricity sector.
The report said that of those options only nuclear provides “firmly dispatchable” baseload electricity because the variability of renewables requires flexible backup that is frequently provided by carbon-intensive power plants.
Any deal reached at COP21 will take into account national pledges to cut emissions. Most countries have already submitted “Intended Nationally Determined Contributions” (INDCs), setting out how they plan to limit their emissions in the 2020s. These are not up for negotiation.
The UN said a long-term target for global emissions reductions is needed by 2050 or 2100, to prevent two degrees Celsius global warming. It wants to see a clear framework for measuring whether countries are actually carrying out the emissions cuts they have promised, and a mechanism to make countries come back and agree to deeper national emissions cuts.
There are also calls for an agreement that developed nations will help developing countries with the costs of going green, and the costs of coping with the effects of climate change.
