“We have an obligation to succeed”, because “the stakes are too important to be able to settle for a downward agreement”. This was stated yesterday in Paris by the French Foreign Minister and president of the XXI Climate Conference, Laurent Fabiusat the opening of the works.
"We need a significant and strong agreement here in Paris" on the climate to stay "below two degrees" of temperature increase, also to guarantee "international peace and security", added the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon.
Even according to the Russian president Vladimir Putin we need a "global, effective, balanced and legally binding agreement that allows economies to develop and limits climate warming to 2 degrees": "a new agreement in the extension of Kyoto must respond to the interests of our populations".
For the French president Francois Hollande, the fight against terrorism and climate change "are two great challenges that we must face", because "we must leave our children more than a world free from terror, a planet protected from catastrophes, a sustainable planet".
The US president was even more explicit: "I came in person as a representative of the first world economy and the second largest polluter - he said Barack Obama – to say that we, the United States, not only acknowledge our role in creating the problem but also take responsibility for doing something about it. We can change the future here and now."
As for the Italian premier, Matteo Renzi he asked for "an agreement as binding as possible, otherwise it would remain written in the sand". And achieve this result, as the British Prime Minister stressed David Cameron, is “difficult but doable”.
