President Xi Jinping and US President Barack Obama meet in Paris on Monday. Photo: Xinhua
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Paris climate summit: Chinese president urges world leaders to unite to tackle common challenge
Xi Jinping calls for end to ‘zero-sum’ approach to reaching a deal
President Xi Jinping addresses world leaders at the UN climate summit in Paris on Monday. Photo: EPA
President Xi Jinping on Monday called on leaders from more than 140 countries to abandon the “zero-sum” mindset on climate change and unite to tackle the common challenge.
On the opening day of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris, Xi said a deal for post-2020 action should be “comprehensive, balanced, ambitious and binding”. But rich nations should also honour their commitment to financial aid for developing nations.
The president said the deal had to galvanise global efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions as well as respect the rights of developing countries to grow their economies.
“Tackling climate change is a shared mission for humanity,” Xi said.
“It also mirrors a new model for global governance in which each country does its fair share and reaches an all-win situation, while discarding the [old] mindset of the zero-sum game.
“The Paris conference is not the finishing line, it is a new starting point.”
Other world leaders also urged negotiators to forge an ambitious agreement in the two weeks of talks.
Calling terrorism and climate change “two major challenges we must overcome” for future generations, French President Francois Hollande said Paris “must be the start of far-reaching change” to limit the global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius, even 1.5 degrees if possible.
US President Barack Obama said: “The threat of climate change could define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other.”
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told negotiators to take a more flexible attitude to reach consensus at the gathering. China has taken an increasingly proactive role on climate change this year, forging bilateral deals with key players and major carbon polluters including the United States, France and India.
Meeting Xi on the sidelines of the summit, Obama credited Sino-US joint leadership with encouraging 180 nations to make their own pledges to curb emissions in the run-up to the Paris talks.
“Our leadership on this issue has been absolutely vital,” Obama said.
Wu Changhua, from The Climate Group, an international non-profit organisation, said China’s plans to transform its model of growth and tackle pollution were “perfectly aligned” with the global climate change agenda – and that was one reason Beijing was playing an increasingly proactive role in such talks.
Wu said tackling pollution in China would help solve the global climate crisis.
“Countries are now creating a much larger pie of [the green economy], and Chinese leaders are thinking how to win in this new round of competition,” she said.
“China is not merely playing the nice guy here [in the negotiation room], it is actually trying to grab a bigger piece of this pie.”
Wu said China’s lead on climate change was also in line with Xi’s push for a new global governance system in which China was “a major responsible power”.
Li Yan, deputy programme director of Greenpeace East Asia, said now was the time for Xi’s ambition for a low-carbon nation to be backed up with detailed policies for the next five years, especially curbs on the use of coal and commitments to boost renewable energy supplies.
Hollande said hopes for a deal emerged in the lead-up to the talks.
But there are still differences to overcome, with some emerging economies, particularly India, saying it would be difficult for it to switch from coal-fired power generation.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse