As world leaders assemble in Paris next week for the summit on climate change, President Barack Obama will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Day 1 as part of the US push for a global framework agreement that is “ambitious, effective, fair and durable”.
With his bilateral meetings with Modi and Xi as leaders of two major economies, Obama “intends to generate momentum toward the successful outcome” at the 12-day summit, Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes told reporters.
By meeting with the leaders of India, China and host country France, Obama expects to “send a clear signal…that he is going to be working with the key players here to try to get this done”, Rhodes said.
“We’ve been engaging with India throughout the year in determining how they can contribute constructively to a successful outcome in Paris, first during the President’s trip to India, then most recently, in a bilateral meeting in New York at the UN General Assembly, and in the discussions the President had with Prime Minister Modi on the margins of the recent summits that they both attended,” he said.
As for Obama’s meeting with Xi, he said that with China and the US being the two largest emitters, the meeting right at the outset of the Paris deliberations “sends a strong message to the world about their shared commitment to combat climate change and to achieve an ambitious agreement”.
With a global climate deal a high priority for Obama, Rhodes said the President has worked hard to secure commitments from other countries on reducing their emissions, besides supporting a Green Climate Fund to help developing countries.
leaders from 140 nations are expected to attend the Paris summit, beginning on November 30. The summit takes place just a little over a fortnight after the terrorist attacks in the city on November 13 that killed 130 people.
“What a powerful rebuke to the terrorists it will be when the world stands as one (in Paris next week) and shows that we will not be deterred from building a better future for our children,” Obama said separately at his news conference with French President Francois Hollande at the White House on Tuesday.