President Barack Obama has hailed the just-concluded Paris accord on climate change as “a turning point for the world”, asserting that it “represents the best chance we’ve had to save the one planet that we’ve got”.
“Together, we’ve shown what’s possible when the world stands alone,” he said, lauding the nearly 200 nations that worked together to confront a common threat. “We came together around the strong agreement the world needed. We met the moment.”
As he put it, full implementation of this agreement “will help delay or avoid some of the worst consequences of climate change, and will pave the way for even more progress, in successive stages, over the coming years”.
For Obama himself, as one having assumed a leadership role on climate change for years, the pact may well be a defining international success, Obama, but at home he faces a truly formidable challenge from the Republicans.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell was quick to slam Obama for “making promises he can’t keep”, warning him that the Paris agreement could be “shredded in 13 months” if the Republicans win the 2016 presidential race.
Obama, who delivered a statement from the White House after rushing back from a game of golf, conceded that “no agreement is perfect, including this one”, given that negotiations involving nearly 200 nations can always be challenging.
“The (climate change) problem is not solved because of this accord. But make no mistake, the Paris agreement establishes the enduring framework the world needs to solve the climate crisis,” he said, but stressing it creates the mechanism, the architecture, to continually tackle this problem in an effective way.
He said the Paris agreement is ambitious, with every nation setting and committing to their own specific targets, even as while taking into account differences among nations. “We’ll have a strong system of transparency, including periodic reviews and independent assessments, to help hold every country accountable for meeting its commitments,” he said, noting that as technology advances, the agreement “allows progress to pave the way for even more ambitious targets over time”.
Dealing with sceptics at home, he said that despite their warnings that his own administration’s action would kill jobs, the US has seen the longest streak of private sector job creation even while driving carbon pollution down to its lowest level in nearly two decades.
Obama pointed to the joint announcement with China last year, saying it encouraged many other nations to set their own ambitious climate targets. “That was the foundation for success in Paris,” he said.