UN climate deal blow to fossil fuels: green groups

A global accord for taming global warming, sealed at UN talks in Paris on Saturday, represents a potential body-blow to the fossil-fuel business, Greenpeace and other prominent environment groups said.

 

“The wheel of climate action turns slowly, but in Paris it has turned. This deal puts the fossil-fuel industry on the wrong side of history,” Greenpeace International executive director Kumi Naidoo said.

 

“Today the human race has joined in a common cause, but it’s what happens after this conference that really matters,” he added.

 

Greenpeace, major green groups and climate change researchers gave a mixed report card on the many details in the accord, endorsed by ministers from 195 nations at the talks.

 

But they emphasised that by striving to limit warming to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-Industrial Revolution temperatures, the agreement would have an impact.

 

“That single number, and the new goal of net zero emissions by the second half of this century, will cause consternation in the boardrooms of coal companies and the palaces of oil-exporting states,” Naidoo predicted.

 

Researchers and activists declared that the agreement would make history.

 

“The Paris Agreement marks a new form of international cooperation –- one where developed and developing countries are united by a common and fair framework,” said Jennifer Morgan, global director of the climate programme at the World Resources Institute (WRI), a Washington-based think tank.

 

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