Us Says Global Climate Agreement Crucial to Solve Climate Change Problem
As the international community continues to work for a durable, inclusive, and transparent agreement to address the problem of climate change, US Secretary John Kerry underlined that the solution to climate change is not waiting to be discovered, it is energy policy.
In his remarks at the Caring for Climate Business Forum in Paris, Secretary Kerry said the solution to climate change is not some pie-in-the-sky thing that has yet to be defined.
“We know what it is. It’s energy policy. And we have the technology.” – Secretary Kerry
He said the the international community knows how to get to the clean energy choices.
According to Secretary Kerry, clean energy job growth is happening at double the rate of the economy writ large right now, and the solar industry is growing at 10 times that rate.
He pointed out that over the next 15 years, $17 trillion is expected to be invested in energy, and the vast majority of that is going to be in clean energy.
Clean Energy for Economic Prosperity
According to Secretary Kerry, clean energy is one of the greatest economic opportunities the world has ever seen.
“The energy economy that we’re looking at today is multiple trillions of dollars of economy already.” – Secretary Kerry
In addition, the energy economy is about to grow with the investment with four to five billions users today and going to grow to nine billion users over the next 30 years.
He added clean energy is an economy waiting to be defined and tapped, and it is one of the greatest economic opportunities the world has ever seen.
Reaching Global Climate Agreement in Paris Crucial
According to Secretary Kerry, reaching an ambitious, durable, inclusive, and transparent agreement is the goal in Paris.
He stressed that the conference may well be the last opportunity to come together on a global basis to be able to signal to the world that they understand the challenge.
“We’re ready to grapple with it, we’re ready to meet the challenge, and do for our people all over the world what they want us to do.” – Secretary Kerry
Also, Secretary Kerry highlighted that a global climate agreement in Paris is not in and of itself going to be the silver bullet that eliminates the threat posed by climate change.
He pointed out that what they will accomplish in Paris doesn’t end the mission.
“It builds a platform if we do it properly.” – Secretary Kerry
Secretary Kerry underscored that the agreement sets the roadmap and is the foundation for the ability to know that the world can move forward. And most importantly bringing all world leaders together to commit for the first time, to making fundamental changes to the ways that they power their economies.
COP 21
The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, prominently called COP 21 was held in Le Bourget, France, near Paris, from November 30 to December 11 2015.
The conference aimed to achieve a universal agreement on methods to reduce climate change in the Paris Agreement, by all the nations of the world.
At the end of the conference, the Paris agreement on climate change was finally adopted without any objection by the 196 parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
