AFP, Le Bourget, France : A day after world leaders vowed to unite in a war on climate change, negotiators at the UN talks get down today to the nitty-gritty, where many bitterly divisive issues await.The heads of more than 150 nations gathered in the northern outskirts of Paris on Monday in a bid to inject political momentum into what many described as the last chance to avert climate calamity.”Never have the stakes of an international meeting been so high, because it concerns the future of the planet, the future of life,” French President Francois Hollande said in an opening speech. “The hope of all of humanity rests on all of your shoulders.”US President Barack Obama, China’s Xi Jinping and many other leaders vowed their nations would strive to limit heat-trapping “greenhouse” gases that stoke global warming.The result would be a post-2020 pact that would save Earth’s climate system for generations to came, they promised.”The future is one that we have the power to change, right here, right now,” said Obama, who will on Tuesday meet with leaders of low-lying island nations to highlight his commitment to help the most climate-vulnerable.But similar lofty promises have come crashing down to Earth during more than two decades of UN negotiations. The UN climate process concerns the use of fossil fuels, the backbone of the world’s energy supply — and that means huge interests are at stake.For years, the annual parlay has been hobbled by finger-pointing and nit-picking, riven especially by arguments between rich and poor nations over who should bear most of the carbon-curbing burden.Those divisions were quickly exposed on Monday, as leaders of developing nations hit out at rich countries for perceived hypocrisy in making demands to use less fossil fuels after carbon-burning their way to prosperity.”The prosperous still have a strong carbon footprint and the world’s billions at the bottom of the development ladder are seeking space to grow,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said. With the debates echoing in their ears and the leaders heading home, lower-level negotiators in the 195-member UN forum have been tasked with creating such a pact by December 11.
