(CNSNews.com) – In opening remarks Monday at the climate change conference in Paris, France, President Barack Obama again tied the terrorist attacks in Paris to climate change, saying the conference is a “rejection of those who would tear down our world.”
“We stand united in solidarity to deliver justice to the terrorist network responsible for those attacks but to protect our people and uphold the enduring values that keep us strong and keep us free, and we salute the people of Paris for insisting this crucial conference go on – an act of defiance that proves nothing will deter us from building the future we want for our children,” Obama said.
“What greater rejection of those who would tear down our world than marshaling our best efforts to serve it?” he added.
Obama said the world leaders have “come to Paris to show our resolve,” and he offered “condolences to the people of France for the barbaric attacks on this beautiful city.”
“One of the enemies we’ll be fighting at this conference is cynicism – the notion we can’t do anything about climate change,” the president said.
Obama echoed comments he made while visiting Alaska this summer, saying he saw a “a glimpse of our children’s fate if climate keeps changing faster than our efforts to address it.”
“This summer I saw the effects of climate change firsthand in our northernmost state Alaska where the sea is already swallowing villages and eroding shorelines, where permafrost thaws and the tundra burns, where glaciers are melting at a pace unprecedented in modern times,” he said at Monday's summit.
“It was a preview of one possible future – a glimpse of our children’s fate if the climate keeps changing faster than our efforts to address it: submerged countries, abandoned cities, fields that no longer grow, political disruptions that trigger new conflict, and even more floods of desperate peoples seeking the sanctuary of nations not their own,” Obama added.
“Earlier this month in Dubai, after years of delay, the world agreed to work together to cut the super pollutants known as HFCs. That’s progress. Already, prior to Paris, more than 180 countries representing nearly 95 percent of global emissions have put forward their own climate targets. That is progress,” the president said.
Obama said the U.S. is already on track to reach emissions targets he set six years ago in Copenhagen to reduce carbon emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by the year 2020, so he set a new target last year to reduce emissions 26 to 28 percent below 2005 in 10 years.