The
final draft of the agreement has received a largely positive response from
environmental and aid campaigners, experts and analysts, although there are
concerns it does not go far enough to tackle climate change.
Emma
Ruby-Sachs, acting executive director of campaign group Avaaz, said: “If
agreed, this deal will represent a turning point in history, paving the way for
the shift to 100% clean energy that the world wants and the planet needs.”
Michael
Jacobs, senior adviser for the New Climate Economy project, and former adviser
to Gordon Brown, also described it as a historic turning point.
“Historians
will see this as the turning point: the moment when the world started shifting
decisively away from fossil fuels and towards clean and safe energy systems.
“Remarkably
this effectively signals the end of the fossil fuel era. This is unquestionably
a great success. But the work really starts now. These commitments now need to
turn into policy, and policy into investment.”
Kumi
Naidoo, executive director of Greenpeace International, which campaigns
strongly against fossil fuel expansion, went further, saying: “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.
Aid
agencies also gave the deal a cautious welcome, with Neil Thorns, from Cafod,
suggesting: “For poor people living on the front line of climate change, this
deal offers hope for a brighter future, but not yet the security that we’ll get
there quick enough”.
Oxfam
said the agreement would offer a “frayed lifeline” to the world’s poorest and
most vulnerable people, but warned measures to ensure predictable flows of
finance to developing countries to help them deal with climate change had been
dropped.
ActionAid
chief executive Adriano Campolina said the deal is missing “real and concrete
commitments”, but he added that Paris is only the beginning of the journey.
Scientists
backed the deal, with Piers Forster, professor of climate change, University of
Leeds, going as far as describing it as “a Christmas miracle”, and the best
deal possible.
Corinne
Le Quere, professor of climate change science and policy at the University of
East Anglia and director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research,
said: “The three key elements to do it are there in some form: keep warming
well below 2C, practically move away from fossil fuels, and review each
country’s contribution every five years so they scale up to the challenge.
“The
emissions cuts promised by countries now are still wholly insufficient, but the
agreement as a whole sends a strong message to businesses, investors and
citizens that new energy is clean and fossil fuels belong to the past. There is
a lot of work ahead of us to make this happen.”
Prof
Sir Brian Hoskins, chairman of the Grantham Institute, Imperial College London,
said: “The Paris agreement is the culmination of more than 20 years of
negotiation.
“With
it the countries of the world have recognised that they all have to work
together to tackle the shared problem of dangerous climate change caused by
human activities.
“We
are now looking towards the post- fossil fuel era that will give new
opportunities for technological, economic and social development that is truly
sustainable.”
Friends
of the Earth chief executive Craig Bennett warned the deal fell far short of
the “soaring rhetoric” from 150 world leaders who attended the opening day of
the talks less than two weeks ago.
“An
ambition to keep global temperature rises below 1.5C is all very well, but we
still don’t have an adequate global plan to make this a reality. This agreement
leaves millions of people across the world under threat from climate-related
floods, droughts and super-storms.
“However,
this is still a historic moment. This summit clearly shows that fossil fuels
have had their day – and that George Osborne’s outdated, backward energy
policies must be reversed if he wants to be on the right side of history.”
He
called for energy efficiency and renewable power to form the backbone of
Britain’s future energy policy, and accused ministers of undermining investment
in these areas at every opportunity.
“The
Prime Minister must also end Britain’s scandalous support for fossil fuels,
including fracking. This nation is the only G7 country to be actively expanding
fossil fuel subsidies.
“People
power across the world has forced governments to start taking this issue
seriously – and people power will win the day.”
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