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 Some 150 heads of state, including U.S. President Barack Obama and
his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, will urge each other to find
common cause in two weeks of bargaining to steer the global economy
away from its dependence on fossil fuels.
They arrived at United Nations climate change talks in Paris armed
with promises and accompanied by high expectations. After decades of
struggling negotiations and the failure of a previous summit in
Copenhagen six years ago, some form of landmark agreement appears
all but assured by mid-December.
Warnings from climate scientists, demands from activists and
exhortations from religious leaders like Pope Francis, coupled with
major advances in cleaner energy sources like solar power, have all
added to pressure to cut the carbon emissions held responsible for
warming the planet.
Most scientists say failure to agree on strong measures in Paris
would doom the world to ever-hotter average temperatures, bringing
with them deadlier storms, more frequent droughts and rising sea
levels as polar ice caps melt.
 Facing such alarming projections, the leaders of nations responsible
for about 90 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions have
come bearing pledges to reduce their national carbon output, though
by different rates.
For some, it has already become a pressing issue at home. As the
summit opened in Paris, the capitals of the world's two most
populous nations, China and India, were blanketed in hazardous,
choking smog, with regulators in Beijing asking factories to limit
output and halting construction work.
Success in agreeing what would be by far the strongest international
pact yet to commit both rich and developing nations to the fight
against global warming "is not yet achieved, but it is within
reach,” French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, chairman of the
meeting, told delegates.
On the eve of the summit, hundreds of thousands of people from
Australia to Paraguay joined the biggest day of climate change
activism in history, telling world leaders there was "No Planet B"
in the fight against global warming.
"To resolve the climate crisis, good will, statements of intent are
not enough," Hollande said. "We are at breaking point."
SMOOTHING THE BUMPS
The leaders gathered in a vast conference center at Le Bourget
airfield, near where Charles Lindbergh landed his Spirit of St.
Louis aircraft in 1927 after making the first solo trans-Atlantic
flight, a feat that helped bring nations closer.
Whether a similar spirit of unity can be incubated in Le Bourget
this time is uncertain. In all, 195 countries are part of the
unwieldy negotiating process, espousing a variety of leadership
styles and ideologies that has made consensus elusive in the past.
Key issues, notably how to divide the global bill to pay for a shift
to renewable energy, are still contentious.
Signaling their determination to resolve the most intractable
points, senior negotiators sat down on Sunday, a day earlier than
planned, to begin thrashing out an agreement. They hope to avoid the
last-minute scramble and all-nighters that marked past meetings.
 The last attempt to get a global deal collapsed in chaos and
acrimony in Copenhagen in 2009. It ended with Obama forcing his way
into a closed meeting of China and other countries on the
gathering's last day and emerging with a modest concession to limit
rising emissions until 2020 that they attempted to impose on the
rest of the world.
Anxious to avoid a re-run of the Copenhagen disaster, major powers
have tried this time to smooth some of the bumps in the way of an
agreement before they arrive.
The presidents, prime ministers and princes will make their cameo
appearances at the outset of the conference rather than swooping in
at the end.
In a somber city where security has been tightened after Islamist
militant attacks killed 130 people on Nov. 13, Hollande said he
could not separate "the fight with terrorism from the fight against
global warming." Leaders must face both challenges, leaving their
children "a world freed of terror" as well as one "protected from
catastrophes".
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Each leader is allowed a brief opening speech, just a few minutes
long. The goal is to build momentum for consensus and avoid the
messiness of past talks when diplomats put off the hard political
choices until their bosses arrived.
NEW APPROACH
But there are other significant changes in approach.
The old goal of seeking a legally binding international treaty,
certain to be dead on arrival in the Republican-controlled U.S.
Congress, has been replaced by a system of national pledges to
reduce emissions.
Some are presented as best intentions, others as measures legally
enforced by domestic laws and regulations.
The biggest difference may be the partnership between the United
States and China. The world's two biggest carbon emitters, once on
opposite sides on climate issues, agreed in 2014 to jointly
kick-start a transition away from fossil fuels, each at their own
speed and in their own way.
The United States and China "have both determined that it is our
responsibility to take action," Obama said after meeting Xi. "Our
leadership on this issue has been absolutely vital."
That partnership has been a balm for the main source of tension that
characterized previous talks, in which the developing world argued
that countries that grew rich by industrializing on fossil fuels
should pay the cost of shifting all economies to a renewable energy
future.
Now even China, once a leading voice of that club, has agreed to
contribute to an internationally administered Green Climate Fund
that hopes to dispense $100 billion a year after 2020 as a way to
finance the developing world's shift towards renewables.
If a signed deal now appears likely, so too is the prospect that it
will not be enough to prevent the world's average temperature from
rising beyond 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above
pre-industrial levels.
That is widely viewed as a threshold for dangerous and potentially
catastrophic changes in the planet's climate system.
Instead, the summit will produce a "long-term framework" for
additional reductions down the road, Obama said in a Facebook
posting on Sunday, with "targets set by each nation, but transparent
enough to be verified by other nations."
How and when nations should review their goals -- and then set
higher, more ambitious ones -- must still be hammered out.
One sign of optimism was that Indian Prime Minster Narendra Modi, a
key player because of his country's size and its heavy dependence on
coal, will announce an international solar alliance of more than 100
sun-kissed countries, with the aim of raising India's profile on
solar power.
A handful of the world's richest entrepreneurs, including Bill
Gates, have pledged to double the $10 billion they collectively
spend on clean energy research and development in the next five
years.
(Additional reporting by Jeff Mason, John Irish; Roberta Rampton in
Washington; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
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