Climate change: Now, US warns of security risks

Le Bourget: US President Barack Obama warned on Tuesday that global warming posed imminent security and economic risks, as negotiators embarked on an 11-day race to seal a UN pact aimed at taming climate change.

 

Speaking after attending a historic climate summit with some 150 other leaders, Obama voiced confidence man-kind would make the tough decisions needed to halt rising temperatures. But the president, and head of the world’s second largest carbon emitter, also issued a grim warning for the near future if the temperature curve went unchecked.

 

“Before long we are going to have to devote more and more of our economic and military resources, not to growing opportunity for our people, but to adapting to the various consequences of a changing planet,” Obama said.

 

“This is an economic and security imperative that we have to tackle now.” The UN talks aim to seal a deal that would slash carbon emissions — which come mainly from burning fossil fuels — from 2020 and deliver hundreds of billions of dollars in aid for climate-vulnerable countries. It is the latest chapter in a 25-year-old diplomatic saga marked by spats over burden-sharing and hobbled by  huge complexity.