France Says Climate Talks Crucial for World Security

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius launched a round of global climate talks in Geneva on Sunday and warned that world security, as well as the environment, depended on their success.

The week-long meeting is the first in a series that is meant to culminate in a globally binding agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Paris in December, with a target of limiting the rise in global temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times.

Countries, companies and other organizations are expected to announce commitments to cut emissions in the run up to the Paris meeting.  The cumulative commitments, backed by a financing mechanism and a binding global agreement that is being shaped at the series of meetings, must be enough to hit the 2 degree goal.
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"And then there's an aspect that we don't talk about much:  the impact on security," Fabius told reporters in Geneva.  "If you have climate degradation, global security as a whole is degraded, there is immigration, and the fact that we fight over resources, be it oil or water."

Fabius said 20,000 delegates and a similar number of guests, plus 3,000 journalists, were expected to attend the Paris talks.  He said 195 countries would be represented, but it was not decided which heads of state or government would come.

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