United States President Barack Obama in Paris on Monday said that the US, as the world’s second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, recognised its role in creating the problem of global warming and embraced the responsibility for fixing it. According to Reuters, Obama said the growing threat of climate change would define this century more than any other. He set out the likely consequences of inaction against global warming as “submerged countries, abandoned cities, fields that no longer grow. Political disruptions that trigger new conflicts, leaving more floods of desperate people seeking sanctuary in nations not their own.” Obama also praised France for going ahead with the United Nations meet despite the terror attacks on November 13.

Among those who underlined the importance of battling climate change was Pope Francis, who on Monday said that it was “now or never” for world leaders to negotiate rolling back on global emissions. Pope Francis said the situation now was “borderline suicide”, reported Agence France-Presse, and that little had been accomplished on the matter since the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. The Vatican is also being represented at the summit by its secretary of state Pietro Parolin. The 12-day negotiations, taking place under the banner of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, are due to wrap up on December 11.