Some 200 countries represented at the Paris conference on climate change want an agreement at all cost.

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It was as if the entire decision-making mechanism of the world had set up house yesterday at the Le Bourget conference facility in northern Paris where some 150-odd monarchs, Heads of State and executive Prime Ministers and other plenipotentiaries met at the UN Conference on Climate Change.

President Paul Biya led an important Cameroonian delegation to this historic conference which is out to ensure the signing of a binding agreement which will bring all stake-holders together so that, in a united effort, measures can be taken to stop the growing nefarious effects of greenhouse gas emissions which are threatening humanity as a whole.

President Paul Biya addressed the conference yesterday afternoon immediately after the Nigerian Head of State and just before his Chadian counterpart took the floor. Significantly, all the three leaders share stakes in Lake Chad which is a living example of the devastation being caused by climate change, considering that in the past 50 years, the lake’s total area has been reduced from its initial 25,000 km2 to less than 2,500 km2 due largely to its waters drying up and which origins stem from global warming which means gas emissions are largely above the 2°C which the UN climate conference sees as the very maximum if global warming has to stop.

The President was one of those who sounded the note of warning about the absolute necessity to reach an agreement during this conference even if, as he said, Cameroon is a low greenhouse gas emitting country. “We cannot afford to fail”, he told the full conference hall shortly after the formal opening ceremony of the conference. As Cameroon’s contribution to addressing the climate issue, the President of the Republic talked of Cameroon’s determination to reduce the carbon footprint by 32 per cent by 2035 while also controlling desertification and scaling up cooperation with other Central African States within the framework of the Central African Forests Commission and the Lake Chad Basin Commission with regard to water resources management.

Before the conference of Heads of State effectively opened, a pre-conference session had earlier convened to see the formal handing over of the chairmanship of the current conference, dubbed COP ’21, to the French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius from his Peruvian counterpart who hoped that on December 11 when negotiations are expected to end delegates should be able to greet the signing of an agreement on climate change “with some good French wine and champagne”. It is the desire of virtually all delegations whose Heads of State took the floor yesterday. The long session of speeches was expected to end late last night, giving way for negotiations proper.

The various participating States are supposed to have tended in their national proposals which will form the basis of the discussions. The chairperson, Laurent Fabius assured all participants that “every point of view will be taken into consideration” and that there was “no hidden agenda, no hidden text prepared beforehand” and that only what is debated and arrived at will be considered for the eventual agreement so as to ensure unanimity.

From this Tuesday morning, conference participants at expert level will begin the negotiations in four working groups and it is Mr Fabius’ wish that the first drafts come up by the weekend so that Ministers can begin to see if there are any political considerations with regard to what would have been arrived at by the experts. The wish of all is to see a comprehensive, inclusive and binding agreement on December 11.

An important side event yesterday was the joint launching of an International Solar Alliance by the French President François Hollande and the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Mosi. President Biya was represented at the launching by External Relations Minister Lejeune Mbella Mbella. The alliance seeks to bring together countries wanting to promote solar energy as a means of getting the people of the world access cheaper and cleaner energy.

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