Leaders said to pledge billions to find climate-change remedies

An activist is arrested by riot police Sunday near the Place de la Republique in Paris during a protest ahead of a climate conference.
An activist is arrested by riot police Sunday near the Place de la Republique in Paris during a protest ahead of a climate conference.

PARIS -- Government and business leaders are banking on clean-energy technology to fight global warming, kicking off this week's high-stakes climate-change negotiations by pledging tens of billions of dollars for research and development.

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AP

President Barack Obama and French President Francois Hollande place fl owers at the Bataclan, site of one of the Paris terrorist attacks, after Obama arrived in the city for the United Nations conference on climate change.

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AP

Policemen clash with activists Sunday during a protest at the Place de la Republique in Paris.

Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates, President Barack Obama and French President Francois Hollande are expected to announce the new initiative today, committing to spend tens of billions of dollars for a technological fix to the planet's climate woes, three current and former officials told The Associated Press.

"It's quite a big deal," said Jennifer Morgan, global climate director for the World Resources Institute. "It brings a new kind of burst of energy into the conference right at the beginning on something very important."

The U.N. climate summit formally opened Sunday afternoon with a minute of silence for the victims of this month's Paris attacks and vows not to let terrorism derail efforts to slow or stop climate change.

The effort to develop clean energies initially involves eight countries -- France, the U.S., India, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Canada and Norway -- according to a French official, who asked not to be named for lack of authorization to speak. These countries would pledge to double their spending on low- or no-carbon energy, according to an early version of a document obtained by the AP.

Obama revealed no details Sunday as he traveled to the talks but wrote on his Facebook page that "we'll work to mobilize support to help the most vulnerable countries expand clean energy and adapt to the effects of climate change we can no longer avoid."

"Our businesses and workers have shown that it's possible to make progress toward a low-carbon future while creating new jobs and growing the economy," he wrote. "Our economic output is at all-time highs, but our greenhouse gas emissions are down toward 20-year lows."

The U.S. is the world's second-largest climate polluter, surpassed only by China, and Obama has pledged that the U.S. will cut its overall emissions by 26 percent to 28 percent by 2030.

The goal in Paris, he said, was a long-term framework for more reductions, with each nation setting targets that other countries can verify.

Obama scheduled meetings with the leaders of China and India to underscore how developing nations are embracing the effort to combat climate change. Also on the agenda were sessions with the leaders of a few island nations, to highlight "the existential challenge" they face from rising sea levels, said Ben Rhodes, the president's deputy national security adviser.

Existential threat

The 53-nation Commonwealth has agreed that climate change poses an "existential threat" to some of its member states, and urged participants at the Paris climate talks to produce a legally binding agreement on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

The Commonwealth -- a grouping of Britain and many of its former colonies that is home to more than 2 billion people -- includes industrialized economies such as Canada and Australia, India and small island states vulnerable to rising sea levels.

"Climate change actually unites us, puts us all in the same canoe," Baron Waqa, president of the tiny Pacific island nation of Nauru, said at a news conference Sunday at the end of the biennial Commonwealth summit in Malta. "When a big wave comes, that canoe is going to be washed away, and everyone in it."

In a statement, Commonwealth leaders said "many of our most vulnerable states and communities are already facing the adverse impacts of climate change ... [and] for some it represents an existential threat."

Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma said one country had expressed reservations on that point. He did not identify the dissenting country.

The Commonwealth leaders called for developed nations to spend $100 billion a year by 2020 to help developing countries deal with the effects of climate change.

The U.S. has cast doubt on whether Paris will produce a legally binding deal. Secretary of State John Kerry said this month that there were "not going to be legally binding reduction targets" agreed at the meeting.

Convincing developing nations of the merits of phasing out fossil fuel remains a sticking point in the negotiations, said Jake Schmidt, international program director at New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council. He was briefed on the partnership by U.S. and French government officials.

"The idea is to show that these countries and these entrepreneurs are going to step up their effort to help speed up the kinds of emissions cuts we're going to need," Schmidt said.

Leaders sign on

Led by Gates, about 20 private business leaders have signed on to the initiative, making their pledges conditional on governments also pledging more money, said a former U.S. government official who is familiar with the plan.

The pledged money would focus on research and development of technologies such as energy storage, which could make better use of clean power from wind and solar regardless of the vagaries of weather.

"[The business leaders] are committed to making increased investments in existing technologies and new breakthrough technologies to lower the cost of emissions reductions," the former U.S. government official said, adding that Gates is particularly concerned about alleviating the "energy poverty" that denies power to millions of people in India and elsewhere.

But a multinational research effort combining the investments of governments, corporations and private individuals could create intellectual property problems. It also remains to be seen how much of this money is new and how much will involve repackaging old promises.

"The Obama administration recognizes that this is a fundamental competitive advantage for the United States," the former U.S. official said, but getting such funds approved by a Republican-controlled Congress could be difficult.

Storing electricity is especially crucial for wind and solar power, which can be intermittent because of the weather. Improving batteries is key, and there have been breakthroughs both in technology and production announced this year, including by space and electric car tycoon Elon Musk, whose Gigafactory has begun producing large batteries for home power storage to make solar and wind power more viable.

Security forces increased

As low-level negotiators began to arrive Sunday in Paris, armed security was noticeable nearly everywhere at the Le Bourget center, and 200 to 300 people violated a national ban on protests under the state of emergency France declared when extremists killed 130 people in Paris on Nov. 13.

French authorities detained more than 200 people after a peaceful demonstration in Paris in favor of a global climate accord turned into a violent clash between riot police and masked protesters.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said 174 people were jailed for possible charges. He said, separately, that 26 people have been placed under house arrest, stressing they weren't militants but people known for violence in the past.

Television images showed demonstrators throwing projectiles at police who charged crowds and dragged people away in clouds of tear gas near the Place de la Republique, a traditional rallying place for marches.

The demonstrators have "nothing to do with the environment supporters or with the climate summit. They were just there to create incidents," Hollande said in Brussels. He called the events "scandalous."

Cazeneuve blamed a "violent minority" made up of dozens of masked individuals, whom he condemned for desecrating a memorial made of flowers and candles for the victims of the Nov. 13 attacks.

Earlier in the day, thousands formed a human chain near the square and called on the world leaders in Paris for the climate talks to reach a global agreement to lower carbon emissions. Parisians also laid thousands of shoes on the square to symbolize a planned pro-climate-deal march that was canceled.

The earlier events were "peaceful and successful" and shouldn't be confused with others by groups who wanted to "provoke" police, Cazeneuve said.

The climate activist group 350.org, which had organized some gatherings, distanced itself from the violence, and thousands of other people joined peaceful demonstrations Sunday in other European capitals.

Rallies also took place in London, Germany and Spain, according to organizers, officials and participants at those gatherings.

Information for this article was contributed by Sylvie Corbet, Karl Ritter, Seth Borenstein, Philippe Sotto, Angela Charlton, Nancy Benac, Elaine Ganley, Jill Lawless and Harold Heckle of The Associated Press; and by Alex Nussbaum and Tara Patel of Bloomberg News.

A Section on 11/30/2015

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