World leaders have urged ambitious action to combat climate change and promised to make greater efforts, but a tough road lay ahead with a year to go for an accord.
At a UN summit in New York held after tens of thousands rallied around the world, France yesterday promised one billion US dollars to the Green Climate Fund making it the only contributor other than Germany to the new institution that would help the worst-hit countries.
But UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called the meeting more to build momentum than to reach concrete achievements.
It was the first such event since the Copenhagen summit on climate change ended in disarray in 2009 and aims to set the tone for a conference next year in Paris designed to seal a new global agreement.
US President Barack Obama said that the problem of climate change is growing faster than the world’s efforts to address it.