The Strategist

Macron seeks support for environmental initiatives



12/12/2017 - 14:24



French President Emmanuel Macron calls on developed countries and world corporations to allocate more funds to combat global warming and help the poorest countries cope with the effects of climate change, Reuters reports.



Lorie Shaull via flickr
Lorie Shaull via flickr
The French leader is holding the One Planet summit two years after almost 200 governments in Paris agreed on the need to put an end to the strong dependence on fossil fuels and limit the level of global warming.

Macron wants to show that there is progress in achieving these tough goals even after President Donald Trump in June stated that he had brought the United States out of the agreement. According to him, Trump's decision to leave was a call to action for the private sector.

"If we decide not to move and change our ways of production, investments and how we behave, we will be responsible for billions of victims," Macron told the American television channel CBS News.

Although Macron said that concrete projects with real financing are not enough, the summit will not announce international commitments.

The focus is on how public and private financial institutions can mobilize more money and how investors can put pressure on corporate giants to move to more environmentally friendly strategies.

More than 200 institutional investors with assets of $ 26 trillion reported on Tuesday that they will increase pressure on the world's largest corporate sources of greenhouse gas emissions to combat climate change.

Earlier it was reported that the US President Donald Trump announced in early June the US withdrawal from the Paris agreement on climate.

In his speech at a press conference in front of the White House, Donald Trump said that the Paris climate agreement puts the US at a disadvantage in relation to other countries.

Shortly before the US President's official statement on the withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, the New York Times noted that "the United States is the largest carbon contaminant in history." 

source: reuters.com