Boys look at a hot air balloon of the environmental group Greenpeace, near the Eiffel Tower ahead of the 2015 Paris Climate Conference, in Paris, Saturday, Nov. 28, 2015. The conference with more than 100 heads of state is scheduled to start on Nov.30. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

Hollande, activists gear up for critical climate talks

By THOMAS ADAMSON
AP

PARIS (AP) — French President Francois Hollande met with environmental groups Saturday, pushing for an ambitious global deal to reduce man-made emissions blamed for global warming — with emphasis on helping developing countries adapt to a changing world.

The talks in the Elysee Palace came as President Barack Obama, the leaders of China, Russia and more than 140 other countries prepare to converge on Paris to launch two weeks of high-stakes talks.

Leaders and climate negotiators from 196 countries meeting at the U.N. talks Nov. 30-Dec. 11 will try to hash out the broadest, most lasting deal to date to slow global warming.

Saturday’s meeting and the talks are taking place under extra-high security after Islamic extremists killed 130 people in Paris on Nov. 13.

Security was already planned to be tight even before the attacks, given the throng of government leaders attending.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Saturday that just under a thousand people thought to pose security risks have been banned from entering the country since tighter border controls were enforced earlier this month in the run-up to the COP21 climate talks and in the wake of France’s deadliest attacks in recent memory.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius hands over the keys of Le Bourget to United Nations climate conference

Later Saturday, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius symbolically handed over the “keys” to the climate conference to the U.N. climate change agency, which will oversee the two-week talks. Fabius and Hollande have traveled the world this year and used France’s diplomatic weight to try to rally international support for a tough and binding deal.

“The keys to the (conference) are now in the hands of the U.N., a symbolic key of hope,” Fabius tweeted after handing over a giant key to Christiana Figueres, head of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Figueres, speaking at a joint news conference, evoked a moral, economic and technological imperative “to act now on climate change.”

“On the 11 of December (when the conference closes) I want to be able to pronounce six simple words that will be the outcome of unprecedented efforts,” Fabius said: “The Paris agreement has been approved.”

The last global climate treaty, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, required only rich countries to reduce emissions and the U.S., the world’s biggest emitter, didn’t take part.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, left, and United Nations climate chief Christiana Figueres.

The changing of the guard for the climate conference means that U.N. security now takes over the watch inside the vast conference site outside Paris, while 2,800 French forces guard surrounding zones during the two-week conference.

The talks are happening with France in a state of emergency and thousands of troops and police fanned out to ensure security after the Paris attacks.

A big march by environmental activists was canceled because of the security measures. Activists are still planning other small actions around France and other countries.

Greenpeace anchored a hot air balloon next to the Eiffel Tower on Saturday bearing the words “rise up for renewables.”

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Elaine Ganley in Paris, Nico Garriga and Theodora Tongas at Le Bourget contributed to this report.

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