EU Climate Head Warns International Agreement Far From Certain

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The Wall Street Journal

BRUSSELS—Days before negotiations for a global deal to fight climate change kick off in Paris, the European Union’s climate and energy czar warned that an agreement is far from certain.

Next Monday, world leaders will open two weeks of talks in the French capital on how to protect the planet from the potentially catastrophic consequences of global warming. If successful, the Paris climate conference, also known as COP 21, could, for the first time, bind developed and developing countries into cutting greenhouse-gas emissions.

But after four years of preparations, big gaps remain among the 195 governments that have to agree unanimously on any deal. At a summit of the Group of 20 industrialized and developing nations this month, some governments questioned central elements of the deal—including the overall target of keeping global temperatures from rising more than two degrees Celsius—that many participants thought had long been agreed.

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