*** 'Life on planet at stake', France warns as climate ministers meet | THE DAILY TRIBUNE | KINGDOM OF BAHRAIN

'Life on planet at stake', France warns as climate ministers meet

France's top diplomat, who will preside over a year-end Paris summit tasked with inking a global pact to rein in global warming, warned Sunday of a looming planetary "catastrophe".

With the key UN conference just three weeks away, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius also announced that Russia's President Vladimir Putin would attend the November 30 opening.

Russia, a major oil producer, is seen as a deal-maker or breaker in the years-long attempt to negotiate the world's first truly universal pact to rein in global warming by curbing climate-altering greenhouse gas emissions.

"It is life on our planet itself which is at stake," Fabius told journalists as ministers and climate envoys from 70 countries met in the French capital for pre-summit talks to iron out tough political questions.

"There is absolute urgency," he added, in chasing the UN goal of limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-Industrial Revolution levels.

The UN's climate science panel has warned of an average temperature rise of "four, five, six degrees, if we do not act extremely quickly," said Fabius.

"This would have catastrophic consequences because there would be drought... and colossal migration problems, including problems of war and peace."

The three-day ministerial gathering, from Sunday to Tuesday, must seek political convergence on key political issues still dividing nations negotiating for a climate pact.

It is meant to be inked by ministers at the end of a November 30-December 11 UN summit, crowning years of tough bartering.

That meeting is set to be opened by UN chief Ban Ki-moon and some 100 heads of state and government including US President Barack Obama, China's Xi Jinping, Narendra Modi of India and now Putin.

The Paris agreement will be the first uniting all the world's nations in curbing climate-altering greenhouse gas emissions from burning coal, oil and gas.

Caption: French Foreign minister and president of the COP21 Laurent Fabius (C) visits the installations of the 21st Session of the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP21/CMP11) in Le Bourget, near Paris.

Photo: www.tribune.com.pk