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U.S. President Obama applauds climate pact reached in France

Speaking in a televised address from the White House, U.S. President Barack Obama said the new agreement, reached by nearly 200 countries at the COP21 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Le Bourge, France, near Paris, offered “the best chance we have to save the one planet we have.”

“I believe this moment can be a turning point for the world,” Obama said, according to the Associated Press.

“We’ve shown that the world has both the will and the ability to take on this challenge,” he said.

The agreement mandates pollution cuts aimed at keeping world temperatures from rising more than 2 percent and sets up a panel to review each country’s adherence to that goal.

The limit is seen as essential to avoiding some of the most dire impacts of rising global temperatures, such as melting polar ice caps, rising seas; inundation of entire islands and extinction of animal species.

“This agreement will mean less of the carbon pollution that threatens our planet and more of the jobs and economic growth driven by low-carbon investments,” Obama said.

The COP21 agreement does not take effect until at least 55 countries responsible for at least 55 percent of world pollution agree, the AP said.

China is blamed for 24 percent of greenhouse gas releases, the U.S. for 14 percent.

“Today, the American people can be proud — because this historic agreement is a tribute to American leadership,” Obama said.

“Over the past seven years, we’ve transformed the United States into the global leader in fighting climate change,” he said.

But for all of Obama’s optimism, the pact faces a tenuous reception in the United States, as the president’s Republican Party opposition quickly lined up to oppose the deal.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky accused Obama of “making promises he can’t keep, writing checks he can’t cash, and stepping over the middle class to take credit for an ‘agreement’ that is subject to being shredded in 13 months,” when the president leaves office.

Republican Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma said Americans can expect the government to cite the agreement as an excuse for placing emission limits on every sector of the U.S. economy.

Imhofe also took issue with provisions establishing a global fund to extend help to poor nations severely impacted by rising sea levels.

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