MANILA (Sputnik) — The international community must agree on a historic climate change deal at the upcoming annual Conference of Parties (COP) on climate change scheduled to start November 30 in Paris, US President Barack Obama said Wednesday.
The 2015 COP21 seeks a universal and legally binding agreement on climate change for the first time in over 20 years of UN negotiations.
"We want to prevent the worst effects of climate change before it’s too late. We must act now. An ambitious agreement in Paris will prompt investors to invest in clean energy technologies," Obama said at APEC CEO Summit in Manila.
The US president added that a deal on curbing gas emissions would also contribute to job creation.
"There is no contradiction between growth, development and being good stewards of the planet, they are complimentary, we have to break the mindsets that say if we are doing something about climate change it slows growth, we have to accelerate," Obama said.
The US president added that China and the United States, two of the world’s leading greenhouse gas emitters, reached an understanding on this issue.
The world can transition to clean energy without "squeezing businesses and consumers, as innovators come up with new ideas every day," Obama said.
"APEC economies should be supportive of business innovations in efforts to have a good environmental sense," Obama said.
"We can do transition to clean energy without squeezing businesses and consumers," he added.
"I do think there is a role to play in providing tax incentives for the production of clean energy," Obama said.
He stressed that the support is needed at the early stages, and later on, as it happened with the solar energy, less backing would be required.
