French foreign minister calls for urgent climate action with “no alternative planet”

Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister, warned on Monday that the international community must combat climate change as there is “no alternative planet”.

Fabius was speaking at the opening of a two-day meeting in Berlin, Germany for representatives from 35 countries to prepare for the COP21 UN Climate Change Conference to be held in December in Paris.

France’s foreign minister said: “We don’t have the right to fail…We must commit ourselves very resolutely because there isn’t an alternative solution, for the simple reason that there isn’t an alternative planet.”

The talks are taking place under the “Petersberg Climate Dialogue” initiative, launched by German Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2010, to prepare for the key COP21 summit.

French President Francois Hollande and Merkel are scheduled to attend the meeting on Tuesday.

Around 40 countries have submitted carbon emissions reduction plans to the U.N. in advance of the Paris conference and Fabius said:

The deadline for submissions of the climate plans is 30 October and Fabius said: “It’s essential that everyone, starting with the rich countries, publishes them.”

Germany’s environment minister Barbara Hendricks said there was a “moral obligation” to combat climate change and reaffirmed the country’s objective of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 40 per cent by 2020 from 1990 levels.