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COP26: Obama says world ‘nowhere near’ climate targets

Glasgow, UK, Nov 8 (EFE).- Barack Obama on Monday told the COP26 that the world was “nowhere near” its climate targets and that more needed to be done to achieve the goals set out in the Paris Agreement.

The former United States president addressed a full conference room at the United Nations summit taking place in Glasgow, Scotland.

In a broad speech, he set time aside to take a swipe at his successor Donald Trump, criticized China and Russia’s leader for skipping the COP26 and urged young climate activists not to give up on their cause.

“Back in the United States, some of our progress stalled when my successor unilaterally decided to pull out of the Paris Agreement in his first year of office, I wasn’t real happy about that,” he said.

He argued, however, that the US weathered the “active hostility toward climate science” from Trump’s White House.

“The American people managed to still meet our original commitment under the Paris Agreement.”

“And now, with President (Joe) Biden, and the US administration rejoining the Agreement, the US government is once again engaged and ready to take on a leadership role.”

“We are nowhere near where we need to be yet.”

He continued: “Despite the progress that Paris represented, most countries failed to meet the action plans that they set six years ago and the consequences of not moving fast enough are becoming apparent all the time.”

He added that he was disappointed that neither Xi Jinping nor Vladimir Putin had attended the COP26 summit in Glasgow, saying it appeared to demonstrate “a dangerous lack of urgency.”

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