Xi expected to spur world leaders to climate agreement

President Xi Jinping is expected on Monday to galvanize global action to reach a historic, balanced and fair agreement on managing global carbon emissions after 2020.

Xi is to address the opening of the long-awaited United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Paris.

He is expected to defend the interests of developing economies on climate change by urging rich countries to transfer technology and capital.

A total of 147 global leaders are attending the conference just two weeks after a series of terrorist attacks left 130 dead and hundreds wounded in the French capital.

The world leads are relying on their negotiating teams to strike a landmark climate-change deal after the UN concluded the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 and the Copenhagen Accord in 2009.

Xi arrived in Paris late on Sunday before heading to Zimbabwe and South Africa. The Africa tour is the final one of his many visits this year. Xi has visited up to 40 countries since taking office in early 2013.

Observers say Xi may entrust his negotiating team with more flexibility to maximize global efforts to limit temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius until the end of this century.

They say this would occur only if advanced economies commit more at the negotiating table. China has already announced an ambitious plan to boost its energy intensity while announcing that its carbon emissions will peak around 2030.

Observers have also been keeping a close watch on the actions of Xi and US President Barack Obama after they made two statements on climate change in 2014 and this year.

Niels B. Christiansen, president and CEO of Danfoss, a global producer of products and services, said China has been "quite proactive" in building a low-carbon economy with the launch of a "green revolution" under Xi's leadership.

"We believe China will take a more active role at the upcoming conference as its importance in the global economy continues to grow," Christiansen said.

China has a long-term commitment to energy conservation and reducing emissions — aiming by 2030 to cut its energy intensity by 60 to 65 percent per unit of GDP from the 2005 level.

"This demonstrates that China sees energy efficiency as the most efficient solution to succeed in its green revolution. We expect President Xi to give the world greater confidence in global efforts to deal with the climate challenge at the conference," he said.

Samantha Smith, leader of the World Wide Fund for Nature Global Climate and Energy Initiative, said Xi's presence in Paris is critical as it shows China's top leadership is committed to getting an agreement.

"China's interaction with the US and other countries has been quite important in the run-up to the conference," Smith said.

She said China has made joint announcements with a number of countries and with the BASICS negotiating group.

The BASIC group refers to Brazil, South Africa, India and China. The bloc was formed in November 2009, with the four nations committed to act jointly at the Copenhagen climate summit.

Isabel Hilton, CEO of the China Dialogue Trust in London, said the presence of Xi and other leaders in Paris shows the serious commitment to tackling climate change.

"Without political leadership, it will not be possible to make the necessary progress on limiting emissions," Hilton said.

She said the climate deal reached by China and the US last year was one of the most important signals ahead of the Paris conference. It helped to remove one of the most serious obstacles to progress — the lack of cooperation between the world’s two biggest emitters, Smith said.

This lack of cooperation was an important factor in the failure of the climate change conference in Copenhagen, so it was very encouraging to see both China and the US agree to cooperate, she said.

Dale Jamieson, a professor of environmental studies at New York University, said Xi’s attendance in Paris along with the other leaders is very important as he has indicated that he wants China to be part of the solution to climate change.

As the two biggest emitters of climate-changing gases, climate change cannot be addressed effectively without China and the US each doing its part, Jamieson said.

"China has also been a strong advocate in both words and deeds of the Green Climate Fund, which will help developing countries adapt to climate change," Jamieson said.

"China's actions will help Obama make his case that the United States should contribute significantly to this fund as well."

Gao Shuang contributed to this story.