PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron will on Tuesday urge wealthy countries and global companies to commit more funds to combating global warming and help poorer nations deal with the impact of climate change. Macron is hosting the “One Planet” summit on the two-year anniversary of the Paris climate accord, which saw nearly 200 governments agree to end their heavy reliance on fossil fuels and limit further global warming. Macron will want to show that progress towards those hard-fought goals is being made, even after President Donald Trump said in June that he was withdrawing the United States from the pact. The French leader said Trump’s decision to withdraw was a “deep wake-up call for the private sector” to take action. “If we decide not to move and not change our way to produce, to invest, to behave, we will be responsible for billions of victims,” he told US television channel CBS News. Developing nations say the rich are not on track with a broader commitment in the Paris accord to provide $100 billion a year by 2020 – from public and private sources alike – to help them switch from fossil fuels to greener energy sources and adapt to the effects of climate change. Though Macron has said that what is missing are concrete projects with real financing, no internationally binding commitments will be announced. Some 50 world leaders are due to attend the Paris meeting, including Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and leaders of states at the sharp end of climate change such as Chad, Madagascar and Peru. The United States will send only an official delegation from the Paris Embassy, but superstars Leonardo Di Caprio and Arnold Schwarzenegger and California Governor Jerry Brown, leader of the world’s sixth largest economy, are due to champion a more concerted effort to tackle global warming. There will be a focus on how public and private financial institutions can mobilise more money and how investors can pressure corporate giants to shift towards more ecologically friendly strategies. Published in Daily Times, December 13th 2017.