LE BOURGET (France): US President Barack Obama warned on Tuesday global warming posed imminent security and economic risks, as negotiators embarked on an 11-day race to seal a UN pact aimed at taming climate change.

But, speaking after attending a historic climate summit with 150 other leaders, Obama voiced confidence mankind would make the tough decisions to control rising temperatures.

Obama and others had employed lofty rhetoric on Monday to inject energy into the start of the UN negotiations, which are expected to deliver a global master plan on Dec 11.

The president followed that up with grim warnings for the near future if the temperature curve went unchecked.

“Before long we are going to have to devote more and more of our economic and military resources, not to growing opportunity for our people, but to adapting to the various consequences of a changing planet,” Obama said. “This is an economic and security imperative that we have to tackle now.”

The talks in Paris aim at an accord which, taking effect from 2020, would slash carbon emissions -- the emissions that come mainly from burning fossil fuels --and deliver hundreds of billions of dollars in aid for climate-vulnerable countries.

But it is only the latest chapter in a 25-year-old diplomatic saga marked by spats over burden-sharing and hobbled by a negotiation system of huge complexity.

Behind their vows of support, many leaders have often preferred the short-term benefits of burning cheap and dependable fossil fuels to power prosperity, ignoring the consequences of carbon pollution.

Despite this, Obama said he believed the global political landscape was shifting, boding well for Paris and beyond.

Published in Dawn, December 2nd, 2015