COP21: World at breaking point, says Francois Hollande

World leaders have launched an ambitious attempt to hold back the earth’s rising temperatures, with French president Francois Hollande saying the world was at breaking point in the fight against global warming.

Some 150 heads of state and government, including US president Barack Obama and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, urged each other to agree in two weeks of talks to steer the world away from fossil fuels.

They arrived at UN climate change talks in Paris with high expectations and armed with promises to act. After decades of struggling negotiations and the failure of a summit in Copenhagen six years ago, some form of landmark agreement appears all but assured by mid-December.