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Obama talks climate change on Facebook

November 10, 2015

The US president has joined the world's largest social media platform with a call to action on climate change. The move follows a UN statement that emissions have hit an 800,000-year high.

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On Facebook, Obama talks climate change
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/J. Scalzo

US President Barack Obama announced Monday his entry to social media platform Facebook with a personal page.

"Hello, Facebook! I finally got my very own page. I hope you'll think of this as a place where we can have real conversation about the most important issues facing our country,"

The US president's Facebook page garnered more than 300,000 likes within a couple of hours of being announced.

Obama took the moment as an opportunity to discuss the need to combat climate change in a video showing him stroll through the White House's grounds.

'We've got to preserve this planet'

"I say this often, but that's because it's always at the front of my mind: We've got to preserve this planet of ours for our kids and grandkids. And that means taking serious steps to address climate change once and for all," the president said in his first Facebook post.

"In a few weeks, I'm heading to Paris to meet with world leaders about a global agreement to meet this challenge," Obama said.

World leaders will gather in Paris at the end of November to hash out a much-needed deal to significantly reduce emissions globally and tackle the effects of climate change.

Global impact

The World Bank on Sunday said that without a deal to curb the impact of global warming, millions more people will likely be pushed into extreme poverty.

"Without rapid, inclusive and climate-smart development, together with emissions-reductions efforts that protect the poor, there could be more than 100 million addition people in poverty by 2030," the World Bank said in a report.

The report comes as the UN World Meteorological Organization said on Monday that carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide emissions are at their highest in at least 800,000 years.

"I hope you'll join me in speaking out on climate change and educating your friends about why this issue is so important… If we're all in this together, I'm confident we can solve this and do right by future generations," Obama concluded his first Facebook post.

ls/jm (AP, AFP)