President Park Geun-hye on Monday called for stepped-up efforts to bridge the difference between rich and poor countries over a climate change deal, vowing to take an active role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and to provide green technologies and finance for developing countries.

At an opening of a U.N. conference on climate change held in Paris, Park expressed South Korea’s commitment to its voluntary action plan to tackle global warming. In June, the country pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 37 percent by 2030 from 850.6 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalents, an amount Seoul says it would reach if it lets business run as usual.

Also, she suggested ways to help climate-vulnerable countries enhance their capabilities to tackle the global warming. Park has said responses to climate change should be as viewed as “an opportunity to secure a new growth engine, not a burden.”

The South Korean leader was participating in the summit designed to build political momentum for arduous negotiations on the deal that would limit emissions of the greenhouse gases.

The summit brought leaders from about 150 countries together, including U.S. President Barack Obama, Chinese leader Xi Jinping as well as U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Leaders and negotiators also condemned the Nov. 13 terror attacks that killed 130 people killed in the French capital, vowing to strike the climate change deal in honor of the victims.

The summit kicked off nearly two weeks of talks aimed at ending two decades of the global bickering with the pact. The conference is set to try to produce a deal that will be applicable to all countries and seeks to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius. More than 160 countries ― which account for about 90 percent of global emissions ― have put forward climate targets for post-2020.

Scientists have warned that the world would face catastrophic events such as rising sea levels and droughts without global action against climate change.

South Korea has been maintaining a balanced approach to narrow the deep divides between the rich and poor nations. Many poor nations have said that the advanced countries are mainly responsible for tackling the problem, stressing they were the ones that had consumed the most fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution in the course of their economic growth.

But the group of rich nations, including the U.S., have urged major emerging countries as China and India to take bigger roles as they are burning a considerable amount of coal to accelerate their manufacturing strength. Park joined a session to congratulate the launch of a separate pledge by 20 countries to double their investments in clear energy.

Businesses worldwide have also expressed concern over the financial burden expected from the climate change pact.

The South Korean government, for instance, plans to achieve its action plan partly by operating a cap-and-trade system that put a price on carbon emissions and reduce greenhouse gases. South Korea, the first Asian country to participate, launched an Emissions Trading System this year. In order to achieve the goal of its voluntary action plan, the 525 Korean companies participating the trading system will be tasked to shoulder 1.5 billion won ($1.3 million) of the cost per year, according to industry sources. The top 10 greenhouse gas-emitting Korean companies in the fields of steel, petrochemical and power generation will be slapped with about 489.7 billion won in additional expenses, they said.

Later in the afternoon, she was also set to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the Paris forum. The summit was their second in two years, and the two leaders were expected to discuss a wide range of issues on economy, trade and regional security.

Top agendas also included North Korea’s nuclear weapon development. Russia is one of six nations involved in a multilateral negotiation platform aimed at ending Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program in exchange for economic aid and political concessions.

By Cho Chung-un, news reports (christory@heraldcorp.com)