U.N. Chief Says 'No Plan B or Planet B' in Climate Talks

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Monday urged nations to look beyond narrow interests at an upcoming world climate conference, warning that "we don't have a planet B."

Complaining that global talks aimed at curbing climate change have so far been "slow" and "frustrating" due to negotiators focusing on "narrow national perspectives," Ban urged member states to work faster.

"We don't have any 'plan B' because we don't have any 'planet B'," he told journalists in the Slovak capital Bratislava.

The U.N.'s COP21 conference, running from November 30 to December 11 in Paris, aims at securing a pact on greenhouse gases that would limit global warming to two degrees Celsius (35.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial times.

"Paris is not the destination but it should be a turning point in our efforts to address the climate change," Ban said, adding that he was "reasonably optimistic" the talks would be successful.

The last big push for a world climate deal was in Copenhagen in 2009. It nearly ended in a fiasco after rich and poor countries bickered over how to share the burden for addressing the problem.