While claiming that as a developing country and a tropical island nation, Sri Lanka is highly exposed to the impact of climate change, President Maithripala Sirisena emphasized the need to have deep cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions by developed countries considering the historical responsibility.

He said everyone needed to embrace the principle of common but different responsibilities and respective capabilities in order to keep the temperature increase below two degrees Celsius in this century.

Addressing the United Nations Conference on Climate Change — 2015, in Paris, France yesterday he further said "even though our per capita emission was low and insignificant in the global sense, we had contributed and will contribute to global mitigation efforts".

“On the domestic front, I am glad to declare that Sri Lanka has launched several Climate Smart Initiatives,” the President added.

The President also said that changes in temperature, rainfall variation and sea level rise would directly impact almost all sectors of our economy, including agriculture, fisheries, livestock, water, biodiversity, health, human settlements, tourism and transport.

“Occurrences of natural disasters due to extreme weather conditions such as droughts, floods and landslides frequently deprive lives and livelihoods of the people in Sri Lanka. We consider that the transfer of technology to developing countries will ensure that people will be able to address the need of adaptation and nationally suitable mitigation actions.”

“Even though our per capita emission is low and Insignificant in the global sense, we have contributed and will contribute to global mitigation efforts. On the domestic front, I am glad to declare that Sri Lanka has launched several Climate Smart Initiatives.”

“As a Buddhist I strongly believe that Gautama Buddha was the greatest environmentalist who was born to this world. Lord Buddha was the first visionary to speak about the concept of sustainable development,” the President said.