Return to Transcripts main page

CNN NEWSROOM

Global Climate Agreement Drawn Up; Humankind's Impact on Global Warming; Kabul Siege Ends, Attackers Killed; Majority Oppose Trump's Muslim Ban; Sex Trafficking Arrests in Peru; U.S. Stocks Plummet as Oil Prices Tumble. Aired 2-2:30a ET

Aired December 12, 2015 - 02:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[02:00:00]

(MUSIC PLAYING)

NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Climate consensus: after days of negotiations an agreement is drawn up at the global climate talks in Paris.

But will all nations agree to it?

The Taliban claims responsibility for a suicide attack in Afghanistan's capital. The Kabul attackers have since been killed.

And hear why CNN's Fareed Zakaria is appalled by Donald Trump's proposal to ban Muslims from entering the U.S.

And you're watching CNN NEWSROOM. Thank you for joining us live from Atlanta. I'm Natalie Allen.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

ALLEN: We begin in Paris where, in the next few hours, the French foreign minister will present a global proposal to combat climate change. After nearly two weeks, negotiators have come to an agreement.

And Laurent Fabius believes the plan will be approved, saying in part, "I hope that all parties will be committed to shouldering their responsibilities and seize this opportunity, as the agreement will be positive for every single country and will give the whole world a chance.

"For the ultimate goal of this agreement is quite simply to allow humankind to live decently."

Earlier, we heard from the head of the Chinese delegation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE through translator): Today, China will fully show its constructiveness, impetus and flexibility to ensure that all COP 21 parties work together. Our final goal is to achieve the agreement to convince people around the world that the mechanism still works. All parties should fully deliver their opinions to make the agreement comprehensive, balanced, powerful and ambitious with restrictions. The agreement should also adapt to the requirements of all parties.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN: A vote on the deal is expected later today. CNN's John Sutter is in Paris for us. He breaks down what's at stake with this agreement.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN SUTTER, CNN DIGITAL CORRESPONDENT: Here at the COP 21 climate change talks in Paris, we've really reached a critical juncture, like sort of a sticking point in these negotiations.

Ministers from around the world, 195 countries, will be haggling through a negotiation to try to figure out how to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, which is seen as the danger zone for climate change.

The stakes here are incredibly high. The pressure is mounting. The consequences of failing to make an agreement here could be extremely huge. We're looking at increased flooding, more severe droughts, sea level rise that could wipe entire nations off the map.

So there's a lot of attention and a lot of pressure on these negotiations. Previous U.N. climate talks have largely failed and, for years now, people have been looking forward to these talks in Paris for countries to actually sort of figure out how to solve the global warming crisis.

What is needed to actually meet these kinds of goals is enormous. We're talking about moving off of fossil fuels almost entirely by mid- century. But we've seen a group of countries called the High Ambition Coalition come together here and say that's possible. We want to sign up for that.

And they include big blocs like the U.S. and the E.U. as well as some African and small island states. We'll see the negotiations continue. We're expecting a new version of the draft agreement and that could be the final text that then all of these negotiators from around the world will get together, air their grievances and then basically say whether or not they want to ratify this and move it forward.

This will be a moment that people who have been watching climate change and other issues like around the world will have their eyes on very, very closely, keen to see what happens here and whether they'll be able to meet this target of limiting warming to 2 degrees -- John Sutter, CNN, Paris.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALLEN: We'll be talking more about it in the next few hours and I want to bring in right now Paul Holland. He's general partner at Foundation Capital, a venture capital firm in California. He's a clean tech expert, joins me live from near Palo Alto, California via Skype.

Paul, thank you for joining us.

PAUL HOLLAND, GENERAL PARTNER, FOUNDATION CAPITAL: Thank you, Natalie.

ALLEN: First of all, it looks like the world is coming together to try and slow climate change.

What is your reaction to what we're hearing?

HOLLAND: Well, I think we have to celebrate the fact that they've really made some progress in Paris. There are a lot of barriers, many of the barriers really occur in country for some of the major countries.

Certainly President Obama has a tough time being able to deliver Congress in terms of a binding agreement. So it was important for COP 21 that it be a nonbinding agreement that really pushes the pressure on the individual countries to achieve some change.

Similarly the push in China, China has always been --

[02:05:00]

HOLLAND: -- kind of hiding behind this notion of we're still a developing economy; don't push us to developed economy standards yet. And it seems as if they're kind of starting to rise to the occasion in terms of what needs to be done.

ALLEN: Right, because you do a lot of business in China, you travel there quite a lot. It does seem like that China is willing to put its money where its mouth is and make some changes.

HOLLAND: Yes, I think the Chinese are really being pushed in this direction by a couple of different things. One, this notion of coming to the table as being really one of the top powers in the world. I think that that's going to happen. They really have to mature their processes as it relates to things like climate agreements.

And the second part is that the Chinese environmental situation is nothing short of a disaster. Anybody who has been to Beijing or been to Shanghai or any of the major cities there, the air is just hopelessly polluted. They had the worst alert ever a week ago in the history of the country.

And the rivers are polluted and there's a tremendous amount of sort of lack of trust of the people in the government's ability to be able to provide a clean environment. So I think the timing is coming together both in terms of the international and the domestic issues to where China needs to act.

ALLEN: So let's talk about the clean tech industry; it has seen significant starts and stops over the years.

What would a global commitment mean to clean tech development? HOLLAND: Well, I think you're already seeing in China now, clean tech

is actually still a pretty healthy marketplace, in part, because there's such need and there are a lot of companies that are developing there and so forth.

Of course, as you know in the U.S., we went through this somewhat typical hype cycle in the early 2000s, into the middle 2000s. We had somewhat of a boom there occurred in clean tech.

When the recession hit in 2008, it sort of corresponded to a drop in some energy prices and so it made some of the competing renewable technologies not quite as attractive.

Now that said, there's been more progress made really in the last five or six years than have been in the 30 or 40 years before. Look at companies like Sunrun, which is one of our companies. They -- we got involved with them back in 2008. They had 50 rooftops where they were doing the solar. There are now over 100,000 rooftops that are involved in Sunrun.

And you're looking at companies like that in solar and renewables and so forth. And I think they're now a permanent fixture. And if you come out here to California, as you know, we have this very green home that we live in out here. We live completely off of the oil economy.

There are no oil-based products at all associated with what we do. A lot of us drive electric cars here. I think we're starting to see more and more of that (INAUDIBLE) American Consumer Society. When that happens, that's going to put more and more pressure on the oil economy.

ALLEN: All right. We appreciate your comments, Paul Holland joining us from Foundation Capital. Thank you.

HOLLAND: Perfect. Thanks, Natalie.

ALLEN: Well, with news of a potential agreement, it's important to remember significant climate milestones reached this year and they're not the kind of milestones that we celebrate. And our meteorologist Derek Van Dam is looking into that to remind us why it's so important that Paris reaches some sort of agreement.

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: And Natalie, it's all about the heat trapping greenhouse gases that we specifically talk about, carbon dioxide for instance. It's the first time in 2015 in the month of March that the global CO2 average was above 400 ppm. That is a huge milestone and it impacts our weather, it impacts sea level rise. And I'll explain to you here, just so you can get a better understanding of what's taking place.

This is a graph just showing the past 400,000 years we need to truncate this to show you just how drastic our CO2 increase has been since humans started to interfere with the climate systems, basically the start of the Industrial Revolution, 1880s and when our records began.

That is when we saw that spike in our global surface temperature, already at about 0.8 degrees Celsius.

So what does that mean?

Well, that means our atmosphere has the ability to hold more moisture content. that means increase in frequency of heavy rain events. It also means the melting of Arctic ice and glaciers. And that means sea level rise will be on the increase going forward over the next century.

And it all depends on how much our temperatures across the globe actually warm. And it will impact a lot of our coastal cities, including London. This is just an artist generated image of what could happen if we warm between 2 and 4 degrees Celsius.

Now keep in mind roughly 44 percent of the world's population lives within 150 kilometers of the coasts, lots of cities are susceptible to sea level rise, including London. We also have Sydney, for instance. If we saw a 2-4 degree sea level rise or a temperature increase, this is the sea level rise according to an artist rendering.

And this is also the financial district of Shanghai, another susceptible city to global climate change. And much of Southeast Asia will actually be impacted by sea level rise, more so than --

[02:10:00]

VAN DAM: -- other parts of the world.

And I'm going to end on this, Tropical Storm Melor is actually our latest storm to develop across the Philippines. And just urging more climate action, this is a picture out of Paris of the Eiffel Tower that they're broadcasting some important numbers, 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Hopefully we can keep it below that.

ALLEN: All right. This should be a big day. We'll be coverage the announcements from Paris.

Derek, thank you.

In other news that we're following, in the Afghan capital, a second Spanish police officer has died after a siege in the diplomatic quarter. Officials in Kabul say Afghan forces have killed the attackers. Here's more now from our Nima Elbagir.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Explosions and gunfire heard in the heart of Kabul. As darkness fell on the Afghan capital. Sources tell CNN the Spanish embassy was hit by an apparent car bomb, the Taliban quickly claiming to have begun suicide attacks in the area.

An eyewitness described a massive explosion, saying the powerful blast shook the ground. Afghan security forces cordoned off streets in the area amid reports gunmen may have been holed up in one of the nearby buildings.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is one of the most secure areas of the city but also a place where there's a lot of high-profile targets and the Taliban and other insurgents have carried out attacks in this part of the city before.

ELBAGIR (voice-over): Friday's attack comes on the heels of another just days ago in the southern city of Kandahar, where Taliban gunmen stormed the city's airport, killing at least 50 people and leaving dozens more wounded.

At the same time, leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan met in Islamabad in an effort to repair strained relations as they battle increasing attacks by Islamic extremists in their respective countries.

But this latest attack serves as a reminder of the ongoing war, the challenge facing Afghan security forces and the fact that the Taliban are still a force to be reckoned with -- Nima Elbagir, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALLEN: Heavily armed guards are watching over the U.N. building in Geneva, Switzerland, after the U.S. warned the Swiss city may be the target of a terror attack.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN (voice-over): The warning comes as authorities there searched for at least two people linked to the Paris killings. Geneva's police chief says it is possible that ISIS has a terror cell in Geneva.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN: In the U.S., law enforcement sources tell CNN a friend of San Bernardino attacker Syed Rizwan Farook has admitted to making pipe bombs with the killer.

But Enrique Marquez says he had nothing to do with the devices investigators found at the California killer's home and the attack site. This news comes as authorities attempt to piece together the events surrounding last week's the attack that killed 14 people.

Is Donald Trump taking advantage of American's anxiety after the California attack?

Next, hear why Fareed Zakaria of CNN says yes and he blames Trump for fearmongering.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

ALLEN (voice-over): Also, U.S. and Peruvian police work together to crack a child sex trafficking ring. An American suspect insists he's innocent. CNN's Freedom Project looks at the investigation.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:15:00]

(MUSIC PLAYING)

ALLEN: U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump is not backing down from his call to ban Muslims from traveling to the U.S. However, the CBS News poll shows 58 percent of Americans don't agree with Trump's proposal.

Just 38 percent of Republicans are against it, meaning a slim majority support it. Democrats are overwhelmingly opposed at 73 percent.

CNN host Fareed Zakaria says Trump's views on Muslims appall him as an American and that political leaders have a greater responsibility than what's being shown right now. My colleague, Zain Asher, spoke with Fareed about the election and how Trump has made it so far, despite his controversial comments.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAIN ASHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Joining me now from New York is Fareed Zakaria, the host of CNN's "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS."

So, Fareed, thank you so much for being with us.

You've written a fascinating op-ed in "The Washington Post" about being a Muslim American. When you hear Donald Trump's proposal, this idea that he wants to ban Muslim from the U.S., it is certainly unlikely that that would happen.

When you hear that kind of rhetoric, Fareed, what do you fear the most?

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST: What I fear is that the damage is done, Zain, whether or not the proposal ever happens. If Donald Trump is not going to be president, this proposal is not going to get enacted.

But what it does do is it paints a whole community with this very broad brush and it makes our mainstream Americans suspicious of them. It makes the community, Muslim Americans, more fearful, it makes it more likely that they will isolate themselves, self-segregate.

Look, I've seen this around the world when I've traveled. You know, the Balkans in the 1990s, Iraq before the civil war there, in the India that I grew up in. You can -- it's very easy for communities that have lived together to start getting very fearful and mistrusting each other and self-segregating.

And then all it takes is a spark and you can get a very mighty conflagration.

ASHER: And they feel so isolated, especially in the wake of remarks that are so controversial.

But why do you think that someone like Donald Trump, who says such controversial things and somewhat racist things, to be honest, how can someone like that still be so popular in the United States? He's polling right now at 35 percent.

ZAKARIA: Yes, 35 percent of likely Republican primary voters. So I don't know what the math works out to but it's something like 10 percent of Americans. So it's not as high as it sounds.

But look, Trump is a genius at one thing: he has figured out that there is a large group of Republican primary voters for whom the -- they are voting with their gut. They're not voting with their heads. They're not even, frankly, voting with their hearts, it's their gut.

What I mean by that is he doesn't even have an economic plan. He is a business man running for president. If you asked his supporters --

ASHER: It's very visceral.

ZAKARIA: Right.

He's -- what is his economic plan?

He has no economic plan. He just knows how to get at their gut.

Mexicans, Muslims, to a certain extent he talks about the Japanese and Chinese. But mostly now it's Muslims. You know, he touches these buttons to figure out what's going to get the biggest charge. And right now in the wake of these terror attacks, it's been Muslims.

ASHER: And even when he does talk about proposing to ban Muslims from the United States, he doesn't even ever say how that's actually going to work. But one of our anchors, Alisyn Camerota, sat down with Donald Trump's supporters. Let's listen to what they said to her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: The reason it's controversial is that he singled out Muslims. He didn't say terror suspects. He said Muslims.

What do you think of that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think that's unreasonable to do, because we need to make sure that the people here are safe. And until we can figure out who is allowed into the country and coming in and if we don't know who they are, then we need some sort of protection.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ASHER: So Fareed, when you hear ordinary Americans saying that that is not unreasonable, what is your reaction?

ZAKARIA: Well, look, these are probably good people. They're scared. They're fearful. I don't blame them for having anxieties. They're thinking, as I said, they're responding at a gut level. But I blame politicians like Trump for taking advantage of that anxiety and fearmongering.

Look, the task of leadership in moments of crisis is to really appeal to the better angels within us. We all have dark sides. We all have anxieties. It's very easy to think of some group as "the other," you know --

[02:20:00]

ZAKARIA: -- and to despise them. The task of leadership is to show people how they can live together, not to show how you can blame everybody else for your troubles.

ASHER: To unite people and to help them connect.

OK, Fareed Zakaria live for us, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

ZAKARIA: Pleasure.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALLEN: An American arrested in Peru could face up to 25 years in jail. Peruvian and U.S. authorities accuse him of running a child sex tourism ring out of Lima for the past 10 years. Police say they discovered the criminal network online. CNN's Rafael Romo has our story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN SR. LATIN AFFAIRS EDITOR (voice-over): An early morning operation targeting a foreigner accused of trafficking underaged girls in Peru, 64-year-old Joshua David Brown, an American from New Hampshire, was still in bed at his Lima home when officers stormed his bedroom.

Peruvian and U.S. authorities say Brown facilitated sex tourism and exploitation of children. The raid was the result of a joint Peruvian and American operation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): The American police informed us that the American citizens were traveling to Peru, seeking to have sex with underaged boys and girls. That's what prompted our investigation.

ROMO (voice-over): Police targeted Brown's home as well as eight other houses where five additional suspects, all Peruvian nationals, were detained and now face charges of human trafficking, pimping and pandering.

Authorities rescued 36 victims, including 11 minors. None of the victims were found at Brown's residence.

ROMO: One of the girls rescued was only 4 years old, a victim police say was being offered online for $7,000. Police executed nine search warrants in total, which yielded large amounts of child pornography.

Officers with the Peruvian national police also seized one gun and an unspecified amount of drugs.

ROMO (voice-over): The drugs were found at different locations. Authorities say Brown legally commercialized sex merchandise in Peru and had been living in the South American country for 14 years. He was under surveillance for the last four months. Brown says he's innocent.

JOSHUA DAVID BROWN, SEX TRAFFICKER (through translator): I know exactly what's happening. A person whom I trusted has been trying for weeks to get me in trouble. But I have nothing to do with this.

ROMO (voice-over): CNN has been unable to reach Brown's attorney in Peru. Police say Brown told them he's not a trafficker, although sometimes acted as matchmaker for friends visiting from the United States.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Brown insists that he was not making money doing this. He says that he has some American friends who will visit. He will introduce them to some Peruvian friends.

Peruvian girls, little friends, and that in more than one occasion, his American friends, who were in a better financial situation, will have a romantic relationship with those little friends and will marry them and go live with them in the United States.

ROMO (voice-over): The rescued minors are now in the custody of authorities.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): They were very scared at first about what was happening. Some of them knew and others didn't know what was happening because they didn't know why they were there. They were told they were invited to a party. That's what they were told.

ROMO (voice-over): The crime of human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation carries a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison in Peru. Brown may also face charges in the United States under the PROTECT Act, a law that seeks to protect children from sexual predators -- Rafael Romo, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALLEN: You can go to our website, cnn.com/freedomproject to see how people around the world are making a difference in the fight against modern day slavery. That's cnn.com/freedom.

As oil prices slide, so do the U.S. markets. We'll look at the week's rocky close on Wall Street, next.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:25:00]

(MUSIC PLAYING)

ALLEN: A rough week for investors in U.S. markets. Friday was especially gut-wrenching. The Dow Jones industrial average took a big deep on fears of economic weakness as crude slid to just over $35 a barrel. That's a new 7-year low. CNN's Richard Quest recaps Friday's fall.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: The market has closed down 310 and change and it's off nearly 1.75 percent. And what drove that market lower was the energy stocks, which were hard hit, as crude oil prices dropped.

The selling was broad-based. If you take a look, you can see the Nasdaq was down 2.2 percent, S&P was off nearly 2 percent. The Dow industrials was off. And to put this into perspective, it's the third triple-digit loss this week.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN: Richard Quest there.

Investors are waiting to see whether or not the Federal Reserve raises interest rates next week. If it does, experts say stocks could bounce back.

Tight security in Paris after last month's terror attacks failed to stop a brazen heist at the Chopard jewelry store near the presidential palace. An armed masked robber entered the store at midday, stealing jewels and watches valued at over $1 million. No shots were fired during the robbery. Police are searching for the thief.

We've got a look at a personal flying machine for you. It's what students at the National University of Singapore are working on.

This is a prototype and they've named it Snowstorm. The person flying it can control it or it can be steered remotely. It uses solar power and right now can fly for only about five minutes. But the students say they're trying to make it go longer, of course.

It looks pretty cool.

Thanks for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Natalie Allen. Next it's "MAINSAIL" and your top stories.