Those at risk of climate damage praise agreement

Climate activists and small nations at risk of global warming's direst consequences, welcomed Saturday's agreement by Chinese and US leaders on a global pact to curb planet-harming carbon emissions.

The agreement by President Xi Jinping and US President Barack Obama - representing the world's two largest green-house gas emitters - brought the hard-fought agreement, concluded in Paris in December a major step closer to tak-ing legal effect.

It is "the strongest signal yet that what we agreed in Paris, will soon have the force of law", said Mattlan Zackhras, minister-in-assistance to the president of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, which faces the threat of climate-change-induced sea-level rise.