What is the Paris forum expected to achieve?

The so-called Major Economies Forum brings together 17 of the biggest world economies— including the United States, the European Union and China. These countries also account for about 80 percent of the world’ s energy consumption and human-induced greenhouse gas emissions.
    The Paris forum is the second of three Major Economies meetings, an idea proposed by the Obama administration. The third is scheduled to take place in Mexico next month.
    Washington hopes the meeting in Paris will find common ground on issues like green technology and ways to finance climate prevention programs ahead of a major UN climate change summit in Copenhagen in December. During that summit, countries will try to agree to a successor to the Kyoto global warming protocol, which expires in 2012.