President Nicolas Sarkozy laid out an extensive program of environmental legislation on Thursday aimed to put France in the vanguard of the battle against climate change.

Sarkozy held his speech about France’s new green program at the Elysee Palace in front of an audience that included this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner, Al Gore, the 2004 recipient, Wangari Maathai, and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.

"The time for action has come. We have waited too long; we can not wait any longer," Sarkozy stated.

His speech came just as the meetings of a two-day eco-summit held in Paris had finished. The summit came up with a set of proposals for legislation to combat global warming. The eco-summit was held after three months of negotiations and discussions led by Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo.

Before the French president held his speech, former American vice president Al Gore stepped up on the podium and spoke about the fact that the climate change had become a "global emergency," and praised Sarkozy’s initiative through which, according to Gore, he became “a great friend of the people of the planet."

"We can no longer consider any political project without thinking about the challenge of climate change," said Sarkozy, who also underlined the fact that in the future all the projects would be checked up in terms of their "climate costs".

During his speech the president also made the promises that France won’t build any more nuclear power reactors. As for the one already build and functioning, he said that France could not "give up this form of energy."

"We must improve our energy efficiency by 20 per cent by 2020," he said. "Our sole pertinent aim is to reduce our dependency on carbon."

Sarkozy also announced that the French government made plans to invest 1 billion euros (1.43 billion dollars) over the next four years in the fuels and engines of the future.