A "binding" climate agreement with assurances of cash for developing nations will be the measure of success for a UN summit starting in Paris next week, French President Francois Hollande said Tuesday.

"The solution will be found in finance," Hollande told L'Express magazine on how to avoid deadlock at the summit tasked with curbing dangerous climate change.

"It will be a kind of revolution if the near-totality of countries in the world approve a binding agreement including obligations and commitments on finance," he said, invoking France's 1789 revolution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man it spawned.

More than 145 world leaders are set to gather in the French capital Monday to launch the 12-day conference.

The 195-nation UN climate forum is negotiating a universal pact to cap global warming at two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above mid-19th century levels, and lock in financial support for poor and vulnerable countries most exposed to rising seas, superstorms and crippling drought.

How much money, and where it will come from, have emerged as make-or-break issues at the fraught talks, which are entering their third decade.

"The emerging countries -- India, Brazil, China, South Africa -- do not want the fight against global warming to restrain their economies," Hollande told the weekly.

"We have to construct a system that can provide them with finance and access to new technologies to shorten the fossil energy phase" of their growth, he said.

Developing nations -- including India, the world's third-biggest country emitter -- have made CO2 emission curbs and greening their economies contingent on financial aid, especially for technology.

China, the world's biggest carbon polluter, has set no such condition. Indeed, it has become a donor, pledging $3.1 billion in aid.

Hollande said world leaders should approach the fight against climate change and the Islamic State -- responsible for the worst terrorist attack in French history, with 130 killed and hundreds injured on November 13 -- "with the same urgency."

The French president, who was to meet US President Barack Obama in Washington Tuesday, also said the two issues are linked because drought and hunger are exacerbated by climate change.

"Even if we solve the problem of Syria, we will still be confronted with the migration of millions of people forced to move because they can't cultivate their land," he said.

"This disorder can engender new conflicts."

147 world leaders to attend Paris climate summit: France
Paris (AFP) Nov 24, 2015 - A total 147 heads of state and government so far will attend a climate summit due to start in Paris next week, the French government said Tuesday.

The November 30-December 11 conference is tasked with signing the first-ever truly universal pact to curb global warming, and opens just two weeks after jihadists killed 130 people in the French capital.

France has said there had been no cancellations, and US President Barack Obama has urged fellow world leaders to come to Paris "to send a signal that the viciousness of a handful of killers does not stop the world from doing vital business."

A French foreign ministry official told AFP that "147 heads of state and government are expected" at the highly-anticipated Conference of Parties.

This would make it one of the biggest gatherings ever of world leaders outside the UN General Assembly in New York.

The previous largest climate gathering in Copenhagen in 2009, amassed some 115 world leaders, according to the UN climate forum.

France has insisted it will not "give in" to violence by postponing a summit which must produce a deal committing all the world's nations to climate action starting in 2020.

Gunmen and suicide bombers killed 130 people out for dinner, drinks and a concert on the night of November 13, prompting the authorities to cancel two mass rallies that had been organised to coincide with the summit.

The conference itself will gather some 40,000 delegates, journalists, observers and exhibitors.

The meeting's goal is to produce a pact that can limit average global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-Industrial Revolution levels.

This is the threshold beyond which scientists warns our planet will become increasingly inhospitable -- racked by superstorms, drought and land-gobbling sea level rise.

About 170 countries have already filed voluntary carbon-curbing pledges to underpin the future pact, but scientists say the aggregate effect falls far short and Earth is on course for warming of about 3 C, or more.

Negotiators remain deeply divided, with rich and developing nations arguing about who must do what to curb carbon emissions, and who must pay.