COP21 in Paris

Could the Paris attacks derail COP21?

Power Play - Could last week's terrorist attacks in Paris derail the major climate change talks due to be held in the city in less than two weeks time?


The Eiffel Tower is illuminated with the French national colors in tribute to the victims of the November 13, 2015 Paris terror attacks. Photo: AFP



Radio NZ,
20 November, 2015



World leaders are due to touch down in Paris at the end of this month to open a meeting that has been heralded as the last chance for a globally binding deal to tackle climate change.

Momentum has been building towards this summit since the failure at the 2009 Copenhagen conference to secure a global deal.

Tens of thousands of delegates, observers and media will be at the meeting, known as COP21, along with dozens of leaders and heads of state.

But the horrific terrorist attacks on 13 November have moved attention from the build-up to the summit, to security and safety in Paris.

The day after the attacks, the French foreign minister was adamant the talks would go ahead although he said there would be enhanced security measures put in place.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has also said no foreign leaders had asked France to postpone the summit, a move he said would amount to "abdicating to the terrorists".

The conference is being held at the Parc des Expositions in Le Bourget, 15km northeast of the city of Paris; the venue was chosen as a robust security perimeter can easily be put in place around the site, and it can be locked down relatively quickly.

Those precautions are likely to be utilised during the fortnight the talks are on, but in particular on the leaders' day.

But it is not only the leaders the French Government is thinking of.

On Thursday it announced that marches planned to run during the conference would not be allowed to go ahead because of security concerns.

Tens of thousands of people were being mobilised to march on the day before the conference started, on 29 November, but also on the final day - 12 December.

The government said in order to avoid additional risks, it would not authorise climate marches in public place.

The environmental groups organising the main actions said they would abide by the ruling, but at the same time said their voices would not be silenced.
Greenpeace France executive director Jean François Julliard said in hundreds of towns and cities across the world people will still march for the climate, for Paris and for a shared humanity.

"We stand for a vision of human cooperation that the murderers sought to extinguish.

"They will not succeed."

Other groups argue COP21 could not take place without the participation of civil society in France.

But those plans may also be reconsidered in the lead up to the meeting itself.

One of the big complaints about the failed Copenhagen meeting in 2009, was the inability of the organisers to cope with the huge numbers of people trying to enter and leave the venue.

With what is likely to be extremely strict and time-consuming security at COP21, this will present a challenge to delegates.

The venue and the meeting itself will also present a tempting opportunity for anyone with an axe to grind to cause serious disruption by making empty threats.
And of course any threat, in the current environment will have to be, and will be, taken extremely seriously.

Leaders, officials and delegates will be sharply aware of the security environment they are in, but their minds will be focussed on the urgency of the task at hand.
Many have also already drawn links between climate change and global security.

A paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concluded human influences on the climate system were implicated in the current Syrian conflict.

It based that conclusion on what it claimed was evidence that the devastating 2007−2010 drought in Syria contributed to the conflict.

US Secretary of State John Kerry has linked climate change and global security a number of times.

Most recently he argued climate change exacerbated resource competition, threatened livelihoods, and increased the risk of instability and conflict, and said areas already facing unrest and instability were breeding grounds for violent extremism.

The Paris attacks have steeled the resolve of leaders to attend the opening of COP21, who have vowed the terrorists' actions will not stop the meeting going head.

The test of that resolve will be whether that momentum can be kept up during the fortnight, in the face of the tense security situation.

_{Organisers of cancelled Paris climate march urge global show of support
People around the world should protest ‘on behalf of those who can’t’, say organisers of climate march forbidden in light of Paris terror attacks}



the Guardian,
19 November, 2015


A march expected to attract 200,000 people onto the streets of Paris ahead of crunch UN climate change talks was forbidden by the French government on Wednesday in light of last Friday’s terror attacks.



But organisers have said it is now even more important for people around the world to come out onto the streets for “the biggest global climate march in history” to protest “on behalf of those who can’t”.

The events are designed to put pressure on the leaders from almost 200 countries who will meet in Paris to thrash out a new deal on limiting greenhouse gas emissions post-2020. The conference is considered the most significant since the talks in Copenhagen in 2009, which were widely considered a failure by environmentalists.



Emma Ruby-Sachs, deputy director of Avaaz , which has organised the march said: “The tragic attacks in Paris have made the march there impossible. Now it’s even more important for people everywhere to march on the weekend of 29 November on behalf of those who can’t, and show that we are more determined than ever to meet the challenges facing humanity with hope, not fear.”



From Kazakhstan to Chile, people are expected to gather across six continents with organisers hoping the numbers will still top the People’s Climate March last year when nearly 700,000 people took to the streets around the world, although they say that numbers will be weather dependent.

The largest march is expected to take place in London, where designer Vivienne Westwood, actor Vanessa Redgrave and musicians Charlotte Church, Peter Gabriel and Kate Tempest have pledged to turn out. Demonstrations are expected across Europe, including a colourful parade in Amsterdam and marches in Madrid and Berlin where protesters will call for the end of coal.



In Alaska in the US, protesters will hike up to a wind turbine on a local mountain while in Melbourne, Australia, people will gather outside the state library, joined by a choir. In Tanzania, 1,000 Maasai are expected to gather and march in Loliondo on the border of the Serengeti national park.



The focus of activity in India will be in New Delhi, but other events featuring yoga, bicycles and walking will take place in seven other cities. Demonstrations led by celebrities and local leaders will end with a concert in Kampala, Uganda’s capital, while in Brazil people will march down Paulista Avenue in central São Paulo.



The world’s scientists have warned that rising emissions created by humans are causing temperatures to rise around the globe. World leaders have agreed it is essential to limit warming to a 2C rise above pre-industrial levels to avoid triggering potentially catastrophic and irreversible impacts, but on current trends the world is likely to warm by twice that amount by the end of the century.



Leaders have expressed hope for progress at Paris after the majority of countries around the world submitted voluntary pledges and measures to reduce their own emissions ahead of this year’s talks, as opposed to the UN imposing top-down targets. But many others have signalled that the fate of the talks will rest on the relationship between developed and developing countries, which have been promised a $100bn-a-year package by 2020 to support them to make the transition to a clean economy.

Paris attacks - COP21 and the war on terror

Is it a coincidence that the terrorist outrage in Paris was committed weeks before COP21, the biggest climate conference since 2009? Perhaps, writes Oliver Tickell. But failure to reach a strong climate agreement now looks more probable. And that's an outcome that would suit ISIS - which makes $500m a year from oil sales - together with other oil producers.

Oliver Tickel

the Ecologist,

14 November, 2015

The first thing to be said about the terrorist attacks on Paris yesterday is that they are a dreadful crime that deserves only the most fervent condemnation.

The attackers showed a total contempt for human life and chose soft, civilian targets where their victims were unable to put up any defence against military grade weaponry.

But we must also ask: Why Paris? And why now?

Yes, France has been especially active in its air strikes against ISIS in Syria. And yes, there there is a huge reservoir of discontent among the socially excluded youth of the banlieue, the concrete jungle of impoverished outer suburbs that surround Paris and other big cities - where ISIS can perhaps find willing recruits to its ranks.

But is that all? In just a few weeks time, the COP21 climate conference will take place, in Paris, the biggest such event since COP15 in Copenhagen six years ago. The event offers the world a desperately needed opportunity to reduce its carbon emissions and limit global warming to 2C.

And that's surely something the attackers, or at least their (presumably) ISIS commanders, must know all about.

Could the attacks and COP21 possibly be related?

To answer that question we should first ask, what do the attacks mean for COP21?

For a start, the negotiations taking place at the conference centre at Le Bourget will surely be even more isolated from Paris itself, and civil society, than they were already going to be. Le Bourget is home to one of Paris's main international airports - perfect for VIPs to fly in and out without ever leaving the airport and conference complex.

Undoubtedly France already had a high level of security planned for Le Bourget. But now, whatever those plans are, they will be redoubled. Expect a ring of steel and concrete to go up.

Expect it to be far harder for accredited journalists, campaigners, activists, even businessmen to gain access to the conference, with stringent searches, long queues, and arbitrary refusals to people who may have travelled thousands of miles to be there.

Expect leaders, politicians, negotiators present at the conference to remain more firmly ensconced in their secure surroundings at Le Bourget - instead of travelling into central Paris to enjoy the city's many charms.

And as for civil society ...

It's estimated that ten thousand or more climate activists from around the world may be planning to stay in Paris for the duration of the conference, both to demand a strong and effective agreement, and to develop their own agenda, alliances and plans for climate action.

There is certain to be a far larger and more repressive security presence around them than previously planned - not just at Le Bourget but in central Paris where most of the events, conferences and demonstrations are due to take place.
Police surely fear the presence of terrorists taking shelter among the climate activists - and in many a policeman's world view, there may be no huge difference between murderous terrorists and (generally) peaceful demonstrators anyway. Both are likely to be seen as the 'enemy'.

Meanwhile the activists could reasonably fear terrorism themselves. What yesterday's attacks tell us is that any target will do. Climate campaigners have no reason to feel any safer than anyone else. And a demonstration of tens of thousands densely packed on the streets of Paris would offer a highly vulnerable target.

So the effect of the attacks on COP21 is likely to be a chilling one. Faced with a combination of terrorist threat, and likely heavy-handed policing, their numbers - and their political impact - are likely to all.

Eyes off the climate ball?

Another outcome that will surely be felt at the highest levels in the conference itself is a loss of focus on the climate, and a refocussing among world leaders present in Paris on terrorism and security.

Yes, negotiators will still be arguing over square brackets in texts as they always do. But the potential of important 'big picture' climate deals cemented between presidents and prime ministers now look less likely than before - for the simple reason that world leaders are likely to take the opportunity of COP21 to talk about more immediately pressing security matters.

So with world leaders distracted from questions of climate, the prospects of serious inter-governmental agreement on the key issues at stake in the talks - from climate finance to the legal status of any agreement reached - have just receded.

Of course, this may all be accidental. Maybe Paris was just hit because of French attacks on ISIS. And maybe the now more likely failure of COP21 to achieve its aims is mere collateral damage in the increasingly savage 'great game' of global power politics.

ISIS Inc defending its corporate interests?

But it may not be. As the FT put it last week in an article titled 'Isis Inc: how oil fuels the jihadi terrorists', "Oil is the black gold that funds Isis' black flag - it fuels its war machine, provides electricity and gives the fanatical jihadis critical leverage against their neighbours ...

"Estimates by local traders and engineers put crude production in Isis-held territory at about 34,000-40,000 bpd. The oil is sold at the wellhead for between $20 and $45 a barrel, earning the militants an average of $1.5m a day ...
"While al-Qaeda, the global terrorist network, depended on donations from wealthy foreign sponsors, Isis has derived its financial strength from its status as monopoly producer of an essential commodity consumed in vast quantities throughout the area it controls. Even without being able to export, it can thrive because it has a huge captive market in Syria and Iraq."

But ISIS's ambitions surely don't stop there. Its aim is to consolidate its hold of the regions it already occupies, extend its empire to new regions and countries, and establish a Caliphate whose power and income will largely derive from oil. So the last thing it needs is a global climate agreement that will, over time, limit global consumption of fossil fuels.

Oil prices are low at around $50 per barrel. The IEA estimates that OPEC states have lost half a trillion dollars a year in revenues since the oil price fell from over $100 a barrel in 2011-2014 to current levels. And this is causing deep tensions among OPEC members - due to meet on 4th December in Vienna to thrash out solutions.

The main problem is that Saudi Arabia is over-producing oil in order to suppress investment in and production of high cost oil in the the US, Canada, UK and other countries - and so capture the lion's share of an oil market it thinks will keep on growing for decades to come.

Thus OPEC scenarios foresee oil demand increasing from 111 to 132 million barrels per day (mb/d) by 2040. However the International Energy Agency thinks that even modest carbon constraints will see demand for oil slump to around 100 mb/d by 2040 - and considerably lower with tough climate policies.

And that is surely an outcome that not just ISIS but all major oil exporters fear and wish to void.

Was it or wasn't it?

So, assuming - as seems probable at this stage - that the Paris outrage was carried out by or for ISIS, was it in any way motivated by a desire to scupper a strong climate agreement at COP21? And so maintain high demand for oil long into the future, together with a high oil price?

Let's just say that it could have been a factor, one of several, in the choice of target and of their timing. And of course ISIS was not necessarily acting entirely on its own. While not alleging direct collusion between ISIS and other oil producing nations and companies, it's not hard to see a coincidence of interests.

So if that is the case, or even if might be the case, there's an important message in it for us all. The effort to shrink the importance of fossil fuels in the global energy landscape - and oil in particular - just took on a whole new dimension.

Yes, it's still about the climate, very much so. But there are also immediate and compelling reasons of national and global security to reduce the world's demand for oil even faster than the IEA's projections.

And an important part of achieving that is to reach a strong agreement in Paris next month, sending a clear message to energy corporations and investors that oil and other fossil fuels are no longer a smart investment - and instead to put their resources into the clean, green, renewable energy technologies of the future.

So as well as standing with France in at this time of horror, we must also take a poweful resolve - and communicate it it ceaselessly to our leaders - for a strong, effective climate agreement: the Paris Treaty.