France
launches global drive for climate deal
Diplomats
mobilised for unprecedented PR push, with Paris summit seen as last
chance to reach agreement
Fiona
Harvey Environment correspondent
Monday
19 October 2015 00.50 BST
France has launched
an unprecedented diplomatic drive to shepherd nations big and small
towards a major climate change deal, ahead of a Paris summit next
month that is the next major make-or-break moment for the movement
against global warming.
Every one of
France’s ambassadors, in embassies and consulates around the globe,
has been educated on the demands of climate change, and instructed in
how to communicate the messages to the governments they deal with,
ahead of the summit, which starts on 30 November.
Ambassadors have
been holding public events, private meetings, talks with their
diplomatic counterparts, businesses, NGOs and even schoolchildren.
At home, the outer
walls of the foreign ministry, a stately 19th-century edifice on the
banks of the Seine, are covered in a series of banners declaring, in
several languages, the messages of Paris Climat 2015. Even the Eiffel
Tower, further down the riverbank, has been pressed into service, lit
up at night with climate slogans.
François Hollande,
the president of France, has been visiting world leaders for the past
year, urging them to come to Paris. Laurent Fabius, foreign minister,
who will be in charge of the talks, has made it his mission, with a
punishing schedule of events and public speaking. Ségolène Royal,
environment minister and co-host, has also been touring capitals and
conferences.
Climate diplomacy
has never seen such a concerted push.
“It’s a top
priority for our diplomacy. All our ambassadors are fully mobilised,
all around the world,” Sylvie Bermann, the French ambassador to the
UK, told the Guardian.
She has hosted a
series of public seminars and events in the UK, with one forthcoming
on climate change and refugees. The embassy itself has also taken on
the green message, with her new official car a hybrid Peugeot 508 –
a French manufacturer, of course.
Even in countries
such as India and Poland where, Bermann said “there might be more
fisticuffs” over climate change, the embassies have been engaging
governments, and in China, where she was posted before coming to
London – she is a fluent Chinese speaker – she notes a major push
involving government and NGOs.
Care has been taken
to involve public opinion, too: there has even been a boat, the
research vessel Tara, sponsored by the French fashion brand Agnès B,
that has toured the US, London, Scandinavia and other regions before
coming home to France.
A special ambassador
has been appointed, Laurence Tubiana, who has also embarked on a
whirlwind tour of capitals and dignitaries.
With three months to
go before the conference, France’s ambassadors were lectured by Ban
Ki-moon, UN secretary-general, who also has a big stake in the
success of Paris, having presided over the previous conference in
Copenhagen in 2009 that was widely derided as a failure, as it
collapsed into scenes of chaos in the final hours.
“For Hollande’s
administration, this is not just about the climate: it is about the
government’s political survival,” one prominent global official
told the Guardian. “They need this to be a success, to have
something to celebrate, as they’re in trouble in so many other
areas of politics.”
At the two-week
summit, governments will meet under the auspices of the United
Nations in the first attempt for six years to forge a new global
agreement on climate change.
COP21, as it is
known in the jargon, is seen as a make-or-break conference, the last
chance for the two-decades-old UN process to bring nations together
to tackle what many scientists regard as the biggest single threat to
humanity.
This week,
governments will gather in Bonn for the last chance before the Paris
conference to amend the text of the potential agreement. Previous
such meetings have produced little progress, however.
For Hollande, whose
low poll ratings have seen him become the most unpopular French
president on record, securing a climate change deal is crucial for
his reputation at home.
France, marked by
high unemployment and economic sluggishness, will go to the polls in
regional elections while the climate talks are wrapping up in
December, in two rounds on 6 and 13 December. Hollande, who still
hopes to run for the presidency in 2017, will seek to use any
successful deal to boost his standing.
Will the climate
diplomacy succeed? Elements of an agreement are slowly falling into
place. Most countries, including all the biggest economies, have now
submitted plans on their emissions to come into force after 2020,
when current commitments expire. The US and China, the two biggest
emitters, made a joint announcement on their emissions, for the first
time, in a marked show of unity.
But there is still
no guarantee of success, and France has tried hard to learn the
lessons of Copenhagen.
Although a
“political declaration” was signed at that summit in 2009, with
major developed and developing countries jointly agreeing emissions
targets for the first time, it did not amount to the formal treaty
that many had hoped for.
That omission, and
scenes in which delegates burst into tears, appeared to show world
leaders did not know what was going on, and bitter public
recriminations showed off all the fault lines among nations, allowed
detractors to claim it as a resounding failure.
Many things will be
different this time, Tubiana has promised. For instance, at
Copenhagen the text of a potential deal was in tatters, too unwieldy
to produce a formal treaty.
The text for Paris
has been slimmed down to just over 20 pages, in a move the hosts hope
will make it possible to sign it off in the two weeks of talks. World
leaders, who arrived only at the end of Copenhagen, will land in
Paris for the first day of talks, then hand over to their ministers
and negotiators.
Another key question
is over financial assistance from richer to poorer countries. At
Copenhagen, the developing world was promised $100bn (£65bn) a year
would flow to them by 2020. Significant progress has been made on
this, not least at the World Bank meeting last week, where its
president announced a $29bn increase in climate finance.
French diplomats
have also been at pains to include civil society groups and
businesses at a high level. Civil society groups were excluded from
the final fraught day at Copenhagen, to their manifest disgust, which
did not help how that conference was portrayed afterwards.
“The French have
done an excellent job,” says Christiana Figueres, the UN’s
climate chief, who has also been persuading world leaders to
participate. “They have made a great effort.”
Most of the world’s
biggest economies have now publicly declared they want a deal.
However, at the UN talks, small and desperately poor countries have
just as much say as the richest. They may not be so happy to oblige.
“The biggest
problem with Paris is that it is in Paris,” one prominent
participant told the Guardian privately, meaning that holding such a
major meeting in a G7 country risks alienating poor nations, who
often feel that their interests are overlooked in the race to get big
economies to commit.
The French can
hardly help the location, and appear conscious of the need to draw in
a broader coalition, sometimes using their historic ties to the
French-speaking and French-influenced countries of Africa and Asia –
a strategy that could backfire, given the colonial overtones.
But the charm
offensive continued with President Hollande visiting Morocco
recently. “We have a close cooperation with the Moroccans,” says
Bermann. “I know there have been some problems but now cooperation
is excellent so we’re keen to work with them.”
If Paris succeeds,
it will not be down only to the French government and its troupes of
ministers, civil servants, ambassadors and negotiators. But if it
fails, the French and the UN know they will cop the blame.
Additional reporting
by Angelique Chrisafis in Paris
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário