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Macron's 'real world' climate summit to focus on finance
Topic Started: 11 Dec 2017, 02:36 AM (106 Views)
skibboy
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10 December 2017

Macron's 'real world' climate summit to focus on finance

Posted Image
© AFP/File / by Catherine HOURS | Australia's Great Barrier Reef is in danger from climate change, experts say

PARIS (AFP) - Two years to the day after 195 nations adopted the Paris Agreement, French President Emmanuel Macron will convene a follow-up climate summit Tuesday to jump-start the lagging transition to a greener global economy.

Launched in part to counter US President Donald Trump's decision to exit the landmark 2015 treaty, the One Planet Summit -- co-sponsored by the United Nations and the World Bank -- will centre on how to finance the shift in developing countries trying to simultaneously reduce their carbon footprints, adapt to climate change impacts, and accommodate growing populations.

"The focus on finance is particularly timely because that was the area we had the least progress on at the COP23," said Alden Meyer, a climate policy expert at the Washington-based Union of Concerned Scientists, referring to the "Conference of the Parties" UN negotiations in Bonn last month.

Some 50 world leaders are set to attend the Paris meeting, including Mexico's Enrique Pena Nieto, Theresa May of Britain, Spain's Mariano Rajoy, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, and numerous African leaders.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will also be in attendance, along with ministers from China, India, Canada.

- 'The other America' -

Officially, the United States -- which helped seal the Paris deal under Barack Obama -- will be represented by a low-level official from the Paris embassy.

In November, an aide to Macron said Trump had not been invited.

But what some call "the other America" will also be present in force: California Governor Jerry Brown, whose state -- the sixth largest economy globally -- boasts among the most ambitious carbon-cutting targets in the world; former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has spearheaded a climate coalition of dozens of megacities, and corporate guidelines for assessing climate risk; and megastars Arnold Schwarzenegger and Leonardo Di Caprio.

"It's a mobilisation of all those who want to pick up the pace," said Laurence Tubiana, CEO of the European Climate Foundation and one of the main architects -- as France's climate ambassador -- of the Paris pact.

"Everything must be done to show that it is necessary and possible to do more than what was pledged in 2015," she told AFP.

The Paris Agreement calls for capping global warming at "well under" two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), and at least $100 billion per year (85 billion euro), from 2020, in climate finance to poor nations. So far, neither commitment is assured.

- Scaling up finance -

Voluntary national plans, annexed to the treaty, to cut greenhouse gas emissions would still result in a rise of 3 C by century's end, a recipe for human misery on an unprecedented scale, scientists say.

With only a single degree Celsius of global warming so far, the planet has already seen a crescendo of deadly droughts, heatwaves and superstorms engorged by rising seas.

Ramping up financial flows to the developing world is also not on track, especially when long-term needs -- beyond the 2020 horizon -- are taken into account.

"One of the big topics in Paris next week is the need to scale up financing, which is still not nearly enough to meet the Paris commitments," said World Bank President Jim Yong Kim.

More broadly, the International Energy Agency has estimated it will take $3.5 trillion (3 trillion euros) a year in investments until mid-century to contain the rise of global temperatures and retool the global economy.

Macron's team foresees a dozen "major announcements" during the summit.

A new "Transport Decarbonisation Alliance" may, for the first time, constrain the rapidly expanding shipping sector, which -- if it were a country -- would be the 7th or 8th largest CO2 emitter.

The transport sector accounts for 15 percent of man-made CO2 emissions, on track to increase 50 percent by mid-century.

The Powering Past Coal Coalition of nations committing to shutter coal-fired power plants, launched last month, will likely take on new members, and a couple dozen countries that have laid out climate strategies to 2050 will also be joined by a raft of cities and sub-national regions.

"This is the real world, with leaders and ministers and business leaders and NGOs coming to talk about what's happening in the real economy," said Meyer.

The number of global companies committed to implementing Bloomberg's climate-risk assessments will also grow, sources said.

A large group of institutional investors, meanwhile, will band together in a five-year campaign to pressure companies with large carbon footprints.

by Catherine HOURS

Source: Posted Image.com
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skibboy
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11 December 2017

France's nuanced record fighting climate change

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© AFP / by Catherine HOURS | French President Emmanuel Macron has aimed to make himself a leader in the fight against global warming

PARIS (AFP) - French President Emmanuel Macron, who has aimed to make himself a leader in the fight against global warming, is the force behind Tuesday's climate finance summit in Paris.

However, France's record on the environment is more nuanced, including both innovative measures and trouble building momentum in its actions to cut greenhouse gases.

- The good -

France is one of the industrialised countries that emits the least greenhouse gases per capita, largely due to its heavy reliance on nuclear energy for its power needs.

From 1990-2015 its emissions dropped by 17 percent in industry and energy, while the European Union's in those sectors decreased by 23 percent.

Paris is struggling to shrink its reliance on nuclear power, which is currently responsible for 75 percent of its energy mix.

Its aim is to grow France's use of renewables.

France became the first nation, albeit not very oil-rich, to pledge to end drilling in 2040.

It has promised to shutter its four coal-fired power plants by 2022.

France has also hiked its carbon tax.

- The criticism -

Campaign groups point out that French energy giant Total wants to drill at the mouth of Amazon River and French government agencies finance fossil energy projects abroad.

However, 50 percent of the projects by the French state's development agency, AFD, have for years helped fight global warming, agency head Remy Rioux said.

He said the agency wants to support the Paris climate accord on slowing climate change, but that does not mean zero fossil fuels.

"We have to switch to renewables, but that will not happen overnight," he said.

The idea is to "help countries aim for the horizon of 2050... rather than adopt a strict prohibition."

- The future -

France has committed to increasing its climate funding via AFD to five billion euros per year, from a current level of three billion euros, by 2020.

"We are on the way, with about four billion euros this year," said Rioux, adding about 1.7 billion of that is bound for Africa.

However, national funding in favour of climate has stagnated, with an annual gap of 20-40 billion euros ($24-47 billion) between funds and needs, according to the Institute for Climate Economics (I4CE) think-tank in Paris.

The sector most lacking in cash is the climate-friendly renovation of buildings, though France's Environment Minister Nicolas Hulot's climate plan aims to encourage those types of building revamps.

Hulot's climate plan also seeks to boost the purchase of low-emission vehicles, which includes France's announcement it will end sales of petrol and diesel vehicles by 2040.

- 'Saying vs doing' -

Taxes on things that damage the environment accounted for 2.2 percent of GDP in 2015, compared to 2.4 percent in the EU, putting France in 20th place in Europe, according to France's national statistics agency.

Campaign groups are worried by the free trade agreement with Canada that they believe weakens environmental standards, as well as by the suspension of European negotiations on a financial transaction tax.

"At present, there is a difference between what (President Emmanuel Macron) is saying and what he is doing," said Audrey Pulvar, a French journalist and activist.

by Catherine HOURS

Source: Posted Image.com
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skibboy
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US researchers flock to join Macron's climate change project

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© LCI/AFP | French President Emmanuel Macron announced his ‘Make Our Planet Great Again’ project on the same day Trump announced the US would pull out of the 2015 Paris accord

Text by Louise NORDSTROM
2017-12-11

Eighteen climate scientists, 13 of them based in the United States, were on Monday named the first beneficiaries of the research grants linked to French President Macron’s “Make Our Planet Great Again” project, which will see them relocate to France.

“The selected projects are of very high standards and deal with issues that are particularly important,” the jury said in a statement, noting its members had received a total of 1,822 applications, of which 1,123 came from the US.

A second round of laureates will be announced “during the course of the spring of 2018”, it said.

In all, a total of 50 research grants will be handed out, lasting a minimum of three years and worth between €1 million and €1.5 million each.

Among Monday’s 18 laureates were senior researchers from prestigious US universities, including Venkatramani Balaji from Princeton, Nuria Teixido from Stanford University and Louis Derry from Cornell University.

Although the vast majority of the laureates are currently based in the US, they also include researchers from Canada, India, Italy, Poland and Spain.

“The laureates will settle in France in the next few months,” the jury said.

In France, the scientists will conduct research on a wide array of topics, including how global warming impacts natural catastrophes like hurricanes, the health implications of climate change and how a warmer planet can affect the circular economy.

Trump rebuke

Macron's research initiative is a direct rebuke of US President Donald Trump’s June decision to pull his country out of the 2015 Paris climate change accord.

Macron, whose administration created YouTube videos and set up a website to promote the project, called on foreign researchers, and in particular US-based scientists, to come to France to fill the research void created by Trump and his decision.

“To all scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, responsible citizens who were disappointed by the decision by the president of the United States, I want to say, that they will find in France a second homeland. I call on them: Come, and work here with us. [Come] to work here on concrete solutions for our climate, our environment. I can assure you, France will not give up the fight,” the French leader said as he launched the project this summer, just hours after Trump’s announcement.

To be legible for the grants, candidates needed to show they were established in the climate science field, had completed a thesis and had a viable three- to five-year project in mind to work on in France.

Macron announced the winners at Parisian startup incubator Station F, where Microsoft and other tech companies announced projects to fund emission-reducing activities.

The announcement comes on the eve of the opening of the One Planet Summit in Paris.

Some 50 world leaders are expected to attend the event, which is co-hosted by the United Nations and the World Bank, in a bid to give new impetus to the Paris agreement.

Trump has not been invited to the event, however.

Source: Posted Image.com
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skibboy
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Climate change: Trump will bring US back into Paris deal - Macron

By Roger Harrabin
BBC environment analyst

12 December 2017

French President Emmanuel Macron has said he believes President Donald Trump will bring the US back into the Paris deal on combating climate change.

But Mr Macron says he will not agree to the president's demand that America's terms should be negotiated.

He made his comments in a CBS interview on the eve of a summit on climate he has arranged on Tuesday in Paris.

Mr Macron condemned the manner in which the US had signed an international deal, then withdrawn from it.

"The US did sign the Paris Agreement. It's extremely aggressive to decide on its own just to leave, and no way to push the others to renegotiate because one decided to leave the floor. I'm sorry to say that. It doesn't fly."

Posted Image
About 50 senior ministers and prime ministers are attending the climate summit in Paris

President Macron aspires to lead the world in fulfilling the ambition of the Paris climate accord to hold global temperature rise to well under 2C .

He told CBS he was not willing to be accused by future generations of understanding the extent of the climate problem but doing too little to solve it.

Scientists are waiting now to see whether Tuesday's summit of 50 senior ministers and prime ministers in Paris will achieve its aim of giving a boost to the current sluggish progress on cutting emissions.

There are potentially important announcements to be made on key financial issues:

- Raising cash to give poor countries clean energy

- Stopping development banks lending for new coal plants

- Insisting that firms disclose any fossil fuel assets that might be devalued if governments clamp down on emissions.

There is also a potentially important announcement that could bind the shipping industry into climate targets - so far shipping has mostly evaded new rules on emissions because of the multinational nature of the industry.

In a significant move overnight, the oil giant Exxon announced it would assess the impact of climate change on its business.

Investors controlling about 62% of shares backed a proposal led by the New York state employees' retirement fund calling for an annual assessment of the impact of technological change and climate policy on the company's operations.

We won't know until later whether the Paris meeting has really made progress with other new initiatives.

Source: Posted Image.com
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skibboy
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'We're not moving fast enough,' France's Macron tells Paris climate summit

2017-12-12

More than 50 world leaders assembled in Paris for a summit that President Emmanuel Macron hopes will give new momentum to the fight against global warming, despite US President Donald Trump's rejection of the Paris climate accord.

Macron issued a stark warning on climate change in an address to dozens of world leaders and other luminaries at the gathering on Tuesday, saying: “We are losing the battle” against global warming.

“We’re not moving fast enough, that’s the problem,” the French leader told the One Planet Summit.

Some 3,100 security personnel fanned out across Paris for the meeting, including extra patrol boats along the river Seine.

Macron accompanied the visiting leaders to the summit site on a river island by boat.

Sean Penn, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Elon Musk were among prominent figures joining the world leaders at the summit, which marks the second anniversary of the Paris accord.

Trump, who has called climate change a "hoax", announced in June that the United States would pull out of the Paris pact, which had taken nearly 200 nations more than two decades to negotiate.

The Trump administration said it was not going fulfil US climate finance commitments, including an outstanding $2 billion out of $3 billion (€1.7 billion out of €2.5 billion) it had pledged towards the Green Climate Fund.

"The missing piece of the jigsaw is the funding to help the world's poorer countries access clean energy so they don't follow the fossil fuel-powered path of the rich world ... This is the missing piece that the One Planet Summit needs to begin to put into place," said Mohamed Adow of Christian Aid, which represents poor country interests at the UN climate forum.

The US sent only an official delegation from the Paris Embassy to the summit, but screen superstars Leonardo Di Caprio and Schwarzenegger and California Governor Jerry Brown, leader of the world’s sixth largest economy, are championing more action.

In a pointed piece of timing, Macron used the eve of the summit to award 18 grants to foreign climate scientists, most of whom are currently US-based, to come and work in France.

Source: (FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and REUTERS) Posted Image.com
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