Jennie Stephens, Blittersdorf Professor of Science and Policy, is one of four UVM people — three faculty members and one student — to make the trip to Paris for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP21. One week in, Stephens shares her perspective on the events surrounding the negotiations, how this year’s COP differs from those of the past, and the feelings of both hope and futility in the air as world leaders attempt to create a plan to keep global warming below two degrees Celsius.
Read her thoughts:
Reflecting on my experiences in Paris during the first week of the international climate negotiations, I am struck by the paradoxes – the tangible tensions between hope and frustration, between optimism and futility. Among the thousands of international visitors in Paris for the climate conference – including the official national delegations of negotiators as well as the many more representing NGOs, private sector organizations, environmental activists, the energy industry (both fossil fuel and renewables), universities, youth, parents, and other parts of civil society – there is a diversity in perspectives and priorities that includes both a simultaneous sense of unprecedented positive collective action as well as assumed inadequacy in the highly anticipated agreement scheduled to be finalized by the end of the week.
Last week began with motivating speeches by prominent world leaders, including the president of France, the prince of Wales, and President Obama highlighting the urgency and significance of the Paris negotiations. Unlike the disappointing 2009 Copenhagen Accord which was pieced together at the eleventh hour by a few prominent leaders on the last night of COP15, the organizers this time strategically coordinated the heads-of-state to show up at the beginning (rather than the end) of the two-week negotiations to offer support and encouragement for the process ahead. These speeches also acknowledged links between climate disruption and security, offering condolences and solidarity to the people of Paris as they recover from the tragic terrorist attacks of Nov. 13.
Chilling effect of the attacks
Before the attacks, an unprecedented level of civic engagement, mass mobilization, protests, demonstrations and marches on the streets of Paris was anticipated. But in response to the attacks, the French government declared a state of emergency prohibiting for three months any gatherings of people for political purposes. While sports and music events are allowed, events that bring people together in public places with political messages are illegal. So instead of the large climate march on the Sunday before the meetings started, activists organized a distributed human chain with people holding hands along the march route. The plan for how activists will conclude the two weeks, how to replace the huge march that was originally planned for Saturday Dec. 12, is still emerging with tentative plans for a single police-authorized event in a stadium in the southern part of the city (far from the official conference site). Despite scaling back of the demonstrations on the streets of Paris, many other publicly accessible events of all kinds have proceeded within the official conference center and in multiple other venues throughout the city. With the People’s Climate Summit organized for this weekend, a concentration of public events are happening now.
Among the highlights of the events I attended, a panel on fossil fuel divestment was inspirational as international leaders of the divest-invest movement described the growing impact of this rapidly expanding social movement. At this event I connected with Bill McKibben, Vermont resident and founder of 350.org and heard from Stephen Heintz, of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, who talked about how the divestment-investment movement is changing the world of philanthropy, and Jess Worth of “BP or not BP?” who described efforts to reduce corporate fossil fuel donations to museums and cultural events.
Ice inspires
Another highlight included a stunning art exhibit in front of the historic Pantheon in the Paris city center where twelve huge blocks of ice broken off from the Greenland ice sheet are arranged in a circle to represent a clock. Throughout the two weeks of the climate negotiations these pieces of ice are gradually melting, representing the limited time left to take effective action. This artistic expression of urgency, demonstrates in a very simple and tangible way the precarious global situation. This powerful exhibit, funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, was coordinated by two Danish artists (Olafur Eliassson and Minik Rosing).
The ice melting in Paris represents for me the paradoxes of climate change and the Paris negotiations. We simultaneously understand on one level that these efforts are in some ways futile (we are already locked in to a severe degree of climate disruption even if/when we can achieve drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions) while on another level these unprecedented efforts of collective action represent extreme optimism and hope. At a personal level, the growing level of commitment and passion to address climate change, demonstrated by individuals and organizations in Paris and around the world, offers great inspiration.
Jennie Stephens is a professor in the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources and the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, and a fellow at the Gund Institute.