THE CARBON WAR

Chapter 32
Act de Triumph
Paris, 11 th & 12 th December 2015
Day Twelve, Friday 11 th December: The final draft will not be ready today, but
tomorrow, the UN announces. Veteran journalists are quick to persuade inexperienced
colleagues not to read too much into this. No climate summit ever
finishes on time, they say.
I start the day with another panel for 350.org, this time talking to a
constituency from cities. Bill McKibben and I perform together once again.
I always learn something new when I hear him speak. Today it is where Nelson
Mandela went first upon visiting America after his release from jail in South
Africa. It wasn’t the White House. He went to the University of California to
thank the students for their divestment campaign. Apartheid could not have
fallen without you, he told them.
When it comes to fossil-fuel divestment today, the cities are right there
with the campuses, Bill says. Most recently, Portland has signed up for no
fossil fuel infrastructure, and a number of cities up and down the west coast
have joined them.
More than 640 cities have now divested, May Boeve, 350.org Executive
Director adds.
Its not just about divestment, says Divest-Invest Executive Director Clara
Vondrich. Its about where you reinvest the capital you have withdrawn from
fossil-fuels: ideally in clean energy, wherever feasible. Well, 130 foundations
have shown the way by committing to divest-invest, she says. And their bottom
lines are doing just fine.
While this is going on, a group of eminent climate scientists is giving a
press conference. They focus on the potential 1.5°C target. John Schellnhuber,
Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research – arguably