THE CARBON WAR

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The Winning of The Carbon War
Then Francois Hollande.
This man and his team have played an absolute blinder, as we English like
to say, though rarely of the French.
“You choose for your country, your continent, and for the world. History
is here. France calls on you to change the world, to agree the first universal
climate agreement in history, that our planet may live a long time.”
This gets a standing ovation.
And what happens next, do you think, dear reader?
I invite you to look away, have a think, and guess.
They break for lunch.
This is France, after all.
Reconvening time is set at 3:45.
A French lunch, evidently.
Greenpeace, WWF, Oxfam and Christian Aid give a press briefing. “The
climate wheels turn slowly”, says Kumi Naidoo for Greenpeace, “but in Paris
they have turned. The deal falls short of what we need but puts the fossil fuel
industry on the wrong side of history.”
Mohammed Adow of Christian Aid: “For the first time in history, the
whole world has made a public commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
and deal with the impacts of climate change. Although different countries
will move at different speeds, the transition to a low carbon world is now
inevitable. Governments, investors and businesses must ride this wave or be
swept away by it.”
Responses to Fabius’s speech are flooding into my inbox now, in the form
of hurried press releases and simple e-mail quotes to lists of journalists.
Bill McKibben from the march. “This didn’t save the planet but it may
have saved the chance of saving the planet.”
From London, Anthony Hobley gives Carbon Tracker’s perspective.
“A 1.5°C carbon budget means the fossil fuel era is well and truly over. There is
absolutely no room for error. Fossil fuel companies must accept that they are
an ex growth stock and urgently re-assess their business plans. New energy
technologies have leapt down the cost curve in recent years. The effect of the
momentum created in Paris means this is only going to accelerate. The need for
the financial markets to fund the clean energy transition creates unparalleled
opportunity for growth on a scale not seen since the industrial revolution.”
John Schellnhuber, eminent climate scientist: “If agreed and implemented,
this means bringing down greenhouse-gas emissions to net zero within a few
decades. It is in line with the scientific evidence we (the Intergovernmental Panel