Paris WorldWide #9

Les îles Marshall, parmi les plus petits états insulaires, sont les premières à avoir publié leur engagement pour la réduction de gaz à effet de serre, le 19 juillet dernier.
The Marshall Islands, among the smallest island states, were the first to publish their commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, on July 19, 2015.
A
meeting to take action,
quickly and efficiently. On
July 20 and 21, the Economic,
Social and Environmental
Council hosted the Summit of
Conscience for the Climate in
Paris. Alongside François Hollande,
Ségolène Royal, Kofi Annan and
Nicolas Hulot, the Ecumenical
Patriarch Bartholomew I, Cardinal
Turkson, Taoist master Zhang
Gaocheng, and other religious figures
launched an appeal to save the
planet. This event marked another
step forward on the road to COP21
(21st Conference of the Parties), also
known as Paris Climate 2015, a decisive
move toward a new historic
agreement. The Kyoto Summit in
1997 was the first time 37 countries
came together to agree to reduce
their greenhouse gas emissions by
at least 5 percent. But, as stated by
the United Nations, “Because of
the complexity of the negotiations,
a number of issues are still far from
being resolved.” Due to skepticism
and industrial interests, agreement
on the causes and consequances of
global warming is far from certain.
In Johannesburg, in 2002, French
president Jacques Chirac exclaimed,
“Our house is burning and we’re
blind to it.” No consensus was found
in Copenhagen in 2009, postponing
the decision to 2015. Now we’re here,
but the boundaries have changed.
THE COUNTDOWN BEGINS
Climate refugees, pollution catastrophes,
the extinction of animal
and plant species...the consequences
of global warming are dramatic
and directly related (95%) to human
activity, the main cause of the
concentration of greenhouse gases
and the depletion of the ozone layer.
Under these circumstances, what
will our planet look like by the end
of the century and beyond? This
question has occupied the UN’s
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) for several years.
Environmental experts have developed
several scenarios, from the
most pessimistic to the most optimistic.
In the best-case, greenhouse
gas emissions will drop enough to
slow the temperature increase to 2
degrees Celsius (3.6° Fahrenheit)
by the end of the century. If, on the
other hand, emissions continue at
their current pace, temperatures
could rise by 4.8°C (8.6°F). A nightmare
scenario.
In either case, experts predict a rise
Pierre-Henri guignard, secrétaire général de la cop21
« Le temps où les diplomates discutaient
à huis clos est révolu »
“The era when diplomats discussed behind
closed doors is over”
105 - paris Worldwide septembre/octobre
september/october 2015
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