Cop21 | Cathy's Class Blog

Wednesday, December 2 – CCEN launch, Eiffel Tower

December 2 2015December 23, 2015

I woke up this morning feeling pretty awful. I’ve had migraines all week, and today’s was bad. I had hoped to make it to a 10 a.m. presentation by the Healthy Climate Project, a workstream within the Citizens Climate Engagement Network, itself a project of Citizens Climate Lobby and Citizens Climate Education which seeks to engage citizen input into the intergovernmental climate negotiating process. Healthy Climate Project would be discussing what a healthy climate should look like and how we can get there — but I wasn’t able to get there due to a crippling migraine that only got better with a long breakfast, medication, and shower. Thank goodness my doctor had gotten the insurance company to pay for extra prescription Imitrex, which is the only thing that helps these headaches. At the rate I am going through it since coming to Paris, I may run out.

Sarabeth Brockley, global strategy advisor for Citizens Climate Engagement Network, speaks at its launch.

For the afternoon I had two choices: I could go to Naomi Klein’s Leap Manifesto, which was pulling in hundreds of people but somehow still had seats, or to the launch of Citizens Climate Engagement Network. I chose the latter for three reasons: one, because the Leap Manifesto was centered mainly on Canada; two, because it started earlier than CCEN and I was still dragging; and three, because Joe Robertson, the global strategies director for Citizens Climate Lobby, really wanted everyone to come to the launch of CCEN. Since I am co-leader of the CCL chapter in Columbus, I felt that if there was one CCL event I needed to attend, it was this. But for those interested in the Leap Manifesto, you can find more information at Democracy Now, Huffington Post, and Guardian, and you can read the 15 Demands and sign the manifesto here.

I did make it to the CCEN launch. The event ran from 1 until 3:30 p.m. and gave me a chance to connect with more of the CCL people in Paris. Here is what it included:

Review of finalized Governance Strategy for the CCEN.
Review of the state of play in global negotiations.
Review of perspectives on carbon pricing principles, and strategies to use those principles to build value in any economic environment.
Participatory working session among attendees.
Insights from partners around the world.
Announcement of first organizations and agencies to join the Advisory Coalition.
Report from Citizens’ Voice team and first days of COP21 Workstreams.
Climate poetry, ethics discussion, and sharing of goals for 2016.

Several of the speakers stood out:

Joe Robertson, CCL’s director of global strategy, explained what Citizens Climate Engagement Network is and what it does.
Sarabeth Brockley, CCEN’s global strategy advisor who also works at the United Nations as a policy analyst for the sustainable development goals, gave us an outline of negotiations.
Peter Joseph of the CCL Marin County chapter, explained how pricing carbon can turn the economy from incentivizing all the wrong things to incentivizing the right ones.
Jerome Chladek, a marine biologist from Germany, explained the little-known role of oceans in regulating the climate and how our oceans are in trouble.
Peter Fiekowsky explained the Healthy Climate Project, so even though I didn’t make it to the event in the morning, I still got some information.
Claire Richer talked about Citizens Voice, a video news site for COP 21 to which many of the people in the room were contributing.
Several of the CCEN interns spoke including Isatis Citron, Morgan Wood, and Stephen Stoddard spoke.
And finally the event wrapped up with readings by three amazing poets talking about climate justice and the unequal effects of climate change on their families. Their recitation at first felt like a slap in the face, but as they spoke, I came to realize the true human injustices that climate change entails.

Mindy Ahler and Paul Thompson of the Citizens Voice team streamed the entire CCEN launch live, and you can see their video here. The volume is a little low at times. You can also see just the three poets here. You can also see my video of the event, which is of higher quality but unfortunately does not include the poets – my video camera battery died just before they came on. You can also read a CCL blog post by Sarabeth Brockley with more information about the event and the poets.

After the CCEN launch, I made plans with several team members to cover panels at the Climate Generations space tomorrow, which is Oceans Day. Then I went out walking in the neighborhood, which was the beautiful Bastille section of Paris. There were lots of shops and restaurants, but what I needed at the moment was a place to buy some supplies that I had forgotten to pack. I looked for a grocery store for about 45 minutes before thinking to check it on google. It turned out there were several within a few blocks — they were just not well marked, perhaps to maintain the historic flavor of the neighborhood. Once in the store I found what I needed, then looked for something to eat. I found a small restaurant serving a fixed price meal with an entree (which in France is the appetizer — the entree to the meal), a main dish called a plat, and a dessert.

The meal gave me a chance to catch up on all the email from the CAN listservs and all the news coming out of the climate conference. It also gave me a chance to simply rest. I still was not feeling well, and as a consequence had not been able to contribute to Citizens Voice with much other than some social media posts and tweets.

After a leisurely dinner, I decided that if nothing else in Paris, I wanted to see the Eiffel Tower, and I had read that it would host a special light show during COP 21. So I mapped out how to get there and studied the metro routes. It looked like I would have to take three separate trains to get there from where I was, including one regional train, which as I had found out yesterday going to the COP 21 conference costs more than the internal city metro ride. I was up for it. At each stop I had to figure out where to go to catch the right train and get on it going the right way. But I did it, and never did I feel unsafe traveling by myself even though it was closing in on 9 p.m.

The Eiffel Tower and its light show did not disappoint. The tower is breathtaking — and huge. There were no crowds by that time of night, although there was the ever-present police patrol. I walked all around the area and underneath the tower. I can see why it was considered an engineering marvel when it was built for the World’s Fair in 1889, and still is today. The detail in the lattice work is incredible. The four legs it rests on are huge, and underneath its belly hangs a large ball. It has two sets of elevators, one to take you to restaurants and shops on the equivalent of the 17th floor, and one to take you to the top, which is the equivalent of about 81 stories. You can also take the stairs.

I did not go up the tower, but I did take two videos of the light show, one from right below and one from across the Seine. I also walked along the bridge across the Seine where there were two long rows of plaques discussing climate change, and watched the riverboats full of tourists cruising up and down. I got a snack at a food stand across from the tower, then reversed the metro trip to head back to Place to B hostel. All in all, especially given how I had been feeling, it was a worthwhile day.

Tuesday, December 1 – Green Zone opens

December 1 2015December 23, 2015

Now that the Opening Ceremonies and Leaders Event for COP 21 are over, the facility has opened for the rest of us. There are two main parts to the conference headquarters. First is the Blue Zone, where the actual negotiations take place. You have to have a badge to get into the Blue Zone, which I do not have. In the past, I am told, the United Nations has been pretty generous in issuing badges to observer organizations such as Sierra Club, but this year they were not. Sierra Club had about 70 members coming to Paris, but they got only 10 badges. This meant that only certain staff members and the highest-level volunteers could get in. Citizens Climate Lobby had badges only for Joe Robertson and the global strategies advisor Sarabeth Brockley, who works for the United Nations. Climate Reality had no badges for anyone but Al Gore and president Ken Berlin.

Wind trees create power from wind near COP 21.

I knew going into the conference that getting into the Blue Zone was unlikely barring a last-minute miracle. For example, a couple of times someone posted on the CAN listserv that their group had an extra badge, but invariably it was snatched up within minutes. Even knowing this, I decided to go anyway. I was on the fence until the Sustainability conference in October at Ohio State. Among the speakers was Andrew Light, staff climate adviser in the Office of Policy Planning for the U.S. Department of State. Light had acted as a negotiator at several COPs, so he knew first-hand what it was like. He told me that watching the actual negotiations was incredibly boring, and that most of the action was in the civil society section of the conference. He described the hope he felt walking through the enormous civil society section which housed organization after organization working on some aspect of addressing climate change. That made me decide that even without a badge to the Blue Zone, I could get a lot out of attending.

Entrance to Climate Generations.

The civil society section of COP 21 was called Climate Generations, also known as the Green Zone. That is where the Sierra Club had a booth set up, so today I set out to see the Green Zone and meet the people at the Sierra Club booth. Getting to COP 21 from my hostel was pretty involved, but there were people in green jackets at the Gare du Nord train station to provide directions. First I had to buy tickets for Line B of the regional train, known as RER, which were more expensive than regular metro tickets. I had to take that train to the Le Bourget stop, then catch a free shuttle to the COP 21 headquarters. Once I got off the shuttle, I had to walk over to the Green Zone.

Once arriving at the Climate Generations space, I had to go through airport-like security screening. They had about a dozen lines, and I didn’t get there until the afternoon, so lines were short. Finally I was in the Green Zone. It was a huge building, the size of an airline hangar, with all the facilities set up just for this conference. Coming in there was a coat check, a station to recharge electronics, and an area of tables to meet at. Down most of one side was a large auditorium and a series of seven meeting rooms. These would be filled every day with panels, discussions, and other events. Then there were various performance spaces and three different areas for civil society booths.

Sierra Club booth in the Climate Generations space. From left to right are President Obama (in cardboard anyway); Glen Besa, Virginia chapter; Jim Dougherty, national board; and Tyla Matteson, Virginia Chapter.

I was wondering how to find the Sierra Club booth when I happened across area C, which housed about 50 booths, and saw that its map included the Sierra Club. So I went in to say hi, and met several of the people who I would become friends with during the course of the trip. These included Glen Besa and his wife Tyla Matteson from the Virginia chapter, Jim Dougherty who is on the national board, and Steven Sondheim from Tennessee who was in charge of staffing the booth. These four were the mainstays of the Sierra Club booth and ended up doing the lion’s share of work staffing it. Beside the booth was a life-size cutout figure of Obama, which people kept wanting to get their pictures with.

I had not had lunch, but lines at the restaurants were so long that I decided to skip it. My Sierra Club colleagues told me that this is how it always works the first day — the vendors just don’t seem to be able to handle the crowds. Lines for food were at least an hour and sometimes two hours long. Tyla shared some of her croissant with me, and we all decided in the future to pick up food at the train station and bring it with us to the Green Zone. I did walk around and get some photos around the building, and I located the all important bathrooms and water filling stations. As a souvenir each booth got COP 21 water bottles to hand out, and I accepted mine gratefully.

James Hansen surrounded by media after his talk at Place to B.

Tonight was an important event at Place to B. Each night from 6 to 8 p.m. the hostel has programmed special guest panels for a feature called Place to Brief, and tonight’s panel included Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything, and former NASA scientist James Hansen, known for testifying about climate change before Congress in 1988. I knew the CCL people would be there to see Hansen as he is on the CCL board. I wanted to see both, as did others from the Sierra Club. Steven and I left the Green Zone a little after 5 p.m., but transportation took so long that we didn’t get to Place to B until right at 6 — and the downstairs area where Place to Brief happens was completely full.

James Hansen and Sustaina Claus at Place to B.

Fortunately the hostel was live streaming the proceedings on TVs in the workspace upstairs. Unfortunately a lot of people in the workspace would not stop talking, even though others were trying to watch the event. I set up my GoPro video camera and taped the panel from upstairs, which meant that I was basically taping a TV show, but it was better than not taping anything at all. The sound quality was poor at times, but we were able to catch most of it. Later I discovered that a Facebook friend, Paul Beckwith, had also gotten into this event, taped Hansen’s entire presentation, and posted the video on his blog.

Monday, November 30 – Opening Day of COP 21

November 30 2015December 26, 2015

Members of Climate Action Network watch the opening of COP 21.

Today was a lot calmer than yesterday but no less busy. It was the opening day of the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, known for short as COP21. Because of all the security measures, Le Bourget, the converted airport north of the Paris city center where COP21 is taking place, was closed to the public. So I went with several members of the Citizens Climate Lobby delegation to the hub for the Climate Action Network, or CAN, a network of organizations from around the world working on climate change. The CAN hub is about a 10-minute walk from my hostel at Place to B, but my phone got confused at an intersection where several streets came together. Eventually I found it, and several of us congregated in two rooms to watch the ceremonies, which were being livestreamed on the Internet.

After the so-called “family photo” of all the visiting world leaders, more than 150 country presidents, prime ministers, and other heads of state were scheduled to speak at the Leaders Event starting at noon. Even though each leader was only given three minutes to speak, there were so many of them that speeches ran in two rooms simultaneously and still went on into the evening.

President Obama speaks at COP 21.

President Obama spoke about 12:45 and gave what I thought was an excellent speech. He called the Paris climate conference a “turning point … the moment we finally determined we would save our planet.” “I’ve come here personally, as the leader of the world’s largest economy and the second-largest emitter, to say that the United States of America not only recognizes our role in creating this problem, we embrace our responsibility to do something about it,” Obama said. He talked about his recent trip to Alaska and called for an ambitious and transparent agreement. He talked about how this is life or death for island nations and said he was meeting with their leaders tomorrow. He also mentioned the multibillion-dollar investment fund in clean energy research and development to be launched by Bill Gates and others today.

You can see video of Obama’s speech here and read statements by all the world leaders here.

My CCL colleague Chuck Lynd leads the Global Climate March in Columbus.

While I was listening to the various leaders speak, I was also paging through my social media accounts and saw that my CCL colleague Chuck Lynd had pulled off quite a march for climate in Columbus. As I was trying to avoid arrest at Place de la Republique in Paris, Chuck and others had gotten over 100 people to come out as part of the Global Climate March organized by 350.org. I was amazed because before I had left, only a handful of people were signed up. In less than a week, Chuck got the word out to environmental advocates across Central Ohio, and they turned out in droves, resulting in a great photo in the Columbus Dispatch. That made my heart sing.

See video of the Columbus march from Carolyn Harding and photos from David Roseman via the Sierra Club Central Ohio Group.

On the frustrating side, the keys on my iPad stopped working. I had planned to live tweet the Leaders Event, and even posted that I would on my Facebook page. but was unable to. This was a cause for some panic, as I had not brought a laptop to Paris but was relying on the iPad to do the heavy lifting. I was worried it had crashed even though it was only six months old. Perhaps the blog posts and photos from yesterday had worked it too hard. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I sent out a query through the CAN-talk listserv asking if anyone had a laptop I could borrow. Most people recommended that I take the iPad to an Apple store in Paris, which I finally decided to do. One was about a mile away, which gave me my first chance to truly walk around the city. Once I got to the Apple store, it took awhile to figure out the system for getting some help, but when I finally did, the technician simply told me to call Apple support. Well, I could have done that from the CAN hub! But unfortunately I did not buy international minutes from Verizon.

Then I noticed that the operating system for the iPad needed to be updated. I prayed that would solve the problem and pressed the button. It was an entire new install of the IOS operating system and took a long time to work. After that, I sat at the store playing with the keys again for awhile. Eventually I decided the iPad was indeed fixed, though I considered buying a new laptop in France anyway. Posting blogs and processing photos is so much easier from a laptop, and I will not travel to an event like this again without one. But not only is the electrical outlet on French laptops different, the keyboard is different — it is not a QWERTY keyboard but AZERTY. So I decided not to.

Members of the Citizens Climate Lobby delegation meet in Paris.

Finally tonight I ended up at the dinner and meeting for Citizens Climate Lobby. Both took place at apartments that CCL members had rented out for the conference through Air B&B. I’ve never used Air B&B, but after seeing their apartments, I decided to try it next time I am traveling internationally. Their setup looked much more comfortable than the hostel, which is basically a dormitory, and they have access to full kitchens so they can cook their own food. This is cheaper than buying every meal out as I have to do.

The highlight of the CCL meeting was hearing from Joe Robertson, the global strategy director, about the launch today of the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition. CCL’s entire platform is carbon pricing, specifically a proposal called carbon fee and dividend that would tax carbon at the source of extraction and return all proceeds to American households. There is a lot of talk nationally about a carbon tax, but a formal discussion of pricing carbon was taken off the agenda for COP 21 in October. Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UNFCCC, said at the time that countries had too many different carbon pricing schemes for them to be reconciled into one document.

Even so, the launch of the CPLC on the first day of COP 21 put carbon pricing front and center in the conference. Consisting of 15 national governments (including Canada, Germany, and France), five subnational governments (Quebec, British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and California), and more than 60 businesses (including BP, Enel, and Shell), the CPLC has a goal of adding carbon pricing to all national strategies by 2020 — only five years away! And they just may be able to do it. At the launch was a powerhouse of leaders: World Bank President Jim Kim, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, Philippines President Benigno Aquino III, and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. Joe saw the entire thing inside the Blue Zone.

CCL has two blog posts about the launch of the Carbon Pricing Leadership Forum, one by Peter Joseph, leader of the Marin County Chapter, and one by Jessica Langerman, a volunteer from Massachusetts.

Sunday, November 29 – Nearly caught up in a crackdown

November 29 2015December 23, 2015

Today has been an adventure, much more than I bargained for. First I got seven glorious hours of sleep which really helped after two days of travel. I woke up with hopes my luggage had arrived overnight, but no such luck. No clothing shops would open before 10 a.m. when the Sierra Club’s orientation for all members at COP21 was set to take place. So either I had to miss the orientation hope a shop would be open and have my my size, or wear the same old sweats to the orientation. I elected to do the latter thinking I could sit in the back. I was glad I did because the information shared there was crucial to understanding the negotiations. I’ll post a series of “State of Play” updates by Fred Heutte, lead volunteer with the Sierra Club Federal and Climate Campaign, to cover this.

Mini-march at Place de Republique

Orientation got out about noon, so several people headed over to Place de Republique to see if we could find the shoes exhibit. Earlier in the day, Sierra Club volunteers and others had put out thousands of pairs of shoes to symbolize those who could not march. However by the time we got there, we couldn’t find them and figured they had been removed, as they were only going to be on display for a few hours. Lots of people were in the plaza, and they would have stumbled all over a large exhibit.

Media interviewed demonstrators.

We looked for a few minutes at the huge memorial to the terrorist victims – two large rows of flowers, cards, and items left all around the huge bronze statue of Marianne, the symbol of the French republic holding an olive branch in her right hand and resting her left on a tablet engraved with the Rights of Man. Then we went to lunch. See video of the memorial to the Paris terrorism victims

After lunch, the others headed to Musee D’Orsay, but I decided to go back to the hostel to check on my luggage. My metro train changed at Place de Republique, so I decided to go up to see if I could get photos of the terrorism memorial and look again for the shoes. There were again a lot of people, some groups doing “mini marches” around the plaza, and other people just hanging out. I decided to also get pics of some of the activists, their activities and signs. I also found a small shoe exhibit, which people were just then adding to.

A second shoe exhibit, smaller than the morning exhibit, appeared at the plaza.

While I was doing that, the police arrived and stood in phalanxes along the streets leading into the square. They stood on the sides of the square for a long time. I asked people if the police would come into the square and make arrests. People who I talked to said no, they didn’t think so. But that was wrong. They started with tear gas around the edge of the plaza and not near me, but it pushed people my direction. Then was a series of loud booms. I wasn’t affected because it was all across the plaza, but I could smell it. If you’ve ever lit those old firework snakes on July 4, it smells like that.

Tear gas at the other end of the plaza

As this was going on, I found an AP van and talked to their staff member. She was inside the van watching video their camera people were getting from above and sending them instructions over a walker talkie as to what to close in on. I wasn’t sure if things would escalate, but the AP person told me the police would not bother them, so stood near their van in hopes of looking like media just in case. I also pinpointed where the metro entrance was so I could get out quickly if needed.

Row of police move closer

Then the police started to move in. That’s when I decided it was time to leave. I started down the stairs to the metro only to find the police had closed the metro stops. Another nearby metro stop was also gated shut, with police behind the gate. So I could not leave. Then police started to cordon off the streets. Fortunately some well-dressed people with luggage showed up to get into the Crowne Plaza, whose doors were also closed. But the bellhop opened the doors for them and I took advantage. See video of police moving in on protesters

View from the hotel: Police vans move in

From the hotel window I watched dozens of police vans move in, presumably to start arrests. There was a crowd demonstrating a few hundred feet down from the hotel, so that’s probably where the police were going to start. I have no desire to get arrested, so I hung out in the hotel bar for a couple of hours with a soup and tea. Finally by 5:45 I was ready to leave, but the metro stop was still closed and the police were still making arrests. The hotel staff pointed me to the next metro stop down away from the arrests, and I found a train and got back to the hostel. It was eerie riding through the Place de Republique stop, which is normally extremely busy but tonight was totally empty.

Vegan demonstrators

So what are my feelings about all this? On the one hand, I did not see anything different in Paris as at the countless demonstrations in the US. People were simply expressing themselves and their feelings of urgency about the climate, which I understand and share. On the other hand, Paris has just suffered one of the worst terrorist attacks since 9/11, which took place not far from today’s events. The government is understandably concerned about another attack, and it would be easy for bad people to hide in the crowd. So while I wish the government hadn’t felt the need to cancel the climate march, I can see why they did, and I wanted to respect that.

An AP staffer directs camera angles from the van.

Then there’s a third hand, which is that with a previous career as a journalist, I also wanted to document events, and here I had a front row seat. I could have left the moment police showed up, but I wasn’t sure they were going to make arrests. I thought maybe they were just trying to contain the crowds in one area or making sure it didn’t get above a certain size. So I decided to see what happened. Part of why I’m here is to witness history, and this was the history of a cancelled climate march.

Men in black moved past just as police moved in.

One more thing happened just as I was walking toward the metro stop to leave. A group of men all in black pants and jackets came running toward me. As I took a picture, one of them slapped down my arm and yelled at me “No photo!” I was afraid he would take my phone, so I just said “Okay” and tried to look harmless. They moved on, and I was left wondering who they were. They could have been civil demonstrators, anarchists, rabble rousers, or genuine terrorists, but clearly they didn’t want their picture taken, and you couldn’t see their faces anyway because they were covered in black too. So while I feel like the police did not need to crack down on civil demonstrators as harshly as they did, I am also not convinced that everyone in the crowd was a climate activist. Some may have very well not had good intentions.

P.S. My luggage finally arrived! 11:30 pm after three more calls to the airline.

Here are some more pictures from the day’s events:

Another mini-march around the plaza

Idle No More France was present

Activists let their frustration with the cancelled march be known.

Sustaina Claus – I’m not sure what was in the bag!

more bike signs

detail of shoe exhibit.

Signs left behind

Demonstrators start to get louder

Bicyclist with sign

Police gathered outside the plaza.

Tear gas at the edge of the plaza

The hotel TV showed events just outside the doors.

Saturday, November 28 – I made it to Paris!

November 28 2015December 26, 2015

I made it. The flight was incredibly long, though British Airways keeps you well fed and the food is good. However, I didn’t sleep at all on the flight – I never do on flights – so I am exhausted. And worse, they lost my luggage. As much as I like Ohio State sweats, I don’t want to wear them for days on end, and I’d really like a change of underwear.

I arrived at my hostel – St Christopher’s Inn, or for COP21, Place to B. They don’t officially start the COP21 event until 3pm, so I couldn’t get into the room until then. It is a typical hostel. I’m in the room with the least number of beds – four – but they are bunk beds and I am on top! I have to climb a tall ladder to get up there. This will be interesting – haven’t done that since age 12.

A world map made from moss adorns the inside of Place to B.

Inside P2B was a hub of activity this afternoon with staff trying to get ready for the conference, so I decide to go elsewhere for lunch. Just around the corner was a place billing itself as “The world’s best vegetarian Indian restaurant,” so I decided to stop there. That’s when I realized I’m not in Ohio anymore. The menu was in a mix of French and English but at least the dishes had names I recognized. I ordered mutter paneer only to find you had to order rice separately. You also have to ask for silverware and water separately. The wait people probably got tired of hearing from me.

I did sneak in a short nap after lunch and am hoping to get to a meeting with the Citizens Voice team. Meanwhile I’ve been catching up on email. I got signed up on several email lists from Climate Action Network, an umbrella organization for climate groups all over the world. The past few days people with CAN have been sending a constant stream of emails with information about events, briefings, badges, security, and who knows what. One of them even dug up an old sticker from the very first COP in 1995!

A reception at Place to B starts at 6 p.m., but I may have to go buy some toiletries and go back to bed instead. Between my last term paper and an overnight flight, I can barely keep my eyes open. Paris is 6 hours ahead of New York – and Ohio – so it will be like going to bed at noon the next day. The Bose noise canceling headphones we got may turn out to be a crucial investment, especially for people sensitive to noise as I am.

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Ségolène Royal, French Minister of Ecology, Energy and Sustainable Development, and Axelle Lemaire, French Deputy Minister for Digital Affairs, visited Place to B.

I did get to the reception. First was mixing and mingling, where I met the other Citizens Voice contributors. Things were very crowded so it was hard to do much beside say hi. Then the event started. First was a a visit by Ségolène Royal, French Minister of Ecology, Energy and Sustainable Development, and Axelle Lemaire, French Deputy Minister for Digital Affairs. Then we spoke with two artists behind a project called the Bureau of Linguistical Reality. The idea was to coin new words to capture the concepts behind climate change, which is something humans have never faced before. Besides the fairly well-known “anthropocene” were words like “ennuipocalypse” and “gwilt.” Citizens Voice team member Jeremy Lent did interviews with both artists, now up on Youtube.

Why I’m going to the climate conference in Paris

November 23 2015December 23, 2015

Note: I submitted this column to the Columbus Dispatch a week before my trip to the COP21 climate conference in Paris. They asked me for a photo to go with it, but never published it. I include it here because it is a good explanation of why I decided to go.

Headlines about climate change greet us daily. Just last week in the Columbus Dispatch, we learned that a melting glacier in Greenland could boost sea levels almost two feet (“Sliding glacier could raise sea levels by 20 inches,” 11/14); last month was the hottest October on record (“Absurdly hot October as Earth sets 8th heat record this year,” 11/18); and ocean temperatures have reached a new high (“Ocean warming tops previous El Nino record,” 11/19).

In Ohio, former state climatologist Jeffrey Rogers tells us that climate change has increased instances of extreme weather, leading to more rain coupled with more periods of drought, higher temperatures, and greater windstorms (“Map shows weather is worsening, group says,” 11/13).

The ongoing urgency of climate change is why next week I will travel to Paris to participate in events surrounding the United Nations climate talks. As a volunteer for Ohio Sierra Club, Citizens Climate Lobby, and Climate Reality Project, I will be staffing booths in the civil society section of the conference; attending debates, workshops, screenings and presentations on climate change risks and solutions; and reporting on events through blogs, social media and online video. And yes, I will offset the carbon emitted by my flight through a purchase at NativeEnergy Travel Offsets.

As this one week of headlines shows, climate change is one of the most pressing problems of our time. Climate scientists agree that if left unaddressed, climate change would destabilize the Earth’s environment, making parts of the planet virtually uninhabitable for humans and many other species by the end of the century. Nor can the solutions to climate change wait. Physics doesn’t care about politics, which puts addressing climate change on a non-negotiable timeline.

The good news is that most observers expect the Paris climate conference to rise to the challenge. Throughout the year, nations have held a series of meetings leading up to the Paris talks, and so far 168 countries have made “intended nationally determined contributions,” or pledges to reduce their carbon emissions. If all nations come to an agreement on lowering carbon emissions in Paris, it will be a historic first, as past UN climate conferences have covered only developed countries. This year the agreement is expected to cover developing countries too.

The momentum for the Paris climate talks began a year ago when President Obama announced a historic deal on lowering carbon emissions with China. The United States, relying largely on the EPA Clean Power Plan, agreed to lower emissions 26-28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. China agreed to peak emissions and get 20 percent of its energy from renewables by 2030. China is closing coal plants, building solar plants, and will launch a cap-and-trade program next year.

One mark of momentum going into the Paris climate talks is that this year for the first time, 100 world leaders will arrive on the opening day of the conference, rather than waiting until the last minute to swoop in and try to hammer out an agreement. Everyone wants to avoid the failure of the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009 when leaders could not agree and the talks fell apart.

Scientists and policymakers have set 2 degrees Celsius as the maximum we can warm the planet without destabilizing the environment, and some think the limit is 1.5 degrees C. Will the expected agreement at the Paris climate conference bring emissions down far enough? Most observers think probably not. The Earth has already warmed almost a degree since the Industrial Revolution, with about a half-degree more locked in due to the long half-life of carbon.

But what a climate agreement among all nations would do is provide a baseline to start, so that negotiators can then continue to move the ball forward. One proposal being discussed is a requirement for nations to revisit their pledges every five years, which would provide a platform for pushing them to continue doing more until we are within a safe threshold for climate.

By going to Paris, I hope to help make a difference in this process. As one person, I can vote, contact my legislators, and organize local meetings and events – all of which I do. But by banding together with thousands of others from around the world, I can contribute to making a strong statement to world leaders that their citizens want them to take action on this crisis.

Cathy Cowan Becker is on the executive committee of Sierra Club Central Ohio Group, co-leader of Citizens Climate Lobby Columbus Chapter, and a member of the Climate Reality Leadership Corps.