Kerry will return to
Paris with President Barack Obama on Nov. 30 to attend COP21, which
is the 21st conference of "parties," or countries, seeking
to act on climate change. It will be held from Nov. 30 to Dec. 11 in
the Paris suburb of Le Bourget.
How
The Paris Attacks Make A Global Climate Deal More Likely
The
much-awaited 2015 United Nations Conference on Climate Change will
continue as planned in Paris. Only now, there are higher hopes.
Daniel Marans
Reporter, The
Huffington Post
Posted: 11/18/2015
04:36 PM EST
Climate change
advocates are optimistic that last Friday's terror attacks in Paris
have improved the chances of an international climate deal being
agreed upon at the upcoming United Nations talks being held in the
French capital in less than two weeks.
Andrew Steer,
president of the World Resources Institute, said on a call with
reporters on Wednesday that while there is no way to know for certain
what the impact of the attacks will be on the Paris conference, the
current spirit of global solidarity bodes well for cooperation.
“There is a degree
of, sort of, solidarity internationally over [the attacks] that is
not exactly unprecedented, but since 9/11, we haven’t seen anything
quite like that,” Steer said. “It is really quite astonishing. It
is absolutely amazing -- the desire to do something in common … If
anything, it stiffens the spine in terms of determination to really”
reach a long-term climate change deal.
Steer argued that
the effect of the attacks would be "tonal."
“It is the
psychology of these heads of state,” he said. “They are going to
be talking about sympathy and solidarity. It is harder for them to go
on to say, ‘We are not going to do a deal.’”
Steer’s comments
echo remarks made by former Clinton administration climate aide Paul
Bledsoe.
"The resolve of
world leaders is going to be redoubled to gain an agreement and show
that they can deliver for populations around the world,” Bledsoe
told Politico. “The likelihood for a successful agreement has only
increased because of these attacks."
Christiana Figueres,
executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate
Change, the body supervising the talks, hinted at similar optimism in
a tweet, insisting that the attacks made the conference more relevant
than ever.
Asked for comment on
whether the attacks might affect the outcome of the U.N. Conference
on Climate Change, or COP21, the State Department referred The
Huffington Post to Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent public
remarks and interviews on the Paris attacks.
The Paris conference
“will be an important statement by the world that no one will
interrupt the business of the global community – certainly not
despicable, cowardly acts of terror,” Kerry said after meeting with
French President François Hollande in Paris on Tuesday.
French Foreign
Minister Laurent Fabius announced on Saturday that the climate
conference will proceed as planned, with “reinforced security
measures.”
“This is an
absolutely essential step against climate change and of course it
will take place,” Fabius said.
Even if
participating nations reach a long-term climate change agreement at
the conference, it is not clear what form it will take.
Kerry sparked a
public dispute with European leaders when he told the Financial Times
on Nov. 11 that any international agreement emerging from the Paris
conference would not be a “treaty” with “legally binding
reduction targets.”
Senior French and
European Union officials insisted that the agreement would be legally
binding. Fabius went so far as to say that Kerry was “confused.”
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