France has launched an unprecedented diplomatic drive to shepherd nations big and small towards a major climate change deal, ahead of a Paris summit next month that is the next major make-or-break moment for the movement against global warming, reports The Guardian.
Every one of France’s ambassadors, in embassies and consulates around the globe, has been educated on the demands of climate change, and instructed in how to communicate the messages to the governments they deal with, ahead of the summit, which starts on November 30th.
Ambassadors have been holding public events, private meetings, talks with their diplomatic counterparts, businesses, NGOs and even schoolchildren.
At home, the outer walls of the foreign ministry, a stately 19th-century edifice on the banks of the Seine, are covered in a series of banners declaring, in several languages, the messages of Paris Climat 2015. Even the Eiffel Tower, further down the riverbank, has been pressed into service, lit up at night with climate slogans.
François Hollande, the president of France, has been visiting world leaders for the past year, urging them to come to Paris. Laurent Fabius, foreign minister, who will be in charge of the talks, has made it his mission, with a punishing schedule of events and public speaking. Ségolène Royal, environment minister and co-host, has also been touring capitals and conferences.
Climate diplomacy has never seen such a concerted push.
“It’s a top priority for our diplomacy. All our ambassadors are fully mobilised, all around the world,” Sylvie Bermann, the French ambassador to the UK, told The Guardian.
She has hosted a series of public seminars and events in the UK, with one forthcoming on climate change and refugees. The embassy itself has also taken on the green message, with her new official car a hybrid Peugeot 508 – a French manufacturer, of course.
Even in countries such as India and Poland where, Bermann said “there might be more fisticuffs” over climate change, the embassies have been engaging governments, and in China, where she was posted before coming to London – she is a fluent Chinese speaker – she notes a major push involving government and NGOs.
Care has been taken to involve public opinion, too: there has even been a boat, the research vessel Tara, sponsored by the French fashion brand Agnès B, that has toured the US, London, Scandinavia and other regions before coming home to France.
A special ambassador has been appointed, Laurence Tubiana, who has also embarked on a whirlwind tour of capitals and dignitaries.
With three months to go before the conference, France’s ambassadors were lectured by Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary-general, who also has a big stake in the success of Paris, having presided over the previous conference in Copenhagen in 2009 that was widely derided as a failure, as it collapsed into scenes of chaos in the final hours.
“For Hollande’s administration, this is not just about the climate: it is about the government’s political survival,” one prominent global official told The Guardian. “They need this to be a success, to have something to celebrate, as they’re in trouble in so many other areas of politics.”
At the two-week summit, governments will meet under the auspices of the United Nations in the first attempt for six years to forge a new global agreement on climate change.
COP21, as it is known in the jargon, is seen as a make-or-break conference, the last chance for the two-decades-old UN process to bring nations together to tackle what many scientists regard as the biggest single threat to humanity.
This week, governments will gather in Bonn for the last chance before the Paris conference to amend the text of the potential agreement. Previous such meetings have produced little progress, however.