Naomi Klein, 45, is one of the most internationally popular and influential critics of neoliberal globalization, notably since the publication in 2000 of her essay No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies, translated into 28 languages. In 2007 she published The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, another international bestseller on how disasters, natural or manmade, are used to introduce otherwise unpopular freemarket policies. Her 2014 book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate argues that neoliberal capitalist policies and those to avert climate disaster are incompatible.
Video blog N°6:
In this, her final blog (below), Naomi Klein joined demonstrators on the Champs Elysée avenue in central Paris where they were drawing attention to the “red lines” crossed in the COP 21 deal that was approved by world governments on Saturday. “There is just such a tremendous gulf between what politicians are saying and what their policies will deliver – which is a world of catastrophic warming,” she says. The good news? “We have a movement to fill the vacuum left by our leaders and to push them so hard to change the dynamics so that the next time they get together we have a way better deal.”
Video production by à-vif(s).
Video blog N°5:
In her fifth and latest blog (below), and hours before the close of COP 21, Naomi Klein returns to the dilemmas faced by the poor and vulnerable nations who not only already face economic and social hardship from the effects already of climate change, but who also, for some, are staring at the future disappearance of their land unless the climate warming target is reduced well below the much-touted 2° Celsius. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a situation where there countries are being asked to accept the terms of their own annihilation,” says Klein.
Video production by à-vif(s).
Video blog N°4:
In her fourth video blog (below), Naomi Klein looks at the so-far separated issues of climate regulation deals and free trade deals. She also takes issue with the United States’ efforts at the COP 21 negotiations to avoid a legally binding agreement on the climate whereas, in separate but parallel negotiations to set up a free trade agreement between the US and the European Union – the TTIP - Washington is in favour of a legally binding deal.
(Mediapart thanks the Paris bookshop Librairie Quilombo which is the backdrop to this interview). Video production by à-vif(s).
Video blog N°3:
In this third video blog (below), Naomi Klein and Mediapart environement correspondent Jade Lindgaard take stock of events half way through the COP 21, and they notably cast a critical eye over the draft texts for an agreement. They also turn to what’s happening outside the conference halls in Le Bourget, for just a few kilometres further south, in the Paris suburb of Montreuil, Naomi Klein joined fellow climate activist Bill McKibben to play ‘chief prosecutors’ at a public trial of Exxonmobile staged by the COP 21 People’s Climate Summit.
(Mediapart thanks the café-bookshop Michèle Firk in Montreuil which is the backdrop to this interview). Video production by à-vif(s).
Video blog N°2:
In the video below, the second in her regular blogging series published by Mediapart throughout the UN climate conference in Paris, Naomi Klein, interviewed by Mediapart's environment correspondent Jade Lindgaard, returns to the subject of the Leap Manifesto. This is a political movement she and 14 others launched in Canada during the recent federal election campaign, and which calls for Canada to be 100% reliant on sustainable energies, owned and controlled by the communities that host them and that the jobs created in the process are in line with ‘energy democracy’, conceived in a manner to remove economic and social injustices. Klein addressed a meeting of about 500 people in Paris about the Leap Manifesto on the sidelines of the current UN climate conference.
Video production by à-vif(s).
November 29th, video blog N°1:
In her first video blog for Mediapart (below) Naomi Klein gives her view of the banning of a demonstration planned in Paris by environment activists on November 29th, at the start of the United Nations climate conference hosted in the French capital. The demonstrators, banned from gathering en masse as part of the state of emergency measures introduced after the November 13th terrorist attacks in Paris, nevertheless found the means to gather in the city centre. "This demonstartion is a show of defiance," says Klein.
Video production by à-vif(s).
- This video blog series is shot and directed by Jean de Peña and Jean-Paul Duarte of the À-vif(s) collective, in partnership with US weekly magazine The Nation.
- Naomi Klein’s video blogs are also published on Mediapart’s French pages (see here).