Hopes for Paris
Yesterday, I threw off my cynicism about such things and went on the Climate March in Newcastle, taking the little one with me (right). All the climate marches around the world were portrayed as ‘protests’ in the media, but I wasn’t protesting – I was simply standing up to be counted, making it clear to those negotiating in Paris this week that we expect them to deliver.
I’m quite optimistic about Paris. The approach of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) to reducing emissions is broadly what I thought they should have been doing back in Copenhagen (in my dreams someone read this blog and said “That’s where we went wrong!”). In addition, while the INDCs don’t yet add up to maintaining temperature rises by 2°C, they don’t include commitments by private companies, many of whom are a. huge and b. much more ambitious in their aims than nations. The media isn’t rep
India seems to be the emerging villain this time around, with Narendra Modi seemingly wedded to development through coal. Hopefully he can be persuaded that India doesn’t need to follow the high-carbon, smoggy path Europe and China pioneered, but can leapfrog it using cleaner technology. Can’t be too difficult a shift to make for a country with a manned space programme and nuclear weapons…
Anyway, I’m optimistic a deal can be done, and, if not, there’s no good reason those INDCs and business pledges can’t be implemented anyway. Let’s do it!