At the end of 2015 COP21 was held at Le Bourget. Starting on November 30, it entailed thirteen days of work and negotiations between 195 countries. It ended with the so-called "Paris Agreement" characterized by Laurent Fabius, Minister of Foreign Affairs and President of the COP, as a text "fair, sustainable, dynamic, balanced and legally binding." (1)
"The main points of disagreement related to the goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees compared to the pre-industrial period (the period 1880-1889, the period during which, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the average temperature had already increased by 0.85%). It would ultimately be a more ambitious goal than that of 1.5 degrees, which appears in the Paris Agreement." (2)
However, in the end many observers and many NGOs were very skeptical and, for example, "organizations like OXFAM deplore that recognition of the damage caused by extreme weather events « has been partly emptied of its substance, since if such a situation is indeed mentioned in the text of the agreement, the notion of financial compensation was abandoned in the final version. »" (3)
For others "reported Pascale Minet in the Swiss daily Le Temps « the long-term goal of the agreement has lost in precision in the final grind. The term "decarbonisation" of the economy which called for the abandonment of fossil fuels emitting CO2, has been abandoned. Instead, there is the wish to achieve a balance between emissions and removals of CO2 « in the second half of the 21st century. » It will therefore be possible, for example, to continue to emit greenhouse gases...while developing technologies to capture them in the soil. »" (4)
Weakened by pain in the shoulders and in a knee, for a long time I was reluctant to leave the Toulouse area. It was only two days before the start of COP21 that I made the decision to go. Without a press card, and considering the state of emergency declared by the French state - following the terrorist attacks of November 13 in the capital - I knew that it would be impossible for me to document the summit on the official side; civil society too would have a hard time making itself heard to the extent that the government had not hesitated to ban any demonstration and assemblies and that ecologists were placed under house arrest. (5)
However, I told myself that, in addition to meeting people, it would be interesting to document, in a similar « climate », what a typical citizen could see of this event considering its utmost importance. I also had in mind the work done in 2006 during the World Cup match in Germany, another event in this globalized world, which allowed me to document, among other things, the atmosphere of the host country at the time. (see the report "The Normalization of Patriotism in Germany")
To conclude I would say, like so many others, that this COP was « a beautiful diplomatic success » but that the hard part now begins. It will be important to follow in time what this « collective promise » is going to accomplish and it is certain that civil society will have a vital role to play. To this day (January 2016) I think that, even if it is not very "glorious" photographically, to continue this work at the following COPs (the next one is in Morocco) would not be without interest ...
PS: This story was mostly done in black and white but I also used some old color film that I had in stock for a particular day. Its use, plus the error of the small photo shop of my city that processed with out-dated chemicals, resulted in weird colors. On reflection, we thought that it would be nice to keep the images in color (instead of reverting them to black and white) to reflect the red line (symbolic of the 1.5 degree not to be crossed to limit global warming) that the demonstrators wanted to enforce on governments. The red line remains but is now magenta. Also, using cross processing would give a visual impression of the disturbances that the world would face if the red line was exceeded ... Basically, nothing would be as before.
(1) https://www.letemps.ch/laccord-juge-durable-dynamique-equilibre-juridiquement-contraignant
(2) (3) (4) https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/lesprit-public/cop21-le-bilan-les-nouveaux-defis-du-royaume-uni
(5) https://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2015/11/28/01016-20151128ARTFIG00042-des-militants-ecologistes-assignes-a-residence-le-temps-de-la-cop21.php
At the end of 2015 COP21 was held at Le Bourget. Starting on November 30, it entailed thirteen days of work and negotiations between 195 countries. It ended with the so-called "Paris Agreement" characterized by Laurent Fabius, Minister of Foreign Affairs and President of the COP, as a text "fair, sustainable, dynamic, balanced and legally binding." (1)
"The main points of disagreement related to the goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees compared to the pre-industrial period (the period 1880-1889, the period during which, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the average temperature had already increased by 0.85%). It would ultimately be a more ambitious goal than that of 1.5 degrees, which appears in the Paris Agreement." (2)
However, in the end many observers and many NGOs were very skeptical and, for example, "organizations like OXFAM deplore that recognition of the damage caused by extreme weather events « has been partly emptied of its substance, since if such a situation is indeed mentioned in the text of the agreement, the notion of financial compensation was abandoned in the final version. »" (3)
For others "reported Pascale Minet in the Swiss daily Le Temps « the long-term goal of the agreement has lost in precision in the final grind. The term "decarbonisation" of the economy which called for the abandonment of fossil fuels emitting CO2, has been abandoned. Instead, there is the wish to achieve a balance between emissions and removals of CO2 « in the second half of the 21st century. » It will therefore be possible, for example, to continue to emit greenhouse gases...while developing technologies to capture them in the soil. »" (4)