After an overnight flight from Philadelphia (one of the emptiest flights I’ve been on in quite some time), I’m excited to be here in Paris for the start of COP21. “COP” is the “Conference of the Parties”, in this case the parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). U.N. member delegations from around the world are convening here in Paris this week and next to negotiate an agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I’m here this week (along with Swarthmore College students Indiana Reid-Shaw and Dakota Pekerti) to observe the negotiations (and the many side events that go along with it – essentially a large climate change conference, with an expected attendance of 40,000 people). We’ll be here for the week, and next week we’ll hand the baton to Professor Ayse Kaya and students Stephen O’Hanlon and Anita Desai, who will come for the final week of the negotiations. (Swarthmore College has three “badges”, official credentials for attending the conference. We are not parties to the negotiations, but rather are “observers”, an official designation that encompasses roughly half of those in attendance. For a nice summary of COP, listen to this presentation by Neil Leary from Dickinson College.)
Arriving in Paris, preparations for the conference are obvious everywhere – signs in the airport, special kiosks with information, lots of helpful people in green vests to help you figure out where to go. And today and tomorrow, free public transportation throughout the city as many major roads are closed as part of the tight security surrounding the arrival of many heads of state (including President Obama) to kick off the negotiations.
At the conference venue itself (in Le Bourget, north of Paris), I was greeted with a display of flags of the U.N. member countries:
Security to get into the venue was much like an airport – metal detectors, all bags x-rayed – but moved quickly due to the large number of people working. After getting photographed for my badge, I headed into the venue. It’s a little disorienting at first – several different pavilions, each housing different types of displays or meeting rooms. (Just a few hours of sleep probably isn’t helping with the disorientation factor.)
One of the pavilions has displays from some (many? most?) of the countries in attendance, all with different styles. The U.S. looks like they are expecting to be holding group events there:
whereas Mexico’s display is more focused on showcasing impacts of climate change (there was a video display highlighting the recent hurricane that hit Mexico’s west coast, and tying it to expected increased frequency of severe weather events from climate change) as well as highlighting renewable energy projects around the country.
The Gulf Cooperation Council (Persian gulf states) has one of the fancier displays – I haven’t yet looked inside to see how they are presenting their engagement with the issue of climate change.
Mostly things are quiet – a fair amount of set-up still going on, but not a huge number of people in attendance just yet. I’m sure that tomorrow things will be much busier, including the press area:
Unfortunately, one of the big events originally scheduled for today (a large public march through Paris) was canceled in the wake of the Nov. 13 attacks. Events inside the conference venue are continuing as planned (with the BBC even suggesting that an agreement is more likely since the attacks), but outside events in public spaces have been canceled.
Looking forward to the actual start of the conference tomorrow!