[Southern California Permaculture] The Paris Project: The Second Half Begins/Weigh in with Comments?

Wed Dec 9 10:44:59 PST 2015

Hi everyone, Ethan Stewart of the Santa Barbara 
Independent continues to do an excellent job 
covering the Climate Talks in Paris, see below.

  I notice on the Independents listing of their 
Most Commented on stories, his articles not 
registering.  Maybe we can all comment to show 
this community does have an interest in the Paris 
Talks, and others involving the environment.  Let 
them know it was worth it for the Independent to 
send a reporter, and we are grateful for that coverage.

  Even the NY Times has very low key reporting of 
the talks in Paris, it shows up low profile 
amongst all the other stories of the day.  hmn, 
critical times, and the reporting very 
minimal.  Can we all weigh in, encourage the 
publications we read to do better?

In recent years, Indonesia has replaced Brazil as the kingpin o

Kodiak Greenwood

In recent years, Indonesia has replaced Brazil as 
the kingpin of deforestation around the world in 
the name of agriculture. Part and parcel to this, 
purposely lit clearing fires on such lands in 
Indonesia have raged wickedly. In fact, when 
burning early this year, they were producing more 
CO2 emissions than all of the United States 
combined. Here, protesters from the island nation 
outraged over the practice, make their voices heard inside Le Bourget.

----------

The Paris Project: The Second Half Begins

‘Week of Hope’ Brings Ministers with Authority to Approve Accord

----------

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

By 
<http://www.independent.com/staff/ethan-stewart/>Ethan 
Stewart (<http://www.independent.com/staff/ethan-stewart/contact/>Contact)

The grind is upon us. After a somewhat quieter 
weekend at Le Bourget conference center here in 
Paris, the UN s Climate Conference came roaring 
back to life on Monday as Foreign Ministers 
arrived en masse for the final phase of the 
two-week conference. This is the home stretch, 
sports fans. If a deal is going to get done, it 
is going to happen in the next couple of days, 
and it is going to be have be agreed upon by the 
new blue suits in town. They have a power of 
authority that their negotiating teams do not. It is officially go time.

So where are we, exactly? Well, on Saturday 
night, the latest incarnation of the draft text, 
now slimmed down to 29 pages from its 
pre-conference heft of over 50, was presented to 
COP21 President and French Foreign Minister 
Laurent Fabius. More telling, those pesky open 
brackets in the text, the things that denote 
areas of specific contention betwixt parties, 
have been reduced from over 1,000 to 567. Of 
course, the bracket tally has to hit zero for a 
deal to be done but, at least in a simple 
mathematical sense, progress is being made at a 
rate relatively consistent with the pace of the 
two-week meeting set to wrap early this coming 
Friday evening Paris time. As Fabius said on 
Monday afternoon, “This is the beginning of the 
week that I like to call The Week of Hope.’”
[]

Yann Arthus-Bertrand

One of the few permitted public assemblies during 
COP21  Paris is still on semi-lockdown after the 
November 13 terrorist attacks  this event at the 
Eiffel Tower on Sunday sent a clear message 
around the world. Conceived by aerial artist John 
Quigley, The Independent‘s own Ethan Stewart 
provides the bottom half of the second zero.

The issues at hand in the remaining brackets are, 
by and large, representative of multinational 
disagreements over four main issues: 
differentiation (i.e., the historical United 
Nations manner of doing business that splits 
folks into either the developing countries group 
or the already developed country camp), ambition 
(Who will pledge what in regard to emissions cuts 
and when? Will it try and keep temperature rise 
below 2 degrees Celsius or 1.5°C?), means of 
implementation (How will cuts actually happen, 
and how will they be monitored/enforced? What 
will define transparency?), and, lastly, 
adaptation (How will less fortunate countries and 
nations on the front lines of climate change be 
supported by the bigger, more fiscally stable 
countries in their efforts to combat and deal 
with climate chaos? In short, who will pay for 
the $100 billion Global Climate Fund and how 
often?). Fabius put it simply on Monday, “A 
resolution is dependent on these issues.”
[]

By Kodiak Greenwood

Inside Plenary Hall 1 is where all the UN 
representatives assemble and where the official and final action happens.

 From here on out, Fabius and his team of 
facilitators are running the negotiation show. To 
that end, in a uniquely French twist, Fabius has 
convened what he is calling the Comité de Paris, 
a hand-selected body of linguistic and legal 
experts who are also representatives to the 
United Nations. A sort of League of Super Heroes, 
this 14-person entity (that includes the COP21 
president himself) is made up of two ministers 
from each of five world regions identified in the 
UN, one minister from the alliance of small 
island nations, and two cochairs, appointed by 
Fabius, Jimena Carrasco from Colombia and Peter 
Horne of Australia. This team is charged with 
hosting a number of smaller informal negotiation 
sessions over the next two days aimed 
specifically at the aforementioned four main 
issues of contention and all the ways they 
cross-cut nearly every remaining part ofthe 
talks. They will gather key players from the more 
brinksmanship-inclined nations and try to get 
them to play nice. On Saturday night, while 
announcing his plans for the Comité, a markedly 
emotional Fabius summed up his motivation, “We re 
talking about life itself 
 I intend to muster 
the experience of my entire life to the service of success for next Friday.”
[]

By Kodiak Greenwood

COP21 President and French Foreign Minister 
Laurent Fabius (second from right), COP21 
Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres (right), 
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon 
(left), and a friend share a laugh over an apple 
at the start of the ministerial level of the conference on Monday.

It is the work from these smaller sessions and, 
of course, the many other formal and informal 
horse-trading sessions going on essentially all 
day and much of the night at Le Bourget that will 
become yet another version of a draft text by 
Wednesday morning. The hope then, according to 
Fabius, is that a more or less final draft will 
be delivered at some point on Thursday in order 
to be translated and prepared for possible 
ratification Friday. Of course, as COP21 
Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres told us 
Monday, “Those of you who have been with us a 
while know that if you want to make God laugh, just make a plan.”

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