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?  

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.

---

By Ethan Stewart ( 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.”

 
(805) 962-2571
P.O. Box 92156, Santa Barbara, CA 93190
margie@sbpermaculture.org
http://www.sbpermaculture.org

P Please consider the environment before printing this email