From the July 7-10 conference held in Paris
French Ministers Najat Vallaud-Belkacem (Education) and Ségolène Royal (Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy) with a guest appearance of Jon Stewart and climate change deniers on the Daily Show.
TUC Radio is focussing on climate change in preparation of the Climate Summit coming up in Paris from November 30 to December 11, 2015 (COP 21)
In the early days of July, 2015, over 100 countries sent 2000 delegates to Paris to discuss the physical, economic and social aspects of climate change. The conference hoped to inspire ambition for a global climate treaty later this year in December at the COP 21 Climate Conference, also in Paris.
Some prominent conference speakers stated matter of factly that we need not just reduce but actually end the carbon based economy that relies on oil, coal and gas – and we have to do it within the next two decades – which is probably the greatest challenge humanity ever faced. So countries have agreed that Paris in 2015 is the time and place to finally sign an international treaty requiring all nations to begin reducing carbon emissions.
The French president Francois Hollande had planned to open the conference – but he was busy in meetings over the debt crisis in Greece. In his place two very interesting women gave the keynotes. Najat Vallaud-Belkacem is the Minister of Education, Higher Education, and Research. She was born in 1977 in Morocco in a village near Nador. Previously she was minister of Women’s Rights.
Ségolène Royal is a prominent member of the French Socialist Party and the Minister for Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy. She is a former member of the National Assembly and has held several ministerial positions.
Their concept of the science of climate change stands in extraordinary contrast to the the discourse within the US Congress where climate change deniers still hold forth. I was reminded of Jon Stewart’s Daily show right after the huge Climate March in NYC in September 2014. This Daily Show clip resents climate change deniers in the US House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 19.9MB)
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