Executive director of campaign group Avaaz explains why this weekend’s global show of support for a UN climate pact matters
By Emma Ruby-Sachs in Paris
It’s a strange experience arriving in Paris, seven months pregnant with your first child, days after a terrorist attack, to help an incredible movement of millions of people have their voices entered into the history books.
This is a moment of extraordinary hope, the kind of hope every parent, every person needs to honestly promise the next generation a future to be excited for.
What the French government understood when it refused to cancel COP21 was that this could be the moment where fossil fuels are given a sunset clause – and dawn breaks on a new era of 100% clean energy for everyone.
In fact, it’s exactly that threat that’s mobilising the fossil fuel companies to rally around the negotiations at the last minute in the hopes of distracting and destroying this potentially epic moment in our human development.
But this weekend, that lobby will be met with unprecedented numbers of people in the streets of over 2300 cities, towns, villages around the world, from the plains of Tanzania to the war torn cities of Yemen to massive marches in London, Berlin and Sao Paolo.
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Already, Melbourne’s climate march gathered 60,000 people, double the number from last September’s global climate day of action. This movement is shaking the ground across the planet and opening up chasms of opportunity everywhere, and that is what is shaping our expectations for Paris.
In the last year, a long term goal to shift the world away from dirty energy has gone from pipe dream to mainstream – decarbonisation of the global economy was committed to by the G7, Brazil has supported this too through its Paris offer.
Candles, cards, flags and teddy bears adorn Place de la Republique in Paris, weeks after the 13/11 terror attacks (Pic: Ed King)
And in a statement released by the French President and the UN Secretary General following a lunch with some 30 heads of state in New York in September, both decarbonisation and 100% clean energy were included as key recommendations for Paris.
If it is agreed upon by the end of these two weeks, business community predicts the ripple effects on the market will be immediate and huge.
This could see the shift we need of resources into the renewable energy market, opening up possibilities no one dreamed of for clean energy production and development around the world.
Hundreds of pairs of shoes at Place de Republique represent those people who would have marched for a climate deal before the demonstrated was cancelled (Pic: Ed King)
It’s for that reason that so many businesses and investors are supporting a long term goal and have stated this in dozens of Op Eds, letters and speeches this year.
However, none of this will happen without money, and finance is another key expectation for Paris. Rich countries out there, expect to keep your promises and go beyond them. $100bn was promised, we’re not there yet, and even more concerning, is the lack of clarity around what happens to this money post 2020.
To bring all countries into a new international climate regime it’s critical promises are kept, and money is extended and expanded beyond 2020. That is a core and fair expectation from the countries in this world who are already living, day in, day out, with the dangerous and violent reality of climate change.
In the next two weeks, we’ll see countless arguments about that we cannot do. But the truth is that we have no choice but to rise to this occasion as one human family, with wisdom and cooperation. This climate conference is the best chance in generations to give us a fighting chance at a future without catastrophe.
And national interests, in the developed and developing world, just factually, take a back seat to the international interest we all have in survival. 100% clean energy inextricably linked to a fair finance deal delivers us to a safe future. This conference can be the beginning of that momentum. It can be the turning point, my unborn child and their generation read about in their history books, if we are wise enough to jump at the opportunity.
Our movement will spend the next decade holding governments everywhere to ambitious goals. We will swell, not end, with this two week conference — our effectiveness, diversity and size only growing faster than ever before.
But this conference is particularly important to me and my story. You see, it’s my last chance to see the progress that saves me from being a liar when I tell my child, “welcome to the world, it’s a beautiful world, ready for you to live a long and healthy life in its arms.”
Emma Ruby-Sachs is acting executive director of Avaaz