MEDIA RELEASE: The One Planet Summit Fires Up Momentum for the Paris Agreement

MEDIA RELEASE: The One Planet Summit Fires Up Momentum for the Paris Agreement

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 13, 2017
Contact: Cathy Orlando, cathy@citizensclimatelobby.org, 705-929-4043

On Tuesday, December 12 in Paris, France, the One Planet Summit co-convened by French President Emmanuel Macron, the UN,  and the World Bank Group, was attended by more than 50 world leaders, as well as CEOs, NGOs, celebrities, philanthropists, and investment fund managers.

Macron said Tuesday, “we are losing the battle” against climate change. “We’re not moving quickly enough. We all need to act.”

Macron was seeking to breathe new life into efforts to combat climate change on the second anniversary of the Paris Agreement. President Macron called the Summit in July, following Trump’s announcement that he would withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, signed by 197 countries and territories. Attendance at the summit was by invitation only. Macron did not invite President Trump to the Summit.

In a rebuke to  President Trump’s antipathy towards climate science, Macron announced the first 18 winners of grants for international scientists to carry out their research in France for his “Make our Planet Great Again” initiative, announced in June after US President Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.

“President Macron’s call to action yesterday was echoed by youth from Fiji and the USA and was met by major banks, insurers, and businesses. The World Bank Group committed to stop financing oil and gas exploration and extraction starting in 2019 and financial decision-makers are moving to align fully with the Paris Agreement goals,” reports Joseph Robertson, Global Strategy Director at Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) . “And, today we are happy to announce that the effort to build Resilience Intel made real progress in our post-Summit working dialogue. So, we are that much closer to being able to identify and upgrade climate-smart money across the whole economy.”

Near the beginning of the Summit, 12-year-old Timoci Naulusala from Fiji asked the world’s leaders,  “Are you ready to face life without earth? Have you contemplated if you ignore this reality – this nightmare?” Timoci knows the horrors of climate change impacts first hand. His village in Fiji last year was hit by Cyclone Winston – the most intense tropical cyclone in the Southern Hemisphere on record. Thereafter the day was filled with commitments by leaders from around the world.

Countries across the Americas stepped up cooperation on carbon pricing. Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile and Mexico pledged to apply the cost of carbon dioxide discharges to guide public investment decisions and to encourage private companies to follow suit through internal pricing systems. The governors of California and Washington, as well as the premiers of Alberta, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Ontario, and Quebec, also joined the declaration signed at the climate summit in Paris on Tuesday.

“The time for coal is now passing,“ said the Honourable Catherine McKenna, Canada’s Environment and Climate Change Minister, in an interview this week in Paris. At the Summit, British Prime Minister Theresa May announced that the Powering Past Coal Alliance originally launched less than a month ago by the UK and Canada,  has 20 new members.

French insurance giant AXA  used Macron’s Summit to announce that they will stop insuring tar sands and new coal projects and divest more than CAD $4.5 billion (CAD) from companies in those sectors.  Additionally, “more than 200 institutional investors with US$26 trillion in assets under management said they would step up pressure on the world’s biggest corporate greenhouse gas emitters to combat climate change,” Reuters reported.

“The One Planet Summit and surrounding events this week in Paris mark another extraordinary moment in the worldwide efforts to fire up momentum for the Paris Agreement and beyond,” says Cathy Orlando, National Director of CCL Canada. “Because of the leadership of President Macron, we are getting closer to delivering a climate-secure future to all corners of the Earth and a sustainable future for every man, woman, and child.”