France is more optimistic that Republicans will come around on the issue of climate change than the president seems to be these days.
France will be hosting a United Nations conference on climate change in Paris at the end of the year, and it wants buy-in from all parties, cities, states and local governments to support an agreement on global emission reductions that will be hashed out at the meeting.
France’s ambassador to the United States, Gerard Araud, is convinced that American politics on the issue of global warming and climate change are more complex than what is typically conveyed in the media.
The climate debate is not just playing out in editorial pages, Araud told a forum at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington on Wednesday. It is much more dynamic than that.
“I am traveling a lot in the U.S. these days, especially to speak about the cooperation on the [U.N. conference], and I should say I am extremely reassured … because you have the impression that all these civic debates that we hear about what is climate change, whether there is climate change, left the impression that this debate is only existing in the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal.”
He has been touring the United States in recent weeks to talk to state and local leaders, Republicans and Democrats, to understand their approaches to energy in the run-up to the conference.
His read on where Republicans stand on the issue of climate change at the local level, is that they aren’t that far from where Democrats are. They use different terminology, but the ideas are the same, Araud said.
“When you meet a Republican governor and a mayor, they don’t speak about climate change, they speak about energy effectiveness, which is exactly the same thing, which has the same result,” he said.
“This country is an incredible creative country. And this country is mobilizing for action, and it is very, very exciting,” Araud said.
He said CEOs also “want to be engaged in energy effectiveness … because it makes a lot of sense,” not only “for the sake of human kind,” but it makes economic sense.
“That’s the message we would like to have from Paris,” he said. “The message [is] … we are serious about the low-carbon economy, not only because it’s good for the future … but also because it makes economic sense. And that’s what we are going to try to have in Paris.
“I think a lot of our politicians are not understanding that actually the technology is there, or its very close to being there, and it makes economic sense,” Araud said.
Araud said he wants to see more than the heads of state represented at the climate negotiations, and says more outreach has to be made to local governments, states and industry, who are vital to the success of the talks.
“We shouldn’t consider the [meeting in Paris] only under the [umbrella] of the United Nations agreement, because climate change is not only … something for the governments to decide,” he said. “We need the mobilization of all the stakeholders, which means the mobilization of the local authorities, the territories and the cities … also of the business community.”
