The temperature in Paris during the day is exactly the same as Islamabad at night – maybe it’s the El Nino effect or even climate change, but this is a mild December in Paris. There has been a flurry of activity since I arrived — it started with the exciting Leaders Event on the first day of the UN Climate Change Conference 2015 or COP21, when one saw world leaders like President Obama, Angela Merkel and Justine Trudeau walking through the halls of the Le Bourget conference centre on the outskirts of Paris. Security is very tight here, given the terrorist attacks in Paris that took place barely two weeks ago. The ambience in the city of lights is definitely more subdued and somber than usual, although with Christmas approaching, people are now starting to go out shopping and eating at the bistros and restaurants.
Still there are police contingents everywhere, armed with machine guns — a bit like Pakistan! Even at the iconic Eiffel Tower there were paramilitary police carefully scanning the tourist filled area. I was headed to the nearby River Seine, where the indigenous and forest peoples from all over the world were gathering on the weekend for an event that represents the culmination of their campaign aimed at “drawing attention to their plight and the promise of the solutions that they offer for healing the planet they all call Mother Earth”.
The boat was one of the typical vessels cruising on the picturesque River Seine that runs through the heart of Paris, but draped with colourful flags and banners. I watched the indigenous leaders from the Amazon, the Congo Basin, Indonesia and Mesoamerica beat on drums and chant songs as the boat took a ride from the Eiffel tower area to Notre Dame Cathedral and back. Recent studies have shown that indigenous peoples outperform every other owner, public or private in forest conservation.
The only positive news coming out of Pakistan at the conference was KP’s ‘Billion tree tsunami’
Duane Kinnart from the Ojibwa tribe in Michigan in the US said: “We are here to create a better world; I think there will be a positive outcome in Paris. Things are changing; people are changing and bringing faith back to humanity. We are realising that we are all one”.
Back at the conference centre, there was a similar feeling of optimism running through the halls. Yvo de Boer, who was the previous executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) told the Climate News Network team, whose training I attended earlier in the week, that the meeting is likely to succeed in producing a climate treaty. “Agreed, Paris won’t keep global warming below the 2 degrees Celsius safety level … but it marks the point when the world finally moves from negotiation to implementation – albeit on a very modest scale.”