The United Nations will still hold its global warming summit in Paris this month despite deadly terror attacks that rocked the French capital Friday night. France’s foreign minister says the summit is “essential” to fighting global warming.
.@LaurentFabius says #COP21 is essential to combat #climatechange and that it will take place despite #ParisAttacks https://t.co/mHTZR3hQe8
— UN Climate Change (@UNFCCC) November 14, 2015
Despite the deadly attacks carried out by terrorists linked to the Islamic State, the U.N. has no plans to cancel the summit. U.N. and French officials likely see the summit as too important to cancel even in the wake of these shocking attacks.
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Indeed, many world leaders believe fighting global warming is a bigger long-term threat than terrorism. Minister Fabius himself warned that “climate change is a threat to peace” and a greater threat than terrorism.
“Terrorism is significant, but naked hunger is as significant as terrorism,” Fabius said in a speech last month. “And the relationship between terrorist activities and naked hunger are obvious. If you look at the vectors of recruitment into terrorist cells, most of the most vulnerable are hunger-prone areas.”
President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have also claimed on numerous occasions there is “no greater threat” than global warming facing Americans or the world. “I am convinced that no challenge poses a greater threat to our future and future generations than a changing climate,” Obama said in a speech in August announcing new regulations on power plants.
“The Pentagon says that climate change poses immediate risks to our national security. We should act like it,” Obama said in his State of the Union speech in January.
Obama has made signing a global climate treaty a major effort during his second term. The president clearly wants such a treaty to be a part of his legacy. The administration has been touting its environmental policies in recent months, claiming that reducing CO2 emissions could even help avoid violent conflicts like the Syrian civil war.
“It is not a coincidence that immediately prior to the civil war in Syria, the country experienced the worst drought on record,” Kerry said in a recent speech. “Now, I’m not telling you that the crisis in Syria was caused by climate change,” but global warming “clearly made a bad situation a lot worse.”
For those in Paris, however, global warming is not likely on their minds in the wake of Islamic State terror attacks that killed more than 120 people and injured many more Friday night. Gunmen yelling “Allahu Akbar” and “this is for Syria” attacked six locations across the city, using firearms and explosives to inflict destruction and chaos on unsuspecting innocents.
Obama and Kerry are still expected to attend the climate summit November 30th despite the Paris attacks. Though U.N. organizers are still assessing the situation and the security risks of having so many world leaders in one place.
“The government will decide on the action to be taken,” Pierre-Henri Guignard, secretary-general of the climate summit, told the French paper Le Monde. France had plans to set up border checks ahead of the conference, and some 30,000 police officers were set to provide security for the summit. Some 40,000 people are expected to attend the climate summit later this month. The U.N’s top global warming official expressed her “deep pain” in the wake of the attacks, but Christiana Figueres said nothing about cancelling the climate summit that’s expected to yield a global treaty to cut carbon dioxide emissions.
Our @CFigueres reacting to #ParisAttacks: "In deep pain. Standing in solidarity with Paris and the whole of France" pic.twitter.com/jvToMWjna1
— UN Climate Change (@UNFCCC) November 14, 2015
The State Department did not respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s question whether extra security is planned for U.S. officials attending the global warming summit.
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This report, by Michael Bastasch, was cross-posted by arrangement with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
