immanence

How connected are the recent Paris attacks with the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP 21 (Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change)?

At first glance, the targeting of Paris for ISIS’s act of war on civilian populations would seem to be motivated by other things: France’s role in the war in Syria, the high proportion of Muslims in France, challenges in integrating both immigrant and refugee populations, the symbolic resonance of the city itself, and so on.

A growing sentiment among climate change activists, led by Britain’s The Ecologist magazine, is the suspicion that the upcoming climate change conference may be more than just coincidentally related to last week’s events. ISIS, or Daesh (as critics are increasingly calling it), may have motivations that coincide with the protection of the oil industry that they, in fact, depend on. And the militaristic and security-obsessed response of France’s Hollande government would seem to play right into the objectives that ISIS may share with others in the fossil fuel industry.

Ecologist editor Oliver Tickell writes:

“It’s estimated that ten thousand or more climate activists from around the world may be planning to stay in Paris for the duration of the conference, both to demand a strong and effective agreement, and to develop their own agenda, alliances and plans for climate action.

“There is certain to be [as a result of the bombings] a far larger and more repressive security presence around them than previously planned — not just at Le Bourget but in central Paris where most of the events, conferences and demonstrations are due to take place.

“Police surely fear the presence of terrorists taking shelter among the climate activists — and in many a policeman’s world view, there may be no huge difference between murderous terrorists and (generally) peaceful demonstrators anyway. Both are likely to be seen as the ‘enemy’.

“Meanwhile the activists could reasonably fear terrorism themselves. What yesterday’s attacks tell us is that any target will do. Climate campaigners have no reason to feel any safer than anyone else. And a demonstration of tens of thousands densely packed on the streets of Paris would offer a highly vulnerable target.

“So the effect of the attacks on COP21 is likely to be a chilling one. Faced with a combination of terrorist threat, and likely heavy-handed policing, their numbers — and their political impact — are likely to fall.”

In fact, the two major demonstrations planned for the conference have now been banned — a decision roundly, but so far ineffectually, critiqued by climate activists.

Why would ISIS care about the upcoming climate summit? For starters, they are dependent on oil revenues — which is enemy number one for climate activists. ISIS’s ambitions, according to Tickell, include the desire to

“consolidate its hold of the regions it already occupies, extend its empire to new regions and countries, and establish a Caliphate whose power and income will largely derive from oil [to the tune of $1.5 million a day, according to the Financial Times]. So the last thing it needs is a global climate agreement that will, over time, limit global consumption of fossil fuels.”

Climate activists are scrambling to find effective ways of carrying out their planned events in Paris (see here and here). Organizers of the Climate Games make the connections between the two sets of events clear in their response, arguing that

“the geopolitical and economic dynamics that underpin climate chaos are the same as those that feed terrorism. From the oil wars in Iraq to the droughts in Syria caused by ecological collapse, all feed the same inequalities that lead to cycles of violent conflict.”

They acknowledge that their “playing field has been totally transformed in Paris,” but urge their followers to “rise out of fear and shock” “like the mushrooms that emerge at dawn, the ants that scuttle across borders at night” and to “adapt and resist”:

“The decentralised creative nature of the Climate Games could become the alternative nonviolent response to this state of emergency.”

Meanwhile, the Billion People March has amped up its plans for a revolutionary “global big bang moment” on Saturday, December 19, by not only calling for street marches, but also an “aesthetic terror” that would “pepper” the world with “Blackspots” — logos to end all logos — on Coke machines, ATMs, billboards, corporate headquarters, and web sites.

With terror so vividly on people’s minds, the choice of phrase may not be the most effective there. But the debate over how last week’s events will affect and shape the next few weeks in global climate politics is just beginning.

For more on the events planned in Paris and beyond, see here.