The French government vowed to push on with the United Nations Climate summit in Paris this month and will boost security for the more than 120 world leaders traveling to a city reeling from a deadly terrorist attack.
“It will go ahead with reinforced security measures,” French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said in Vienna on Nov. 14, a day after gunmen killed as many as 129 people in Paris. “This is an absolutely necessary step in the battle against climate change and of course it will take place.”
France had already reinstated border controls before the attack, and will increase police deployment for the talks scheduled to take place at the Le Bourget airfield in the north of Paris between Nov. 30 and Dec. 11.
The summit is more important now than ever, Le Point magazine quoted French energy minister Segolene Royale as saying. “If not, terrorism wins,” Royale said.
U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping are among heads of state expected to attend the summit where delegates from more than 190 countries will work on an agreement to set a global framework to combat climate change, including limits on fossil-fuel emissions that will apply for the first time to all nations.
“I don’t see these attacks having any substantial bearing on the substance of the negotiations,” said Alden Meyer, who has followed the climate talks for more than two decades at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Washington based advocacy group.
Delegations Assemble
There’s no sign delegations plan to scale back their presence in Paris. Hundreds of environmentalists from around the world, as well as business groups, are scheduled to attend the meeting known as “COP21.”
“All my thoughts are with our French friends,” German Deputy Environment Minister Jochen Flasbarth said on his Twitter account on Nov. 14. “Now we will come with even higher ambitions to COP21.”
In Bonn, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change said it is moving ahead.
“Security is always right at these conferences but understandably it will be even tighter this year,” said Nick Nuttall, a spokesman for the organization.