France bans climate marches

The cancelled marches are not the only civil activities that organizers have planned during the talks.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, in Turkey for a meeting of the Group of 20, said many world leaders reaffirmed they would come to the summit.

Groups involved with the Climate Action Network, which is organizing summit-related activism, called on activists to respond by attending one of the thousands of climate-change events that day elsewhere around the globe. The rallies-scheduled for November 29 and December 12-were expected to draw 200,000 or more people to the streets of the French capital in support of strong measures to address global warming.

Similar marches are planned for cities around the world, with local campaigners confirming the Australian marches would go on.

“We regret that no alternative has been found to allow our mobilization plans to go ahead”, the coalition said in its statement.

“We have a duty to stand up and continue to fight for a just and liveable planet for all”, she said.

No matter what happens at major climate talks in Paris, the globe won’t “U-turn” and pull funds from emerging clean energy markets.

Climate activists in Paris are meeting today and tomorrow to decide on alternative, creative ways to mobilise instead of marching, including online and artistic means.

Nicolas Haeringer, a spokesperson for 350.org said in a statement: “The government can prohibit these demonstrations, but it cannot stop the mobilization and it won’t prevent us strengthening the climate movement”.

Climate Institute deputy chief executive Erwin Jackson said the process in the lead-up to Paris had put pressure on countries including Australia to pledge emissions reduction targets. By refusing to postpone the summit, negotiators have sent a powerful message: Climate change is important to the safety of our world and it will not be ignored.

“So the conference is going ahead and all the related events are going ahead”, he said.

Official delegates to the climate conference have not been deterred by the terrorism.

Yet preventing attendees in Paris from joining in with dozens of protests already being planned in cities all over the world wouldn’t reflect the spirit of COP21 or the city.

The climate talks themselves will take place at a secured venue in the Le Bourget section of Paris, in the northeast suburbs near Charles De Gaulle airport, about five miles away from where most of the attacks took place last week.

The aim of COP21 is to achieve, for the first time in more than two decades of United Nations negotiations, “a legally binding and universal agreement on climate” in a bid to keep average temperatures from rising more than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Weber says that reaching the goal will be up to the largest carbon producers to lead the way.