Climate: in Bordeaux, an "alternative COP" to combat the "feeling of powerlessness"

Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: BEATA ZAWRZEL / NURPHOTO / NURPHOTO VIA AFP 20:59 p.m., November 30, 2023

"Don't fly to Dubai for crumbs": far from COP28 in the United Arab Emirates, an "alternative COP" began on Thursday in Bordeaux around a collective of scientists mobilized to "fight against the feeling of powerlessness". Until Sunday, a hundred "Scientists in Rebellion" are due to take part in round tables, debates, actions and even a mock trial of the oil group TotalEnergies, in order to "put pressure on the negotiations" on climate and energy transition that are taking place until December 12 in Dubai under the aegis of the UN.

"The COPs are playing their role, but they are not sufficiently up to the urgency. It is therefore proposed to open up spaces for discussion. This weekend is symbolic, we're not going to fly to Dubai, continue to have crumbs," Romain Grard, who is co-organising the event, told AFP. Dressed in white coats, the scientists went to meet the public at the submarine base in the port of Bordeaux, where a large dark balloon with a fake wick was deployed, with the slogan: "Climate bomb: who are the real eco-terrorists?"

"Take away the lobbies and everything will be better!"

Several researchers interviewed at the opening of the event acknowledged the "useful" role of successive COPs in "putting the climate problem on the table". But the fact that COP28 is chaired by Sultan Al Jaber, chief executive of the national oil company Adnoc, does not go unnoticed. "The heart of his private interest is the production of fossil fuels," says Stéphanie Mariette, a geneticist at INRAE.

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"It's a good idea to get together once a year to discuss," said Wolfgang Cramer, director of research at the CNRS, an environmental geographer and contributor to the 2022 IPCC report. "But the COPs have been put too much under the influence of industrial lobbies and this COP is the most blatant example. Take out the lobbies and everything will be better!" Sylvain Kuppel, a hydrologist at a research laboratory in Toulouse, France, is calling for a rethinking of the dogma of growth, which he believes conditions the debate on reducing polluting emissions. And he points to the impotence of the COPs, which produce "soft" resolutions.

"The Kyoto agreement in 1997, the Paris agreement in 2015 were announced with great tears, but they are agreements that are not binding," he added, deploring "announcement effects". For him, this "alternative COP" is, on the contrary, an "informal, scientific colloquium, with an immediate resonance". This gathering "helps to fight against the feeling of powerlessness," says Stéphanie Mariette.