Paris: French riot police fired tear gas at climate change protesters at the Place de la Republique in central Paris on Sunday, near where climate change activists had earlier formed a human chain.
About 200 protesters, some wearing masks, fought with police on a street leading to the square, which has become a gathering place for Parisiens since the attacks in the capital on November 13 that killed 130 people.
Police fired gas at some demonstrators as they tried to reach the square and used tear gas to disperse others. Demonstrators carried banners calling for the defence of the climate and democracy.
A march planned for Sunday in Paris ahead of the UN climate change summit taking place at Le Bourget outside the capital was banned by police under the state of emergency rules imposed after the November 13 attacks which were claimed by self-styled Islamic State militants.
Using the state of emergency rules, police put 24 green activists under house arrest ahead of the summit, saying they were suspected of planning violent protests.
President Jacob Zuma will attend the 21st Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework for Climate Change Convention (COP 21) in Paris, which will take place from Monday to December 11, the Presidency said.
“The president will attend the heads of state and government segment on the 30th of November,” the Presidency said.
Having launched the negotiations that would conclude this year, at COP 17 in Durban in 2011, South Africa had a special interest in doing all it could to ensure the success of the Paris COP.
For South Africa, a fair and ambitious legally binding agreement would mark the successful conclusion of the mandate agreed to by consensus in Durban to enhance implementation of the existing convention.
“To be successful, the new agreement must be fair. Fairness would imply respect for the convention’s principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities,” Zuma said.
As current chair of the Group of 77 and China and an active member of the Africa Group of Negotiators and the Brazil, South Africa, India and China Group, South Africa also had the special responsibility of advancing the collective and shared interests of developing countries in the negotiations for the Paris agreement.
This necessitated defending the legal rights of developing countries under the convention and to receive the support they required to make the transition to a low-carbon economy and to adapt to the reality of a climate that was already changing, and the loss and damage associated with this.
“The provision of financial resources, technology transfer and development and capacity-building is central to the Paris agreement.
“The reality is that without adequate, predictable, and sustainable means of implementation, it will be impossible to reach our agreed temperature target.
“This is because key mitigation potential is in developing countries, such as South Africa, and these countries are not able to realise this potential on their own.
“Finance will be of central importance to the Paris outcome and has to be an integral part of the agreement itself,” Zuma said.”
He would be accompanied by Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa. – African News Agency, Reuters