France awards climate grants to U.S.-based scientists on summit eve

 

French President Emmanuel Macron attends the "Tech for Planet" event at the "Station F" start up campus ahead of the One Planet Summit in Paris, France, December 11, 2017. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer

 

PARIS (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron plans to award multi-year grants for several U.S.-based scientists to relocate to France, his office said on Monday on the eve of a climate summit hosted by the president to raise finances to counter global warming.

 

Macron unveiled the "Make our Planet Great Again" grants after President Donald Trump in June said he was pulling the United States out of an international accord to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that was brokered in Paris in 2015.

 

Macron repeatedly tried to persuade the U.S. leader to reverse his decision. In a statement, the Elysee Palace said 13 of the initial 18 grants will be awarded to scientists based in the United States.

 

"You will now settle in, develop projects, enrich French, European research, because we've decided to give even bigger resources and to fully recognize what you are doing," Macron said in a speech at Station F, a start-up incubator in Paris.

 

Macron was addressing the winners of the grants, some of whom attended his speech. Prominent U.S. universities, including Princeton, Stanford and Harvard, were among those from which the winning researchers were selected, the presidency said.

 

Macron said in a CBS News interview on Monday the U.S. decision to unilaterally quit the Paris accord had provided an impulse for action by governments and the private sector.

 

"OK, we have to react and do something, because it's impossible to leave this all to - a sort of dismantling of the Paris agreement," he told the U.S. network in Paris.

 

But he called the withdrawal "extremely aggressive" and said Trump's offer to renegotiate the accord was not an option.

 

"I'm not ready to renegotiate, but I'm ready to welcome him if he decides to come back," Macron said, adding: "I'm pretty sure that my friend President Trump will change his mind in the coming months or years."

 

At Tuesday's summit, Macron will urge wealthy nations to increase climate financing and urge investors to turn their backs on polluters in a bid to accelerate efforts to combat global warming.

 

French state-controlled utility EDF on Monday said it would invest 25 billion euros to develop 30 gigawatt of solar capacity in France between 2020 an 2035. Daily Newspaper Les Echos quoted the chief executive of Engie, Isabelle Kocher, as saying her company would invest 1 billion euros to improve the energy efficiency of buildings.

 

Separately, nine European energy companies including EDF, Italy's Enel, Spain's Iberdrola SA and Britain's SSE said they would include green bonds in their financing policies.

 

Developing nations say that the rich are not on track with a broader commitment in the Paris accord for wealthy economies to provide $100 billion a year by 2020 - from public and private sources alike - to help developing countries switch from fossil fuels to greener energy sources and adapt to the effects of climate change.

 

Oxfam estimated that there was only between $4 billion and $8 billion available for adaptation and that recent estimates showed the cost of helping emerging nations deal with rising sea levels, droughts, flooding and other effects of global warming could add up to $140 billion to $300 billion per year by 2030.

 

"Right now, the world's poorest people are getting only a tiny fraction of the help they desperately need to survive," Oxfam said in a statement.

 

"This year’s barrage of climate disasters showed that poor communities are often completely unprepared to deal with extreme weather."

($1 = 0.8487 euros)

 

(Reporting by Jean-Baptiste Vey; Additional reporting by Mathieu Rosemain; Writing by Richard Lough; Editing by James Dalgleish and Lisa Shumaker)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-12-12

 

Good move.   In chess-speak, Macron just checked Trump's king.   What we need is 'check-mate', ....game-over, and Trump frog-marched out of the Oval Office in cuffs.

Such panache!

 

The contrast with Delta Tango is stark

Yeah. Carbon taxes will stop sunspots, underwater volcanoes and other astrophysical events which actually control the earth's climate.  The globalist agenda marches on.

8 minutes ago, milwaukeeboy said:

Yeah. Carbon taxes will stop sunspots, underwater volcanoes and other astrophysical events which actually control the earth's climate.  The globalist agenda marches on.

Funny. Macron doesn't look Jewish. 

8 hours ago, webfact said:

to help developing countries switch from fossil fuels to greener energy sources and adapt to the effects of climate change.

80% of Angola’s government revenue comes from oil. (One African example)

 

these things are far easier said than done, but I applaud Macron for his stance... and yes... you have to start somewhere.

2 hours ago, Jingthing said:

Funny. Macron doesn't look Jewish. 

Macron has always been a champion virtue signaller, and this looks like one of his best efforts yet.

 

Result for the planet: Nil. Result for Macron: lots of "progressive" brownie points.

 

"Make the Planet Great Again". Good grief. It sounds like show & tell day at the kindergarten, with lots of paper streamers, coloured balloons and ice cream.

52 minutes ago, RickBradford said:

Macron has always been a champion virtue signaller, and this looks like one of his best efforts yet.

 

Result for the planet: Nil. Result for Macron: lots of "progressive" brownie points.

 

"Make the Planet Great Again". Good grief. It sounds like show & tell day at the kindergarten, with lots of paper streamers, coloured balloons and ice cream.

No it sounds like a grand Gallic "F you very, very much" to the bizarre, disgusting, planet-threatening, anti-science, coal-loving American twitter troll president. 

Macron is positioning himself to be the leader of the free world and he's doing very well towards that. The American deplorables chose a moronic retreat from that role and Merkel has become damaged goods. 

Of course Xi is the leader of the not free world. 

trump is the leader of the white nationalist, isolationist, anti-intellectual, alt-right (but so wrong!) world. 

 

Edited December 12, 20178 yr by Jingthing

Foreign language posts removed along with replies.  

4 hours ago, Jingthing said:

No it sounds like a grand Gallic "F you very, very much" to the bizarre, disgusting, planet-threatening, anti-science, coal-loving American twitter troll president. 

Macron is positioning himself to be the leader of the free world and he's doing very well towards that. The American deplorables chose a moronic retreat from that role and Merkel has become damaged goods. 

Of course Xi is the leader of the not free world. 

trump is the leader of the white nationalist, isolationist, anti-intellectual, alt-right (but so wrong!) world. 

 

 

Sadly the GOP is going to keep 45 there...