The global climate summit in Paris will move forward as scheduled. This week in CIB.

Around the Globe: Paris Moves Forward

Defying intimidation by terrorists, France has announced that it will move forward with hosting the United Nations Climate Change Conference as scheduled, November 30 – December 11 in Paris. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls told media, “No head of state, of government – on the contrary – has asked us to postpone this meeting. All want to be there.”

It was announced that some of the larger public side events and marches would be cancelled due to enhanced security needs. However, activities which are to go on as scheduled even include a business and technology summit called the Sustainable Innovation Forum, that is to be held in the soccer stadium that was the site of one of the terrorist attacks.

The decision to maintain the conference location and dates appears to reflect a shared conclusion both of the need to resist intimidation by terrorists and the great importance of the conference subject matter. Many analysts consider this year’s negotiations to represent the last, best chance for an agreement that would permit global efforts to hold average warming to less than the 2 degree centigrade change target. Climate scientists have indicated that meeting such a target would enable the world to avoid many of the worst potential impacts of global warming.

U.S. President Obama is still expected to attend the event along with more than 115 other heads of state and government. American negotiators plan to point to the Clean Power Plan being implemented now by executive action, over the continuing resistance of partisan opposition forces in Congress, as a key example of what must and can be done despite obstacles.

Obama has said that there is still “a lot of work to do” at the conference but that “I’m optimistic that we can get an outcome that we’re all proud of, because we understand what’s at stake.”

We’ll know better how well that optimism is justified when the global conference wraps up December 11 in Paris.

Vive la France.

Coast Watch: Sandbagging the Coast

“The legislature is making it very difficult to get rid of sandbags.” That’s the pronouncement of NC Coastal Resources Commission (CRC) Chair Frank Gorman. The CRC last week adopted temporary rules as mandated by legislation passed by the General Assembly in September.

The newly passed legislation deeply undercuts efforts to get rid of the huge (and supposedly temporary) sandbag walls now acting as seawalls in front of many threatened structures on the Outer Banks and other North Carolina barrier islands. The state has for years attempted to encourage relocation of threatened structures, and the elimination of large ‘temporary’ sandbag structures in front of them.

Coastal scientists say that the sandbag structures create the same kind of beach loss and other environmental damage, which results from rock or concrete seawalls.

The newly mandated regulations change the rules on sandbag walls in several important respects. Wall owners who are challenging removal requirements in court can have the sandbags repaired or replaced even though their permits have expired. Moreover, the expiration dates under the permits must be allowed to run from the time the last bag is placed, not from when the first ones were put down, even when multiple permits over time are involved.

Gutting the rules to protect beaches and barrier islands from the accelerated erosion associated with these mammoth ‘temporary’ structures is one more example of the headlong reversal of decades of environmental progress now underway in our state. It underscores the urgency of the need to reverse this retreat – before we have no beaches left to lose.

Washington Watch: Stop Proposed Drilling off NC

NCLCV is calling for public comments to be directed to President Obama, seeking to maintain the closure of waters off the North Carolina coast to oil and gas drilling.

The NCLCV petition memo invites concerned citizens to “join the wave of opposition” to drilling, as shown by the passage of anti-drilling resolutions by almost 30 coastal communities in our state. The petition seeks the removal of the mid-Atlantic region from federal offshore leasing plans.

For full petition details, and to sign on before the Thanksgiving holiday deadline, see here.

That’s our report for this week.