France to shut down all coal-fired power plants by 2023

Chartlotte England reporting
 in the Independent about
 France's plants to shut down
 its coal-fired power plants.

France will shut down all its coal-fired power plants by 2023, president Francois Hollande has announced.

Speaking at an annual UN climate change conference on Wednesday, Mr Hollande vowed to beat by two years the UK's commitment to stop using the fossil fuel to generate power by 2025.

Mr Hollande, a keynote speaker at the event in Marrakech, Morocco, also praised his US counterpart Barack Obama for his work on climate change, and then appeared to snub president-elect Donald Trump.

Read Charlotte England’s story in the Independent - “France to shut down all coal-fired power plants by 2023.”

What has the Turnbull Government done since the euphoria of Paris?

Many argue that even two degrees
is vastly inadequate the world
should be aiming for 1.5 degrees.

Globally there are many well-known names who have raised concerns about climate change: the Pope, Barack Obama, Leonardo DiCaprio, Prince Charles, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Rockefeller Foundation.

In Australia too, a broad range of voices have added their concerns and fears to the debate: firefighters who can no longer protect people or houses as we battle increasingly extreme weather conditions, 90% of Australian youth who last year said climate change was an important issue for them, farmers who see the effects of climate change on their properties every day, doctors who stress the deadly impact of heatwaves on the elderly, very young and those with existing health problems, climate scientists, David Pocock, Cate Blanchett, the tens of thousands of protestors who took to the streets in climate marches held across the country in November 2015 … the list goes on.

A global chorus of voices applauded the historic climate change agreement reached in December 2015 in Paris, including Ban Ki-moon, Francois Hollande and representatives from the nearly 200 countries who took part in the negotiations.

Read The Guardian story - “It's three months since the Paris climate summit. What has Turnbull done?”

(Just last week Clive Hamilton, an Australian author and public intellectual and the Professor of Public Ethics at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, which is a joint centre of Charles Sturt University and the University of Melbourne, decried what the Turnbull Government had done since the December conference in Paris.

The Charles Sturt University professor, who is based at the Canberra campus, lamented Australia’s addiction to fossil fuels during a conversation with La Trobe University Professor Robert Manne – Robert McLean.)

Hollande hoping for a miracle in Paris in December

T

he French president sees businesses as being the key to the success of any emissions agreement reached by world’s nations at crunch climate change talks in Paris at the end of this year.

Francois Hollande - looking
 for a miracle in
Paris later this year.

The Guardian has said, “François Hollande, president of France, has called for a “miracle” to happen later this year at a crunch climate change conference in Paris, saying this would be needed for a compromise to be reached on the future of limiting greenhouse gases that would involve both developed and developing countries.

“He urged all countries to come up with commitments on limiting greenhouse gas emissions, ahead of the signing of a new global agreement by world governments later this year in Paris.

“He ruefully acknowledged the difficulty of coming up with such an agreement. “We must have a consensus. If within our own country, that’s difficult, imagine what it’s like with 196 countries. A miracle!” He added he was confident it could be achieved,”

Read more about the President’s observations here - “François Hollande calls for 'miracle' climate agreement at Paris talks”.