THE One Polar Summit opens this Wednesday, November 8 in Paris. This is a new edition of One Planet Summit set up by Emmanuel Macron on the environment. After the one on the theme of the forest last March organized in Gabon, this edition is devoted to ice in the broad sense: both the poles, the sea ice, the glaciers of our mountains and the permafrost – the permanent soils frozen -.
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This summit takes place at the National Museum of Natural History until Friday November 10. For two days, scientists, ministers, environmental activists, explorers of the poles and snow-capped summits meet to discuss the major issues linked to these frozen areas of the planet, often forgotten in international negotiations.
Friday will be political, with several heads of state and government present. The French president must close the work with a “ Paris appeal on the poles and glaciers », a call for concrete measures and, insists the Élysée, a diplomatic aspect, so that these regions remain areas of peace, scientific and environmental cooperation despite current tensions in the world.
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A dialogue affected by international tensions
With the war between Israel and Hamas and the war in Ukraine, international tensions risk affecting dialogue between scientists. But Sébastien Treyer, director of the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI), is more optimistic since History has proven it to us: “ In extremely harsh Cold War times, we had cross-border agreements between East and West which were marked in particular by the fact that scientific cooperation had continued. I am referring to the issue of acid rain in Europe which was an East-West issue on the reduction of sulfur pollution in industry on both sides of the Iron Curtain. »
For the director of IDDRA, science and the capacity of scientific communities to exchange with each other is a major guiding principle of what can unite countries even when we are in a situation of political conflict. And today, we see, despite the tensions between the United States and China for example, climate negotiations continue between the two countries. A Chinese representative will also be present at this One Polar Summit.
Russia, largely absent from the summit
At this summit, there is one big absentee: Russia and its immense Arctic territories. Despite the message from the Élysée which insists on the importance of this environmental multilateralism, it is impossible to do without Russia on this theme of the poles and ice.
And it is also an obvious contradiction on the part of the French authorities who refuse to cooperate with the country which invaded Ukraine. Russia is no longer a member of the Arctic Council due to the war, it is a problem, but we must move forward.
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