Looking forward to the Climate Games!

Humanity, in its diversity, its taste for challenge and its antagonisms, thus found itself in Paris with fervor around the 2024 Olympic Games. This profusion of nations gathered for fifteen days to fight it out reminded me of the international conferences on climate change that I was able to attend. Without the cheers of supporters, alas… Because the COPs (as they are called) are very boring and their rules of the game are obscure to say the least.

If only their organizers could take inspiration from the Olympic Games! At each COP – the next one is in November, in Azerbaijan – a gleaming podium could honor the countries that have best reduced their greenhouse gas emissions; another, the champions of protecting their forests or even their oceans… Of course, these major climate summits should also be spiced up with a spirit of celebration and embodiment.

Fortunately, there is no shortage of celebrities committed to ecology to create beautiful opening and closing ceremonies. Nor of children, who are primarily concerned, to come and receive the gold, silver or bronze medals won by their country.

Humans can spend an incredible amount of energy to gain a hundredth of a second in the 100m. They should be able to do the same for tenths of a degree on global warming, right? That would give a new meaning to the competitive spirit. Faster, more united, less cooked…