PARIS MAYORS Climate Change Conference

PARIS MAYORS Climate Change Conference

Invited to the Climate Change Conference in Paris by the Mayor of Paris and Mike Bloomberg, Mayors from around the world demonstrated their solidarity with the People of Paris both in relation to the Terror attacks and their commitment to fight global warming.

The Climate Change Conference is immensely important and the Mayors conference concentrated the massive part that cities can play in addressing climate change, I was inspired by the solidarity shown and the demonstrations of action cities from around the world are taking, I will blog later in more detail about the conference. But I can not comment without mentioning the demonstration of resilience and grief shown by the people of Paris to the recent attacks.

I visited the Place de la Republique and the Bataclan, where the people of Paris and visitors from all parts of the world have made there feelings known. The personal tributes to victims, with photographs and personal items, shoes, scarves and photographs, bringing it home as to the youth of the victims, the massive waste of these young lives. Calls for peace and  anti war sentiments are prevalent, these are not outpourings of hatred or calls for revenge, but emphasise  solidarity in face of horror.

I was personally moved by the youth of many of the victims and the comments by their friends and loved ones, one tribute emphasised to me the "normality" of the victims in that it struck a personal note for me. A photograph and a tribute to a biker from a Paris Chapter of the HD club, looked just like many of my friends. Even on the busy street outside the Bataclan there is a strange stillness, the traffic all slowing down to show their respect tinged with an immense feeling of disbelief.

I didn't feel it the right thing to take photographs of the tributes, but I will always remember them, the photograph is taken from the website listing tributes.