The European Union will mobilize A-list celebrities and “tens of thousands of diplomats” to pressure key governments in the run-up to the UN climate conference in Paris in December.
“The EU plan, endorsed by ministers on Monday in Brussels, will see 90,000 diplomats in over 3,000 missions lobbying to win new pledges on carbon cuts,” the Guardian reports. “European stars, of a calibre of U.S. public figures such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Al Gore, will front a push to make climate action a ‘strategic priority’ at G7, G20, and Major Economies Forum summits.”
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The plan includes a Climate Action Day in June and a 100 Days to Paris Countdown.
“The EU has enormous soft power and we must use that to push for an ambitious agenda in Paris,” said Danish foreign minister Martin Lidegaard. A UK official called the diplomatic push “a welcome step to ramp up European climate diplomacy globally.”
“The action plan cites climate change as ‘a key element of preventive diplomacy,’ aimed at preventing future violent conflicts through cooperation and dialogue,” Neslen writes. “It also goes further than past EU communications, describing climate change as ‘a strategic threat affecting natural resource availability, economic stability, and hence overall national and regional security.’”
