A few days before the opening of the Paris Climate Conference (November 30-December 12, 2015), a symposium entitled "Le Collège de France et la COP21" was held at the Collège de France in the presence of French President François Hollande, the Minister of National Education, Higher Education and Research, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, and the Secretary of State for Higher Education and Research, Thierry Mandon. Ten researchers took part in the day's proceedings, taking stock of current knowledge and possible initiatives to combat global warming and its consequences. The symposium concluded with a round-table discussion attended by French President François Hollande, Collège de France Administrator Alain Prochiantz and professors Edouard Bard, Philippe Descola and Jean-Marie Tarascon.
As Alain Prochiantz emphasized in his general introduction, the global nature of the climate phenomenon requires us to collectively take into account all its aspects: ecological, economic, sociological, cultural, anthropological, political and scientific. "Even if the world's collective governance succeeds in limiting global warming to two degrees, some regions will be hard hit, and we will witness climate exoduses and migrations, the first signs of which we can already see, and which do not bode well for democratic life and global peace if the responses are based on animal reflexes to fight for living space. But we can still hope that reason will prevail. Because we are not animals like the others, we are in a position to anticipate and work together so that humans not only survive, but do so in the least inhumane conditions possible." Alain Prochiantz also challenged Thierry Mandon, the French Secretary of State for Higher Education and Research, on the crucial importance, for the development of effective and sustainable solutions, of increased state investment in fundamental research. "It's illusory to think that we could come out of this honorably without a massive effort being made at international level in favor of teaching, research and innovation. It was scientists who, thanks to the models they developed, made it possible to highlight this danger. Today, we can no longer deny the essential fact: yes, temperatures are going to rise, and yes, humans bear a significant share of the responsibility. And, as has always been the case since the dawn of our species, it is imagination and invention that must provide the solutions. There's no time to lose. It is therefore regrettable that in almost all countries where science is an important cultural and social activity, public authorities have too often neglected these investments in research, especially the fundamental part."
[...]
---
Article published in La Lettre du Collège de France n° 41, 2015-2016
