In the lead up to COP21, The Bridge Tank’s president Joël Ruet attended a dinner at the French Senate with Mrs Hakima El Haité, Minister Delegate in Charge of Environment in Morocco, where COP22 will be hosted in 2016 and, in her words, “continue the line of COP21”.

This dinner could not have been more on the mark for The Bridge Tank, whose mission is to promote and interpret the “active voices in the Global South”.

The Moroccan minister advocated a transition from the “pro-mitigation COP” (reducing emissions) to the “pro-adaptation COP” (financing the protection of areas affected by climate change). This idea echoes the position of the African group, which argues that there can be no lasting agreement if adaptation efforts are not given the same priority as mitigation.

From a geopolitical standpoint, this expanded scope for projects would make it possible to exit the gridlock around the technology transfer between China, India and the G77 on the one hand, and OECD on the other. This will be key both to ensuring the long-term effectiveness of actions to combat global warming, and speeding up innovation. In The Bridge Tank’s view, this innovation will of course be driven by industrial ecosystems, but also by rural economies (e.g., biomass) and by establishing effective environmental governance.

These challenges were insightfully revisited and discussed at the Senate, and resonate with The Bridge Tank’s analyses, which emphasize shared forms of a new prosperity.