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France pledges €30 million for foreign climate experts

France on Saturday made good on its promise to invite foreign climate change experts to the country, pledging €30 million to fund the work of up to 50 researchers.

Published: 17 June 2017 13:51 CEST
France pledges €30 million for foreign climate experts
The City Hall in Paris was illuminated in green after Donald Trump said the US would withdraw from the climate change accord. Photo: AFP

The move comes two weeks after President Emmanuel Macron criticised his US counterpart Donald Trump for pulling out of the UN's Paris climate agreement – calling on US climate scientists and entrepreneurs to “come and work in France on concrete solutions for climate”.

Newly-elected Macron further needled Trump when he adapted the latter's nationalist slogan used by Trump on his election campaign trail by urging defenders of the climate to “make our planet great again”.

On Saturday, the French environment ministry said in a statement that Minister of Higher Education Frederique Vidal and investment commissioner Louis Schweitzer “have decided to set up a priority research program for the fight against climate change”.

The government will fund the initiative with €30 million ($34 million) of public money to match what it hopes will be another 30 million from universities and other organizations, making the total funding up to €60 million.

This would fund 50 researchers over five years, said the statement.

Macron, a 39-year-old centrist former banker who took office last month after a meteoric rise, has been the most vocal of European leaders in criticising Trump's decision and in vowing to defend the Paris agreement.

He launched a website last week aimed at attracting researchers, entrepreneurs and others to France to pursue efforts to combat climate change, using a cheeky twist of Trump's campaign slogan for the site's name: www.makeourplanetgreatagain.fr.

WEATHER

Denmark strikes new record for most rain in a year

Denmark on Wednesday struck a new record for the total annual precitipation, meteorologists said, noting that further increases in annual rain and snowfall could be expected in future years as a result of climate change.

Published: 20 December 2023 15:44 CET
Denmark strikes new record for most rain in a year

The annual tally of snow and rainfall as of Wednesday was over 907 millimeters (35.7 inches), national meteorological institute DMI said with over a week left in the year.

The previous record since measurements started in 1874 was 905mm, a level reached in 1999 and 2019.

On average, the Scandinavian country sees around 760mm of precipitation annually, but this could increase.

“The warming from anthropogenic climate change gradually also leads to increased precipitation in Denmark,” Rasmus Anker Pedersen, a climate scientist at DMI, told AFP.

According to Pedersen, by the end of the century, annual precipitation is expected to increase by seven percent.

“The change is not uniform over the year — we do not expect a substantial change in the summer precipitation amounts, while the winter precipitation will increase by 12 percent.

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