UM Student, Staff In Paris For Climate Talks Find Security Tension Running High
DETROIT (CBS DETROIT/CBS NEWS) - Paris is on high alert Sunday as the city prepares for a major conference concerning the climate. Liz Ultee is a U of M doctoral student studying climate and space sciences, attending the conference in the city where a terrorist attack killed over 130 people in early November.
"There has been pretty high security - I was taking a walk earlier and passed a group of what appeared to be soldiers with some very imposing guns," said Ultee. "Over at the comp venue there was airport-like security about 40 lanes of x-ray machines as well as the national police, city police and UN security."
She says continuing with the conference makes a big statement against the terror attacks which occurred earlier this month.
"It's very important to make a statement that hatred and violence are not going to control our future and what is going to control our future is our ability to come together and agree on things - which is what this conference is about."
Ultee is a part of the school's observer delegation.
More than 200 world leaders including President Obama will attend the United Nations' 2015 Climate Change Conference just weeks after deadly terror attacks in Paris.
Meanwhile, University of Michigan professor Paul Edwards is in Paris to attend the first half of the conference but had a very different experience while walking around the city on Sunday -- seeing and smelling some of the tear gas that was fired into the crowd.
Professor Edwards spoke live on WWJ Newsradio 950:
"I was ... vaguely following them and at that point the police started firing teargas canisters at the crowd - they probably fired three or four where I was and then I heard more go off as I left with many others out of that area," said Edwards.
Edwards says the recent attacks underscore the importance of the meeting.
"ISIS terrorism has complex roots, but among them are real links to climate change. Virtually everything about Middle Eastern politics connects back to oil," he said. "To the extent that success at COP21 contributes to curing the world of its addiction to fossil fuels and reducing the extent of climate change, it will also contribute to reducing these causes of conflict."
The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference runs from Nov. 30 - Dec. 11.
According to CBS NEWS thousands of demonstrators gathered in central Paris Sunday and formed a human chain along the route of a long-planned protest march that was banned by France's Socialist government in a security crackdown following attacks by Islamic extremists earlier this month.
In mid-afternoon scuffles broke out between riot police and protesters on the Place de la Republique, where Parisians have gathered to place flowers in remembrance of the 130 mostly young victims of the Nov. 13 attacks.
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