AXA partners with the COP 21 simulation project, "Make it Work," and its "Theater of Negotiations"

The challenge

The 21st international conference on climate, COP 21, will be held in Paris in December 2015. The conference is an important milestone in the race to stop the rapid deterioration of global climate conditions and supports one shared goal: to limit global warming. Its ambitious challenge is to reach the first-ever binding agreement specifying future scenarios to effectively fight against dangerous climate change.

A completely original experience

From May 29 to 31, the French university Sciences Po is simulating the upcoming climate talks at the Nanterre-Amandiers theater near Paris. Two hundred students from universities around the world (including Columbia, TsingHua, and the London School of Economics), representing 41 delegations, will participate in a real-life "rehearsal" of the COP 21 negotiations. Incorporating contributions from the social sciences, theater, film, and other visual arts, the simulation will transform the theater into a hotbed of experimentation and invention, gathering artists, researchers, and students together to imagine and act out new methods of representation, with the aim to further climate negotiations. The results of the project will be brought to the international climate change summit by UNESCO and Laurence Tubiana, director of the sustainable development center at Sciences Po and France's Special Representative for COP 21.

AXA is proud to be a partner of "Make it Work" and to bring to this original Sciences Po initiative the contributions of AXA experts and researchers supported by the AXA Research Fund. The AXA Research Fund supports more than 100 independent researchers around the world working on issues related to climate change. They play a key role in climate change discussions, not only by expanding climate risk knowledge and understanding, but also by promoting awareness and facilitating risk assessment and decision-making.