COP21: Post-Bamako Security Situation.

Following the November 13th (13/11/15) terrorist massacres in Paris, France I wrote an update on the security situation for the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Summit which is being held in the city.

The summit is not formally opened until next Monday - November 30th (30/11/15) - although delegates have already begun to arrive in France for pre-summit planning meetings.

You will have noticed that my update of November 16th (16/11/15) concentrated on the venue itself and made no mention of the hotels delegates will be staying or how they will be travelling around the city.

This was purely intentional. The best way to protect targets of that type is not to advertise them and wherever possible change them frequently to turn them into moving targets that are harder to attack.

Although I don't think the people who planned the attacks are that intelligent this actually raises a central issue within the COP21 negotiations.

A large number of parties have wanted to create an online registry of each nations climate change actions. An equally large number of parties have objected to this in the grounds that putting such a large amount of sensitive information in online would effectively create a one stop shop for terrorists planning attacks.

The enhanced security measures at the summit really highlight why I sided with the nations who are opposed to the online registry. Instead I put forward a compromise where the online registry functions more of an index card that is subject to security vetting rather then a detailed library of each nation's strategic infrastructure.

Obviously though the attack on the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, Mali on Friday (20/11/15) makes it impossible not to talk about the issue of hotel security. That of course seems to be the main motivation behind the attacks - to increase the fear and paranoia of COP21 delegates as they arrive at their hotels.

What happened in Bamako is that several armed men entered the hotel and proceeded to kill around 20 people in the public areas of the hotel. They then took hostages and holed up in rooms within the hotel.

The Malian army's response to this was both swift and efficient.

They quickly arrived on the scene, cordoned off the hotel and they swept through it until all the hostages had been freed and the attackers had been killed. The French and US Special Forces who assisted with the operation simply couldn't have done it any better themselves.

What is particularly alarming though in terms of COP21 is that the attackers of 13/11/15 showed no interest in taking hostages. Instead they immediately started killing people in order to create the maximum amount of fatalities.

In this situation the 4 or so minutes that the security forces take to respond can still see hundreds of people killed. If that happens at a COP21 hotel not only will the summit have to be called off it might actually the field of climate science a few years to recover the lost talent.

Therefore the priority at COP21 has to be making sure that any potential attackers are denied access to the building. This means placing armed guards - possibly soldiers - on every entry/exit to every hotel.

The weak-point in Bamako is that the soldiers guarding the hotel did not have ammunition for their weapons - effectively leaving them unarmed. This is not going to be an issue in Paris.

Beyond the overt guards at the entry points France may also introduce discreet, armed security - similar to US Air Marshalls - into the public areas of the hotels such as the lobbies, bars, restaurants.

So you might find that pretty little thing on reception you've been flirting with all week actually has a machine gun under the desk and the years of military service to know exactly how to use it.

In terms of manpower although the US is still blocking the invocation of NATO Article 5 the European Union (EU) has already invoked it's mutual aid clause. That means that while they can prioritise their own security needs all member states are obligated to provide manpower to France to fill any gaps.

Particularly during the high-level segment many nations will also bring their own security teams who co-ordinate with the hosts. From experience I know that in the hotel the US President stays at not only will the floor he is staying on be closed to the public but the floors above and below will also be closed and packed with heavily armed Secret Service agents.

I'm sure that in response to the heightened threat level many nations will want to send their advance teams in extra early to help them get a feel for the lay of the land.

In terms of travel between the hotel and the venue there is a lot for simply blending into the crowds on public transport. However there will also be the usual shuttle buses. I suspect that accreditation will be checked in the hotels before these buses are given an armed escort.

As with the venue the best way to secure the hotels remains to make sure that any threat is eliminated before it gets that close.

Aside from house arrest France's state of emergency legislation also allows for warrantless search and arrest. If that is not sufficient they can tighten things further by declaring martial law and treating the city as if it were a city under occupation by an insurgent force in any warzone in the World introducing things like internment for anyone suspected of having terrorist sympathies.

Therefore while I don't want to tempt fate in what is undeniably a high threat scenario as with the venue I'm not overly alarmed.

In fact I suspect that Mali was chosen because security in France is so tight they actually had to go to a whole other continent in search of a target soft enough for them to attack.

While I'm here I should also mention comments made today by UK Prince Charles that the war in Syria was caused by climate change. He has been rightly ridiculed for this all across the Internet.

The war in Syria has been caused by the fact that in 2011 the people of Tunisia and Egypt overthrow their brutal dictators. This caused the most vile regime in the region - Saudi Arabia - to fear they would next. So to prevent this they started smashing the middle-east region to pieces in an effort to kill all the Shia Muslims.

Shia Muslims are less likely to fall into the intellectual trap of Wahhabism. This is a 19th century perversion of Islam that the al-Saud's use to keep their population in chains. Therefore the thinking is that if the al-Sauds are to be overthrown such an uprising would most likely be led by the region's Shias.

Obviously if nations were to admit that this is what is going on their support for it would not only be criminal but also utterly insane. As such they've spent much of the past 5 years inventing increasingly elaborate fantasies to explain what has been going on.

One of the most popular of these has been the claim that a drought between 2006 and 2010 in Syria bred frustration with the government triggering a popular uprising. That drought has been attributed to climate change. It is this theory that Prince Charles is referring to.

Although particularly where Obama is concerned no 'explanation' for the conflict is considered ridiculous enough not to be reported on the news as fact this drought theory has found particular traction. That's because recorded human history is littered with examples of similar food riots.

Even before a drought causes famine it reduces the amount of food available pushing up prices. In turn this triggers inflation and before long people are hurling bricks at each other.

This is something that is well known about in climate change circles and presents something of a catch-22.

Obviously we can't ask food insecure nations to prioritise climate change action above feeding their people. However we also know that if everyone opts out of climate change action then droughts and food insecurity will get much worse.

Another interesting theory that will likely do the rounds at COP21 relates to the September 11th (11/9/15) crane collapse in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. This was caused by a massive thunderstorm. The theory goes that this thunderstorm was triggered by a large sandstorm that was the result of land-use change as part of the war in Syria.

Despite the public perception large parts of Syria - particularly in the northern regions - is arable farmland. This prevents soil erosion but putting a barrier between the soil and the wind. Over the course of the war farming in Syria has pretty much stopped. Instead people are detonating massive bombs which force the soil up into the air leading to sand-storms.

This is obviously the sort of topic the terrorists are hoping to make COP21 delegates too stressed and afraid to discuss.

18:20 on 23/11/15 (UK date).