Lethal Heating: 09/04/18

04/09/2018

'Lip Service': Call For Investors To Step Up Action On Climate Risk

Fairfax - Ruth Williams

Investors have been urged to “step up the pressure” on companies to act on climate change as annual meeting season approaches, with a report arguing corporate Australia is paying lip-service to the issue.
Environmental non-profit Market Forces says many of Australia’s 100 biggest listed companies are continuing to take a "superficial" approach to disclosure and action on climate change and emissions, despite warnings by regulators and lawyers of potential business and legal risks.

Almost 40 per cent of companies examined had increased emissions over the past year, Market Forces said. Photo: Bloomberg

Market Forces research, to be released on Tuesday, suggests that of 74 ASX100 companies in sectors dubbed “high risk” for climate change impacts - as defined last year by a G20-led task force on climate risk disclosure - only 55 per cent identified climate change as a material business risk, and more than 80 per cent did not have a plan to reduce their own emissions.
Almost 40 per cent of ASX100 companies studied had increased their emissions over the past year, the Market Forces research said.
The NGO - which is affiliated with Friends of the Earth - has urged investors to “escalate” climate change as an issue in their discussions with companies, and divest shaes in companies that are “unable or unwilling” to align with the goals of the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
“There is a growing recognition of climate risk, but few companies are actually undertaking the hard yards to fully address the issue,” Market Forces analyst Will van de Pol said.
The Market Forces research comes as the new Morrison government grapples with internal divisions on its approach to climate change, emissions and the Paris agreement. New Defence Minister Marise Payne is attending the Pacific Islands Forum this week where climate change is expected to be a major topic of discussion.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison (right) and deputy Josh Frydenberg have grappled with internal divisions on carbon emissions. Photo: Mark Graham/Bloomberg

It also comes as regulators consider how climate change may impact the financial system, with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) assessing how ASX300 companies disclose climate change risks, and the Council of Financial Regulators - which includes ASIC, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), the Reserve Bank and federal Treasury - creating a working group on the issue.
ASIC has said company directors should take seriously warnings that they risk future legal action if they fail to consider risks related to climate change.

Risky business
A third of companies studied “explicitly encourage” emissions reductions through their executive or director bonus schemes, Market Forces said, a number that had doubled since Market Forces’ last examined the issue in March.
But just three companies – South32, AGL and Stockland – had started reporting climate risks in line with the so-called "TCFD" rules nailed down by the G20's task force last year, which have been endorsed by major companies and investors.
Another four companies - Commonwealth Bank, BHP, Westpac and ANZ - “came close” to fully adopting the TCFD recommendations, Market Forces said, while others had promised to do so for their 2019 reporting.
The TCFD recommendations are anchored on the Paris agreement's pledge to keep global warming to well below 2 degrees. In July, the Australian Securities Exchange's corporate governance council - in proposed new guidelines - said companies should boost their disclosure of climate change risk, including reporting with the TCFD rules if they had "material exposure".
The Market Forces research found that while 65 per cent of companies studied unequivocally accepted climate science, 27 per cent were unclear in their language and 8 per cent had not formally acknowledged the science of climate change.
In June, research from the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors found that 22 ASX200 companies had adopted or promised to adopt the TCFD rules while 10 more were "reviewing" them.

AGM focus
Mr van de Pol pointed to South32 as a company that was "getting it right, coupling detailed climate risk disclosures with action to reduce exposure".
But he questioned why ASX Ltd was not following the suggestions of its own corporate governance council in not disclosing detailed climate risk information, saying the listed company was exposed to climate risk because "high risk-exposed mining, materials and big financial companies dominate the ASX".
ASX Ltd said it was "difficult to conclude" the company had a material exposure to listed companies directly at risk to climate change, given ASX Ltd was a "diverse, service-based organisation". The technology sector was its fastest growing sector, it said.
It would comply with the corporate governance council's recommendations on an "if not why not" basis once they were finalised, ASX Ltd said.
Whitehaven Coal was among the lowest-scoring companies in the Market Forces research, which found that the coal miner - a vocal proponent of "High Energy Low Emission" (HELE) coal fired-power stations - had not disclosed any risks it may face from climate change or listed it as a material business risk.
Market Forces has launched shareholder resolutions against Whitehaven Coal ahead of its AGM in October, calling on the company to ensure its strategy was “consistent” with the Paris agreement. The vote would be a "litmus test" on investors' willingness to push companies on climate, Market Forces said.
Whitehaven has said it will recommend shareholders vote against the resolutions. "We are not going to pre-empt the proceedings of the AGM," a Whitehaven spokesman said when asked for comment. "We will recommend shareholders not support resolutions requisitioned by shareholders representing 0.0016 per cent of the company’s shares on issue for the sole purpose of supporting Market Forces’ ongoing anti fossil fuels campaign."
It did not comment on Market Forces' research.
In the past two years, Market Forces has coordinated a series of shareholder resolutions pushing companies including QBE, Santos and Oil Search to disclose more about climate risks. None of the resolutions have been successful, but they have won the backing of some major investors, with the QBE resolution in May attracting more than 18 per cent support.
The step up in the number of such agenda items, from Market Forces and others, has met with frustration from some boards and the body representing investor relations professionals, partly due to the time and resources they say it takes for companies to deal with them. Companies targeted have urged shareholders not to vote for them.

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'The Damn Thing Melted': Climate Change Sparks Scramble For The Arctic

Fairfax - Nick Miller

On Monday, a Danish container ship - the Venta Maersk - set off from Busan in South Korea packed with Russian fish and Korean electronics.
On September 22 it will dock at Bremerhaven in Germany.

This animation outlines research into the behaviour of the Arctic sea ice and shows how the quantity of older and thicker ice has changed between 1984 and 2016. Vision courtesy: NASA Climate Change.

The bit in between could change the world.
Thanks to climate change, the Venta was able to take a short cut over the top of the globe – the first container ship to do so – through the Bering Strait between Russia and Alaska, above the desolate Siberian coast, past worried polar bears, melting permafrost and huge new Chinese-funded gas fields, through Arctic waters that Russia wants to control, and down past Norway, where this week a group of academics, analysts and policymakers were fretting over what it all means.
They gathered in Tromso, Norway’s northernmost city, 350 kilometres above the Arctic Circle. It’s dark here for 48 days in winter, but this week Tromso was warmer than Sydney.
The experts were invited to Tromso by Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, a German think tank whose board of directors includes both German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her widely-touted successor Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer.
The one-day seminar, titled "Changes in the Arctic Security Landscape", announced it was time to look at “current and future security challenges in the Arctic”.

A visitor walks past an inflatable model of a TOR-M2DT Arctic short-range air defence missile system at the Army 2018 expo in Kubinka, Russia. Photo: Bloomberg

“We are moving into a new Cold War,” one attendee said (the seminar was held under the Chatham House Rule, to encourage frankness, so speakers cannot be identified). “The Arctic is caught between East and West … and it is moving to the East.
“We’re in a different territory now.”
Some talked about the effects of climate change on the nuclear deterrent, others about the temptation of mineral riches in Greenland. Many rued the US retreat from international affairs. All were concerned about the Arctic’s role in climate change. They pondered if treaties and multilateral forums will be enough to keep the great powers reined in as this new playground opens up.
Outside, the sun struck blue sparks off Tromso’s harbour, and a French navy patrol boat set out to sea after a friendly visit in this increasingly tense part of the world.
It’s not just commercial shipping making moves in the Arctic. The rapidly thinning sea ice is making way for warships, as the world’s great powers look north and see untapped wealth and strategic opportunities - or threats.

An iceberg melts in Kulusuk, Greenland, near the Arctic Circle. Photo: AP

Russia is modernising its Northern Fleet, the biggest of the country's four fleets, which includes Russia’s only aircraft carrier. In June it held its biggest "alarm exercise" in a decade off the coast of Norway (which it neglected to warn about the operation), sending 36 naval vessels steaming out of the Barents Sea including a missile cruiser, anti-submarine ship and destroyer, The Barents Observer reported, firing cruise missiles, mines and torpedoes.
The nuclear and diesel-powered warships were joined by 20 aircraft and 150 rocket and artillery weapons systems deployed along the Kola Peninsula, in a demonstration of how Russia would react to a massive enemy attack.
Norwegian fighter jets scrambled to meet the opposition off their north-east coast. Shortly after, NATO warships sailed north in a manoeuvre the alliance claimed had “long been planned”. The US Navy’s Arctic strategy, released in 2014 and intended to last 16 years, was updated this year because “the damn thing melted”, as Navy Secretary Richard Spencer put it.
And there’s another player in the game – potentially the biggest of all. In July, China’s Vice-Admiral Shen Jinlong met his Russian counterparts in Murmansk, where they discussed “existing threats in the world’s oceans [and] possible practical forms of co-operation”, the Northern Fleet’s press release said.

The Chinese research vessel and icebreaker Xuelong (Snow Dragon) in the Antarctic in December 2016. Photo: CCTV screen grab

Almost exactly a year ago China’s only icebreaker, the Snow Dragon, spent the northern summer deep in the western Arctic, on an 83-day mission that visited waters off Norway and Canada. It travelled far north of the Northern Sea Route ploughed by the Venta, in a part of the world some experts predict will be routinely navigable within a few decades.
When the Snow Dragon first sailed over the top of Russia from the Pacific to the Atlantic in 2012, expedition leader Huigen Yang told Reuters “to our astonishment … the most part of the Northern Sea Route is open”. Ever since, China’s interest in the region has intensified. It now has plans for a second, nuclear-powered icebreaker, and China is funding research on how submarines can function under the Arctic ice.
“The Arctic has always reflected the wider world,” says Rasmus Gjedsso Bertelsen, professor of northern studies at the Arctic University of Norway in Tromso.
“But the wider world before was Western-dominated.”
He warns against the trap of "presentism" – assuming that modern times are unique and there are no lessons in history. And he is wary of "Arctic exceptionalism", the idea that somehow this region is a special zone of science, exploration and peace.
In fact the Arctic has been a commercial and military zone for centuries. Catholic Europe ate Arctic dry fish on Fridays, the Napoleonic wars played out in part here, and manoeuvres during the Crimean War were arguably why Russia sold Alaska to the US in 1867 rather than Britain/Canada, Bertelsen says.

Russia under President Vladimir Putin behaves more like a super power. Photo: AP

Our view of a pristine, peaceful Arctic springs from recent history: the brief post-Cold War period.
“You had this omnipotent, unipolar America, a bankrupt Russia, and China biding its time,” he says. “We should not confuse Russian behaviour at that time with a reform of the Russian mind. Now, because of rising oil prices and the rule of Vladimir Putin, you have a Russia which behaves in a way much more to be expected from a great power.
“And great powers don’t behave very well – or rather they only behave as well as others force them to do.”
The seminar saw strong debate over how much Russia is seeking to rule the Arctic rather than share its stewardship. Some pointed to Russia’s friendly role in promoting coastguard and rescue cooperation, and in scientific fields. Others said the Arctic is the key to nuclear deterrence - the flight path for bombers and inter-continental ballistic missiles and home to key missile defence systems – and that issue will determine whether the region ends in “complete co-operation or going to hell in a handbasket”.
Security concerns often mirror economic concerns. And as climate change alters the physical landscape, the economic landscape of the Arctic is changing just as fast.
“Look carefully at the Yamal project,” Bertelsen says. It’s an extraordinary new LNG project on Russia’s Arctic coast – a $US27 billion ($37 billion) plant, to be serviced by 15 new ice-class tankers on order from Korea worth another $US5 billion, tapping an immense gas reserve the equivalent of 4 billion barrels of oil. A lot of this is financed by Chinese money, as sanctions against Russia forced it to look east for cash.
“China and the other Asian countries are looking especially to the Russian Arctic as a source of energy,” Bertelsen says. “In the West we think of gas as a fossil fuel to be phased out. But air pollution in China is very serious and their big problem is coal. It’s obvious they have to do something about that, and replacing coal with gas is the quick fix.”

An LNG tanker sits at anchor outside Hammerfest, northern Norway, last year. Photo: Bloomberg

The Arctic is incredibly rich in fossil fuels: an area the size of Africa holds more than a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas reserves. About 80 per cent is gas, and thanks to a quirk of geology most of the gas is above Russia.
This has already led to territorial disputes, as Russia tries to stake its claim to a continental shelf stretching almost to the pole. Both the US and China want to minimise Russia’s "exclusive" zone.
And there is a vicious circle here – the climate change making it easier to get the gas down to Asia will be accelerated by the carbon emitted by that gas.
One of the big concerns at the seminar was how climate change concerns are ignored or at least compartmentalised in the Arctic. Russia has been slow to acknowledge the scientific consensus, the US has performed a sudden U-turn, and China argues that it should not suffer for the ecological sins of the developed world.
“You’d think [the US and Russia] are members of the Flat Earth Society,” one attendee complained. “And in the worsening geopolitical climate it’s much more difficult to achieve cooperative efforts.”
One successful multilateral agreement in the Arctic has been on ‘black carbon’ – the pollution put out by shipping that stains the ice and accelerates climate change, among other ill effects.

The Venta is running on “ultra-low sulphur” fuel, mandated in the far northern seas, to reduce its pollution potential.
And the very fact of a northern sea route is a plus for the climate, some argue. As travel times decrease so do carbon emissions. Using the Northern Sea Route (NSR) rather than the Suez Canal to get from Asia to Europe would reduce emissions by between half and three-quarters.
Already, shipping data shows sailing times on the NSR have fallen from 20 days in the 1990s to 11 days, mainly due to there being less sea ice. After the 2050s all types of vessels should be able to go straight over the pole, saving even more time. Unescorted navigation in the high Arctic may even be possible as early as the 2030s, though winters will still require icebreakers.
According to one forecast, by 2020 up to 15 per cent of China’s international trade will go through the NSR.
But Bertelsen warns not to get carried away.
He points out there’s a difference between "destination shipping" – the trucking of oil and gas down from the Arctic – and "transit shipping" of containers around the world.
“Container shipping is like a bus line,” he says. “It has stops along the way and very few passengers go from end to end. The old trunk line via the Malacca Strait, the Indian Ocean, the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean passes a lot of people, a lot of economic activity. But with the passage north of Russia - there’s nobody there.”
There are other practical problems. Dedicated satellites now track sea ice to send warnings down to ships in the Arctic, but significant Titanic-style risks remains and only Russia currently has a decent fleet of icebreakers. And the Bering Strait is not very deep, restricting the size of ship that can access the Arctic from Asia.
Maersk itself insisted it did “not see the Northern Sea Route as an alternative to our usual routes”, saying the Venta’s voyage was “a trial to explore an unknown route for container shipping and to collect scientific data”.
But when China is involved, there are always more than just commercial considerations.
In January Beijing staked its claim in clear terms, issuing its first White Paper on the Arctic.
The paper described China as a "near-Arctic state" and said countries south of the Arctic Circle had the right to engage in scientific research and navigation, resource extraction, fishing and the laying of cables and pipelines.
It was a clear marker, and a warning, that it intends to be a major player.
The paper discussed a “Polar Silk Road”, anticipating that China would make extensive use of the new shipping routes to Russia and northern Europe – as well as the North-West Passage into the Canadian Arctic, and even the polar route straight over the top.
Some point to Greenland as a destination China has in mind.
A 2007 US diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks predicted “Greenland is on a clear track towards independence”, and as the Danish protectorate’s ice sheets melt, mineral riches are being exposed.
There is not just oil (but there is a lot of that – more than Alaska, perhaps) but also diamonds, rubies, uranium, zinc and rare earths, the minerals essential to the electronics boom that powered China’s renaissance.

Greenpeace activists prepare to scale an oil rig off the coast of Greenland. Photo: Greenpeace

And China is starting to open its pockets in Greenland, offering money to expand airports, to explore and exploit mineral deposits. It even tried to buy an abandoned US naval facility, only to be blocked at the last minute.
If Chinese money is the catalyst for Greenland’s independence, finally weaned off its big Danish subsidy, then gratitude could give China a lot of influence in the fledgling country.
But this could prove another Arctic flashpoint: the US Air Force base at Thule in Greenland plays a crucial role in missile defence.
Elisabeth Bauer, head of the Nordic Countries Project at Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, has been interested in the Arctic for a decade, but her ears really pricked up in 2015 at a discussion on when the Arctic might be ice-free.
“That really causes a lot of challenges to the Arctic and I thought that might be really important for the future of the economy, of security, the future of East-West trade and so on,” she says.
“So I thought we have to do something on that topic.”
She’s cautious about making any bold predictions.
“At the moment you really can’t see what will happen in the future,” she says.
She points to this week's seminar, with some of the world’s most knowledgeable Arctic experts disagreeing on central issues.
“It shows we have to be careful to look at this. It is a struggle of interests on one end, and a struggle on principles and values on the other end. We don’t know at the moment who will be the winner.”

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200 Stars Urge 'Serious' Action On Climate Change In Letter To Le Monde

France 24

This illustration picture taken in Paris on August 20, 2018 shows a figurine of a worker with a jackhammer on an earth globe. Joël Saget, AFP

Two hundred of the world’s most prominent artists and scientists signed an open letter in French daily Le Monde on Monday calling for urgent political action to address the “global catastrophe” facing mankind and other species.
The letter, penned by actress Juliette Binoche and astrophycist Aurélien Barrau, called on politicians to act “firmly and immediately” in tackling climate change and the “collapse of biodiversity”, described as the “greatest challenge in the history of mankind”.
“It is time to get serious,” the signatories said. “The sixth mass extinction is taking place at unprecedented speed. But it is not too late to avert the worst.”
The letter said it was up to politicians to take all necessary measures, however unpopular they may be.
Binoche was joined by fellow French actresses Isabelle Adjani, Marion Cotillard and Catherine Deneuve as well as artist Anish Kapoor; actors Bradley Cooper, Willem Defoe, Ethan Hawke, Ralph Fiennes, Jude Law, Charlotte Rampling and John Tuturro; directors David Cronenberg and Wim Wenders; and many others.
Prominent scientists who signed on included astrophysicist Françoise Combes, climatologist Jean Jouzel, mathematician Mikhaïl Gromov and physicist Carlo Rovelli.
The letter comes as French President Emmanuel Macron is under pressure to do more to deliver on his green promises after his high-profile ecology minister, Nicolas Hulot, suddenly resigned, citing his disappointment with progress on the environment.
A popular figure, Hulot resigned live on-air during a radio interview last week, saying he felt "all alone" in the government on environmental issues and blasting lobbies and big business for hindering the fight against climate change.

Signatories
Isabelle Adjani, actrice; Laure Adler, journaliste; Pedro Almodovar, cinéaste; Laurie Anderson, artiste; Charles Aznavour, chanteur; Santiago Amigorena, écrivain; Pierre Arditi, acteur; Niels Arestrup, acteur; Ariane Ascaride, actrice; Olivier Assayas, cinéaste; Yvan Attal, acteur, cinéaste; Josiane Balasko, actrice; Aurélien Barrau, astrophysicien (Institut universitaire de France); Nathalie Baye, actrice; Emmanuelle Béart, actrice; Xavier Beauvois, cinéaste; Alain Benoit, physicien (Académie des sciences); Jane Birkin, chanteuse, actrice; Juliette Binoche, actrice; Benjamin Biolay, chanteur; Dominique Blanc, actrice; Gilles Boeuf, biologiste; Mathieu Boogaerts, chanteur; John Boorman, cinéaste; Romane Bohringer, actrice; Carole Bouquet, actrice; Stéphane Braunschweig, metteur en scène; Zabou Breitman, actrice, metteuse en scène; Nicolas Briançon, acteur, metteur en scène; Irina Brook, metteuse en scène; Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, actrice, cinéaste; Florence Burgat, philosophe; Gabriel Byrne, acteur; Cali, chanteur; Sophie Calle, artiste; Jane Campion, cinéaste; Isabelle Carré, actrice; Emmanuel Carrère, écrivain; Anne Carson, auteure et professeure; Michel Cassé, astrophysicien; Laetitia Casta, actrice; Bernard Castaing, physicien (Académie des sciences); Antoine de Caunes, journaliste, cinéaste; Alain Chamfort, chanteur; Boris Charmatz, chorégraphe; Christiane Chauviré, philosophe; Jeanne Cherhal, chanteuse; François Civil, acteur; Hélène Cixous, écrivaine; Isabel Coixet, cinéaste; Françoise Combes, astrophysicienne (Collège de France); François Cluzet, acteur; Gregory Colbert, photographe, cinéaste; Bradley Cooper, acteur; Brady Corbet, acteur; Béatrice Copper-Royer, psychologue; Marion Cotillard, actrice; Denis Couvet, écologue; Camille Cottin, actrice; Clotilde Courau, actrice; Franck Courchamp, écologue (Académie européenne des sciences); Nicole Croisille, chanteuse; David Cronenberg, cinéaste; Alfonso Cuaro, cinéaste; Willem Dafoe, acteur; Philippe Decouflé, chorégraphe; Sébastien Delage, musicien; Vincent Delerm, chanteur; Alain Delon, acteur; Catherine Deneuve, actrice; Claire Denis, cinéaste; Philippe Descola, anthropologue (Collège de France); Alexandre Desplat, compositeur; Manu Dibango, musicien; Hervé Dole, astrophysicien (Institut universitaire de France); Valérie Dréville, actrice; Diane Dufresne, chanteuse; Sandrine Dumas, actrice, metteuse en scène; Romain Duris, acteur; Lars Eidinger, acteur; Marianne Faithfull, chanteuse; Pierre Fayet, physicien (Académie des sciences); Ralph Fiennes, acteur; Frah (Shaka Ponk), chanteur; Cécile de France, actrice; Stéphane Freiss, acteur; Thierry Frémaux, directeur de festival; Jean-Michel Frodon, critique, professeur; Marie-Agnès Gillot, danseuse étoile; Pierre-Henri Gouyon, biologiste; Julien Grain, astrophysicien; Anouk Grinberg, actrice;Mikhaïl Gromov, mathématicien (Académie des sciences); Sylvie Guillem, danseuse étoile; Arthur H, chanteur; Ethan Hawke, acteur; Christopher Hampton, scénariste; Nora Hamzawi, actrice; Ivo Van Hove, metteur en scène; Isabelle Huppert, actrice; Agnès Jaoui, actrice, cinéaste; Michel Jonasz, chanteur; Camelia Jordana, chanteuse; Jean Jouzel, climatologue (Académie des sciences); Juliette, chanteuse; Anish Kapoor, sculpteur, peintre; Mathieu Kassovitz, acteur; Angélique Kidjo, chanteuse; Cédric Klapisch, cinéaste; Thierry Klifa, cinéaste; Panos H. Koutras, cinéaste; Lou de Laâge, actrice; Ludovic Lagarde, metteur en scène; Laurent Lafitte, acteur; Laurent Lamarca, chanteur; Maxence Laperouse, comédien; Camille Laurens, écrivaine; Bernard Lavilliers, chanteur; Sandra Lavorel, écologue (Académie des sciences); Jude Law, acteur; Patrice Leconte, cinéaste; Roland Lehoucq, astrophysicien; Gérard Lefort, journaliste; Nolwenn Leroy, chanteuse; Peter Lindbergh, photographe; Louane, chanteuse; Luce, chanteuse; Ibrahim Maalouf, musicien; Vincent Macaigne, metteur en scène, acteur; Benoît Magimel, acteur; Yvon Le Maho, écologue (Académie des sciences); Andreï Makine, écrivain de l’Académie Française; Abd al Malik, rappeur; Sophie Marceau, actrice; Virginie Maris, philosophe; André Markowicz, traducteur; Nicolas Martin, journaliste; Vincent Message, écrivain; Wajdi Mouawad, metteur en scène; Nana Mouskouri, chanteuse; Jean-Luc Nancy, philosophe; Arthur Nauzyciel, metteur en scène; Safy Nebbou, cinéaste; Pierre Niney, acteur; Helena Noguerra, chanteuse; Claude Nuridsany, cinéaste; Michael Ondaatje, écrivain; Thomas Ostermeier, metteur en scène; Clive Owen, acteur; Corine Pelluchon, philosophe; Laurent Pelly, metteur en scène; Raphaël Personnaz, acteur; Dominique Pitoiset, metteur en scène; Denis Podalydès, acteur; Pomme, chanteuse; Martin Provost, cinéaste; Olivier Py, metteur en scène; Susheela Raman, chanteuse; Charlotte Rampling, actrice; Raphaël, chanteur; Régine, chanteuse; Cécile Renault, astrophysicienne; Robin Renucci, acteur; Jean-Michel Ribes, metteur en scène; Tim Robbins, acteur; Muriel Robin, actrice; Isabella Rossellini, actrice; Brigitte Roüan, actrice, cinéaste; Carlo Rovelli, physicien (Institut universitaire de France); Eric Ruf, directeur de la Comédie-Française; Céline Sallette, actrice; Rodrigo Santoro, acteur; Marjane Satrapi, cinéaste; Kristin Scott Thomas, actrice; Albin de la Simone, musicien; Abderrahmane Sissako, cinéaste; Marianne Slot, productrice; Patti Smith, chanteuse, écrivaine; Sabrina Speich, géoscientifique; Marion Stalens, réalisatrice; Kristen Stewart, actrice; Tom Stoppard, dramaturge; Peter Suschitzky, chef opérateur; Malgorzata Szumowska, cinéaste; Béla Tarr, cinéaste; Gilles Taurand, scénariste; Alexandre Tharaud, musicien; James Thierrée, danseur, chorégraphe; Mélanie Thierry, actrice; Danièle Thompson, cinéaste; Melita Toscan du Plantier, attachée de presse; Jean-Louis Trintignant, acteur; John Turturro, acteur; Hélène Tysman, pianiste; Pierre Vanhove, physicien; Karin Viard, actrice; Polydoros Vogiatzis, acteur; Rufus Wainwright, chanteur; Régis Wargnier, cinéaste; Jacques Weber, acteur; Wim Wenders, cinéaste; Sonia Wieder-Atherton, musicienne; Bob Wilson, metteur en scène; Lambert Wilson, acteur; Jia Zhang-ke, cinéaste; Elsa Zylberstein, actrice

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