“The sky has never been this blue before,” said Karisbon Elisabeth Pacnac to The Guardian about the difference she saw in her hometown Paris on Monday. The city is getting ready for the COP 21 climate summit in December this year when it organized a car-free day. The climate has been a recurring topic in Paris this year, when in the spring researchers measured higher pollution levels than in the big cities of China and India. It may have had to do with the weather which was in the middle of March, but it aroused a reaction in the city.
The silence on the Champs-Elysee must have been striking. Only the sound of bikes, moving skateboards and children’s laughter was heard on Broad Street in central Paris. The blue sky emerged in the absence of pollution. People on the street found that people seemed less stressed without the sound of cars around them.