PARIS, France – A major climate change conference happening during the month of Christmas?

No wonder Sustaina Claus decided to show up.

At our Paris hotel on the second week of the landmark UN climate conference known as COP21, I came across a familiar man clad in red eating in the breakfast hall.

But Sustaina Claus isn’t exactly the Father Christmas you know. He says he’s a “Green Santa” who wants you to do 3 things: smile, change, and unplug.

If you do these good deeds you get to be in his “list of people who are part of the solution.”

He also wants to promote the balance between 3 other principles: society, environment, and economy.

Sustaina Claus, or Philip McMaster in real life, wants to challenge the modern notion of Santa Claus, the icon of the Christmas season.

“Santa Claus is a construction of Coca-Cola. We’ve been doing a consumer society based on this Santa Claus ‘gimme gimme’ idea for a long time. It’s time to change. Santa Claus as a consumer incentivizing icon is not what we need anymore. What we need is Sustaina Claus,” he said.

Sustainable consumption is one of the clarion calls of COP21. The international body that convenes the climate conferences, the United Nations, calls for it through its Sustainable Development Goals.

Scientists, environmentalists, and world leaders have blamed excessive consumerism and wasteful lifestyles as root causes of the climate crisis the world is facing.

Mankind’s heavy use of fossil fuels since the 19th century is largely responsible for the greenhouse gas emissions that have driven global warming.

Fossil fuels power our cars, homes, shopping malls, factories, and airplanes.

The proliferation of “disposable” products and mass production has led to larger and larger garbage dumps (that also release greenhouse gases) and jacked up demand for even more fossil fuel use.

So this time around, it’s Sustaina Claus with one wish to ask of you: rethink your lifestyle and live in harmony with the limits of planet Earth. – Rappler.com