Paris diary: for a clean energy future, turn right at the blue giraffe

The climate-related message of large brightly-coloured animals at the Paris summit is of less immediate benefit than their use as navigation aids

At first glance they looked like weird decorations to brighten the cavernous Paris summit site - 140 colourful, semi-transparent animal shapes that line the avenue between the huge buildings. But like everything on Planet-COP they are imbued with climate-related meaning.

It turns out they are a modern-day "Noah's Ark" created by a French street artist, Gad Weil, after a meeting with French sustainable development minister Si(C)goline Royal.