Once again during this election period, we were hoping for a national debate on our climate choices. Because if we are lucky enough to live in a country where the scientific truth on the human origin of climate change is no longer debated, it is nonetheless true that we continue to tear ourselves apart on the actions that should be taken works, at the level of consumers, producers and public or financial institutions, to meet our responsibilities towards nature and future generations. Who should do what, when and how? Who should pay? The rising fury is up to our individual refusal to sacrifice, even though we know that this energy transition will cost us more than 50 billion euros per year in France at the very least.
An ocean separates the “techno-optimists” from the “degrowthists”. For the latter, who advocate a substantial reduction in our purchasing power and a return to nature, as we saw recently at the AgroParisTech graduation ceremony, the very idea of trying to pursue our growth while counting on green technological innovations to organize a happy transition becomes unbearable. The politician, in his most noble mission, should have led the debate to try to find a consensus between these two opposing camps. The sequence yellow vests – great debate – Citizen’s Convention for the climate could have been this cathartic moment. It did not happen. The current election sequence is also failing dramatically to build national consensus. Blame it on the emergence of a magic concept, “ecological planning”. LREM and Nupes are going to do ecological planning, it says it all! Sleep easy, the state will take care of finding the solution.
Utopia of happy transition
This utopia of a happy ecological transition coordinated by the little father of the people does not seem to require explanation for the voters, and especially among the ecologists who went to Canossa from Mélenchon’s ecological planning. The latter, however, displays an excessive ambition, aiming for a 65% reduction (instead of 40%) of emissions by 2030. To date, the mystery remains complete, both in terms of financing and method. Even stronger, the Nupes wants to enshrine the green rule in the Constitution, which requires that we do not take more from nature than what it can replenish. This should, for example, oblige us to switch to “net zero emissions” on CO2 as of today. Its implementation would impose abyssal sacrifices for the French.
Has anyone at Nupes made an estimate of the consequences of stopping the exploitation of iron, copper, or silicon mines? Especially since this rule only makes sense if it were applied to the level of the entire planet. Let’s be clearer: this green rule would impose an ecological dictatorship in France. It certainly has the advantage of laying down the terms of a crucial debate for our common, if possible sustainable, future. The overexploitation of certain natural resources remains a major sustainability challenge for our civilization. But this rule is ineffective in that it ignores the possibilities of substitution and adaptation, the progress that would allow us to do without it in the future.
The politicians who use these magic words to bury the debate do not help the general mobilization essential to win this global war for the climate. If the enemy is clearly identified (our greenhouse gas emissions), the battle plan is non-existent, and the experts in climate strategy are ignored. As proof, for thirty years since this war was declared, our troops have been bogged down in a race of slowness! The radical changes in lifestyle and production to come by the end of Emmanuel Macron’s second term call for greater clarity in the way forward. Apart from nuclear where the choice of planning was decided at the top of the State, the sheet is blank. From this point of view, we wish good luck to our new young Minister for the Ecological Transition, Amélie de Montchalin as well as Agnès Pannier-Runacher, her partner for the energy transition. Failing is no longer an option.