“The situation is serious, very serious.” In an interview with L’Express, the former Minister of Overseas Territories and current President of the Federation of Overseas Enterprises believes that the overseas departments and territories are particularly vulnerable to the consequences of climate change. According to him, the energy transition is struggling to start on the spot. The former deputy Les Républicains (LR) pleads for much stronger action by the State, but also an adaptation of public policies to take into account the specificity of these territories.
L’Express: The energy crisis, the war in Ukraine and the impact of global warming constitute powerful calls to accelerate the energy and ecological transition, which the Head of State seems to have heard. Does this desire apply with the same voluntarism overseas?
Herve Mariton: To understand the problem, we must already take into account the vulnerability of these territories where a string of difficulties are combined. By their development, concentrated on the coasts, as well as the fragility of their ecosystems, which concentrate 80% of French biodiversity on only 22% of the national territory, these overseas departments and territories are the most exposed to the impacts of climate change. climatic. This exposure is scientifically proven through the indicator of physical vulnerability to climate change (IVPCC), which shows that excluding Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, all overseas communities are more in a situation of vulnerability. than France. There are vulnerabilities in terms of sea level rise, but also precipitation or even extreme climatic phenomena. We saw the disorganization and the cost of Irma in Saint-Martin a few years ago.
There are more discreet but disorganizing phenomena for the traditional economic activities of these territories such as tourism or the fishing economy. The necessary energy transition impacts another part of this overseas model, long-distance imports. Imagine tomorrow the establishment of a carbon tax mechanism at borders. With the high level of imports of these economies, the low circularity, a still very strong place for the automobile in social life… There is reason to look at the situation with concern when it comes to the energy transition.
Are these territories rather ahead or behind the mainland in terms of decarbonization objectives?
The energy equation is very different from the metropolis. These territories are in essence areas not interconnected with neighboring countries, almost insular in the case of Guyana. They do not benefit from nuclear power, for example. The share of coal and fuel oil in the mix therefore remains quite significant. We are very far from the objective of energy autonomy in 2030, which was set by the Law on Energy Transition for Green Growth of 2015 with an acceleration on renewable energies. There are investment problems, problems connecting these energies to the network. In the electricity mix, some territories can benefit from a non-negligible share of hydropower, such as Guyana or New Caledonia or even Reunion. This advantage should not hide the problem, renewables such as solar or wind are developing very weakly. For the rest, the evolution of production towards carbon-free modes is already coming up against this obstacle. Take the example of nickel production in New Caledonia, which is a real asset for this territory.
When you are involved in electro-intensive activities in mainland France, such as mining and metallurgy, there is a good base of electricity supply that comes from nuclear power. That’s not the case here. And I ask a question that is probably a little avant-garde: but when will nuclear power arrive overseas? In the next decade, thehe small modular reactors could be offered to a territory like New Caledonia. Initiatives on the decarbonization of the economy and more particularly of small industrial activities exist, but they may have difficulty responding to calls for projects from Ademe due to the mesh of these projects.
To hear you, we imagine that a differentiation would be necessary to adapt the standard and the incentives to these territories compared to the metropolis.
It’s necessary. One of the major emission items concerns, for example, automobile transport. The specificity of the Overseas Territories is the place of the car. It is even stronger than in mainland France. It is a strong activity, not by the manufacturing, but in the distribution circuits. It is also a very important tax lever. The necessary evolution of the fleet towards electric could pose a particularly critical tax base problem. On the side of the adaptation of standards, in the field of building on the issue of energy performance, the subject is not absent or ignored, but there are constant delays.
In its policy of energy transition and acceleration towards renewables, the State must understand that the impacts are not at all the same here and in mainland France. The case of the revision of the tariffs for the purchase of electricity produced by solar power, for example (the State brutally revised these tariffs, denouncing the contracts which it had nevertheless signed with the producers, editor’s note), of which we have a lot spoken in mainland France, only concerned 0.5% of the installed base. In the Overseas Territories, 60% of the installed base was affected. It was extremely destabilizing.
The institutional framework nevertheless allows this differentiation. There are multi-annual specific energy programs for the Overseas Territories…
In theory, that’s a good thing. In practice, only one of these PPE has reached the end of its review, that of Reunion. Investors today consider that the local framework is not efficient. The slow implementation of standards and the unsuitability of the regulatory framework are frightening. On the differentiation, we must go further. Adapting to the electric vehicle, for example, where the overseas territories are already lagging behind… Local authorities cannot bear this cost alone, there will have to be a logic of national solidarity. In the same way, it is necessary to understand the specificities of these territories. A recent example illustrates the whole problem. In Bora-Bora in Polynesia, the State recently refused to exempt the replacement of a seawater air conditioning system (SWAC) from tax, on the pretext that it was a repair and not a new investment. The state wants something new, something new, something new, but that doesn’t match the reality of these territories where the need for rehabilitation is enormous. We must change gear, think of these territories as being able to bring something to the national community. We must consider nuclear power in New Caledonia, accelerate energy production. I am convinced that in this energy transition, the Overseas Territories have the capacity to move from a form of delay to a form of advance, because they have assets.
Which ?
There are positive signals. A player like TotalEnergies, which has just returned to the Overseas Territories with the ambition of developing renewable energies there, is interesting. The financial player Meridiam will also develop a giant renewable production project with associated hydrogen storage in Guyana. Other big groups, like Engie, Vinci, are ready to go. But they are waiting for clear signals from the state. When a PPE falls behind, it’s a bad signal. What happened on the revision of solar prices, or even in Bora-Bora, too. At the same time, we must accelerate research activities and improve training. There is a quite considerable level of youth unemployment. One out of two young people leaves the territory in which they were trained. There is significant potential to relocate this human capital, with training to put in front of developing businesses. Public authorities must do more. At the local level with economic development contracts signed between the State, local authorities and companies to provide vision, training tools and prospects over a certain period of time. And at the national level with a programming law on the economy of the Overseas Territories, the main pillar of which would be energy and ecological transition.
In this regard, have the presidential and legislative elections provided concrete answers to the issues you raise?
The answer is no. None of the candidates paid enough attention to this. The situation is serious, very serious. Martinique and Guadeloupe are dying demographically, young people are leaving. Reunion is in a less bad context but has an exacerbated level of illiteracy and poverty. In terms of energy transition, the deficit is obvious. Not much is missing. A good boost, the simplification of procedures and the ecosystem could mobilize. Nothing is impossible and it can yield more than it will cost the national community.