This is a “provisional” budget, which is already giving cold sweats to specialists in the ecological transition. The “ceiling letter” sent at the end of August by Prime Minister Gabriel Attal to the Ministry of Transition provides for a sharp drop in credits in certain key areas for decarbonization. According to the specialized media Contextthis sabre blow would cut the Green Fund by 1.5 billion euros and the electrification of vehicles by half a billion.
A “short-term budgetary vision”, denounces Valérie Masson-Delmotte, paleoclimatologist and member of the High Council for Climate. The former co-president until July 2023 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns: a drop in green funding could lead to increased difficulties in combating climate change, and therefore an increased risk for populations.
The Express: The 2025 budget has not been decided, but recent information communicated by Matignon seems to show a drop in the credits needed for the ecological transition. What is your view on the trajectory recommended by the resigning government?
Valerie Masson-Delmotte: Unfortunately, the letter that we sent — with the High Council for Climate — to Gabriel Attal in the spring, remains entirely relevant. We were already warning of the risks involved in postponing the timetable for a set of structural texts, such as the revision of the French Energy Climate Strategy, the National Low Carbon Strategy and the National Plan for Adaptation to Climate Change. These texts are associated with essential investment needs and priorities, and today the delays are still accumulating with the absence of a government.
Now, in addition to these uncertainties, there is a particularly worrying budget project in terms of the investments needed to meet our commitments to control greenhouse gas emissions. However, the impacts of climate change are clearly visible. And as the recent mountain floods have reminded us, this is generating ever-increasing costs. Faced with these extreme climate events, we are clearly aware of our lack of preparation and we must change scale. Of course, there are risks of “political decay”, as some call it, but one thing is certain: if we do not tackle either the causes or the consequences of climate change, the cost of the damage will only increase.
In a period of reduction in state spending, can ecology be a variable for budgetary adjustment?
What concerns me most is the government’s difficulty in having a vision of a long-term trajectory. Short-term budget management prevails. It is extremely worrying to see that the discussions do not mention the very concrete climate implications of these decisions. However, it would be interesting to build a shared vision between the political groups on the trajectory that we want to have by 2030. This would then allow for a discussion that would focus on the budget. But for the moment, the thinking is going the other way. With a purely accounting and short-term vision.
The Ademe budget, dedicated to communities and businesses, could also be cut, going from 1.3 billion to 900 million euros. With what consequences?
This news, if confirmed, would be very damaging. It should be noted that all budget cuts on State services and the ecological transition risk being paid for in net losses of know-how for critical operators. That is to say for supporting the decarbonization of communities or for adaptation. Weakening the Ademe budget also means weakening a form of decentralization, which is important so that the measures implemented are best suited to the territories, including in relation to employment opportunities and energy cost control, two themes dear to local elected officials.
The problem is that we have not had an estimate of the gains generated by the State’s investments in the transition, and therefore a rational analysis that would present an integrated vision of the benefits of these investments. The General Secretariat for Ecological Planning (SGPE), attached to Matignon, could quite easily do this work because the trajectory that has been defined is associated with quantified means. Translating these cuts into opportunities that are closing, delays that are accumulating, and risks that may increase, would be very instructive.
France, despite everything, has managed to reduce its emissions this year to get on the right trajectory. Does that mean you can get there, even on a tight budget?
Indeed, this is the first time that we are on a trajectory that will allow us to achieve our objectives. But this comes with one condition: that of maintaining the implementation of these measures in key sectors. We are talking about transport, construction, etc. These are precisely the sectors that are being hit hard by the proposed cuts. It should also be noted that these good results are partly linked to cyclical factors. The observed decline is notably linked to inflation and the industrial slowdown, which alone explain around a third of the annual decline in emissions. The government is wrong: it is not when we start to reach the milestone that we should go back and cut budgets. We should do the opposite.
We sometimes forget that it is about building another economy, decarbonized over time. It is not about managing one crisis after another but about integrating the economy into a long-term vision. The political situation means that we are currently not having a debate in Parliament on these issues. We are lacking direction. It is extremely frustrating.
Subsidies for electric vehicles would also be affected by these reductions. “Social leasing” seemed to have hit its target?
I am not going to comment on the overall budgetary situation. But we must nevertheless recall the crucial condition for these structural transformations to be implemented: that of social justice. That is to say, their territorial breakdown and the fact of making decarbonization options accessible to all, including households with limited incomes. When we carried out the assessment with the High Council for Climate, the measure taken for the year 2023-2024 that seemed the most relevant to us was that of leasing for electric vehicles. At the time, we had not observed many other initiatives as effective… Given the current political situation, I fear that there will be no new ones in the coming year.
This applies to the purchase of vehicles, but the development of urban heating networks and heat pump manufacturers will also be affected by these funding cuts. We can clearly see that these subsidies stimulate production and demand; there is a return on investment that would be a shame to miss. This is why I think it would be interesting to have the opinion of the SGPE on the issue, since this body has worked on these very themes.
What do you expect from the new government?
The changes will come, I think, from Parliament, which will have a different role in the current political context. I expect it to be able to build a common vision on these issues, to protect the French in mainland France and overseas. I hope that the 2025 budget can be put in the right direction and that Parliament will play its role: that of acting in the interests of the French, with a long-term logic. In countries that have a coalition culture, we see that there can be agreements on strategic subjects of this type. The climate, biodiversity, the construction of a decarbonized industry… All of this escapes the partisan logic of the left or the right.
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