“The first message we want to deliver at this COP27 is that, both in France and in Europe, we are doing the work”, with the “desire to be exemplary in the implementation” of international climate commitments , said the entourage of the president before the UN summit in Sharm el-Sheikh.
The Head of State must defend financial solidarity with the poorest countries exposed to the devastating effects of global warming, but by playing the card of “concrete solutions”, such as the Great Green Wall in the Sahel, rather than the creation of a new fund requested by several of them.
His speech on the international scene will be followed, Tuesday in Paris, by practical work on a national scale: a meeting at the Elysée with the industrialists who emit the most French greenhouse gases to encourage them to hasten their “decarbonization “. At the same time, Emmanuel Macron undertook, in a video on Twitter, to personally answer this week questions from the French on “the ecological challenge”.
– “Twice as fast” –
After a contrasting first term in environmental matters, he promised in April, between the two rounds of the presidential election, to move up a gear. The second five-year term “will be ecological or will not be”, he had launched in Marseille.
This priority took the form of an objective, to go “twice as fast” to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
At the Elysée, we put forward the first results and a series of announcements to show that the actions are at the rendezvous of the promises: vote in the Senate of the bill on renewable energies – even if its adoption by the The National Assembly is not acquired –, presentation of a text to accelerate the nuclear program, objectives of two million electric cars built in France and one billion trees planted in France by 2030. ..
The plan for sobriety, made necessary by the war in Ukraine, already allows us to “save 10% of our energy”, a trend that we will have to “keep up all winter”, also welcomes an adviser presidential.
Not up to the task, however, respond in unison to opponents on the left and defenders of the environment.
Last week, a decision illustrated, in the eyes of the left, the lack of real will on the part of the executive, when it ignored the amendments yet adopted by the National Assembly to increase by 12 billion euros aid for the thermal renovation of housing.
“The government had a great opportunity to help the working classes” to face this challenge, but it deprived itself of it “with 49.3” to ratify its 2023 budget without a vote, regrets Clément Sénéchal, of the Greenpeace association.
– “Harmful measures” –
The Macronist argument of “responsibility”, in times of budgetary scarcity? “They always have a good excuse”, sweeps this activist, believing that a real taxation of superprofits, to which Emmanuel Macron is “refractory”, would make it possible to finance these priorities.
Anne Bringault, from the Climate Action Network, also notes that France’s greenhouse gas emissions, although condemned for “climate inaction”, are still “far” from “the right trajectory.
And this even though “several measures harmful to the climate have been taken since the beginning of this five-year period”, she adds, referring to the reopening of the Saint-Avold coal-fired power plant, a project for a new LNG terminal in Le Havre. , support for the purchase of fuel for all “which has benefited more the wealthiest households”…
These criticisms come at a time when Emmanuel Macron, who opposes any “punitive” or “degrowth” ecology, is faced with a rise in radical actions.
If the accusation of “ecoterrorism” brought by the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin after incidents in Deux-Sèvres is not unanimous in the majority, the executive hopes to take the opportunity to demonstrate the policy balance.
“I understand the feeling of urgency”, assured Sunday the Minister of Transport Clément Beaune to the Grand Jury RTL / LCI / Le Figaro.
But does “throwing a molotov cocktail at law enforcement” “advance the ecological cause?” he asked. “I’m absolutely certain not.”
