The State has nine months to take “all the necessary measures” to achieve the objective of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030, ordered the Council of State on Thursday in a statement. unprecedented decision.
Seized by the municipality of Grande-Synthe, which considers itself threatened by the rise in sea level, the highest French administrative court noted that the current trajectories of France do not allow it to meet its commitments within the framework of the Paris agreement.
“Insufficient” efforts
It therefore orders “the Prime Minister to take all useful measures to bend the curve of greenhouse gas emissions (…) in order to ensure its compatibility with the objectives” of France by March 31, deadline which will therefore expire in the middle of the presidential campaign.
This decision, unprecedented in France, comes just after the High Council for the Climate (HCC) once again considered Tuesday in its annual report that “the current efforts are insufficient to guarantee the achievement of the objectives” of France. Despite a drop in emissions of -1.9% in 2019 and -9.2% estimated for 2020, an exceptional figure due to the shutdown of the economy by the Covid-19 pandemic.
EU targets revised upwards
The trajectory will be all the more difficult to respect as the European Union is preparing to revise its objectives upwards with expected repercussions for France, underlines the HCC, an independent body created by Emmanuel Macron to assess the country’s climate policy. .
New strategy of environmental activists, legal disputes on the climate have multiplied in recent years and the first decisions in the matter have been falling in recent months, to the detriment of the State. Same movement abroad, where the Dutch and German courts have also recently ordered an increase in the climate ambitions of their respective states.