This second mandate “will be ecological or will not be”, assured Emmanuel Macron, since the gardens of the Palais du Pharo, in Marseille. It was April 16, right in between rounds, during a meeting very focused on environmental themes. In this regard, he announced that he wanted to go twice as fast in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Although elected with 58.5% of the vote, he said he was aware on Sunday evening that many French people gave him their vote “not to support the ideas that I hold, but to block those of the far right. “. “This vote obliges me,” he continued, a sign that he does not expect there to be a state of grace but that he is expected at the turn by the French. In particular on ecological issues?
Green planning, attractive on paper?
“We avoided the worst with Marine Le Pen, who raised fears of a big step backwards on the climate”, estimates the boss of Greenpeace France, Jean-François Julliard, interviewed by AFP. But this re-election of Emmanuel Macron does not make NGOs and climate activists jump for joy either. “There are legitimate doubts when we see the five-year period from which we are emerging, made of renunciations and retreat on the climate and ecological front”, tackles Sarah Fayolle. The campaign manager for Greenpeace France was not more reassured by the vision presented for the future by the president. “His program presented nothing strong and solid that would suggest that he finally saw the light,” she said.
Admittedly, Emmanuel Macron has multiplied the pledges given to the electorate of Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Yannick Jadot in the home stretch of the between-two-towers. “And until his speech at the Champ-de-Mars”, notes Pierre Cannet, director of advocacy at WWF France. In the lot, the promise, also made in Marseille, to appoint a Prime Minister of “ecological planning”. “A term taken from Jean-Luc Mélenchon”, recalls Sarah Fayolle. The idea is attractive on paper, concede the NGOs, which already insisted during the first five-year term on the need not to make the fight against climate change the affair of the Ministry of Ecological Transition only. “But for the moment, it remains very vague, estimates Anne Bringault, coordinator of the programs of the Climate Action Network (RAC). If it is only a question of noting that Matignon will decide, it will not change much. On the other hand, if the principle is to make the Prime Minister accountable for compliance with France’s climate objectives and to ensure that his ministers ensure compliance with carbon budgets [quantités maximales d’émissions allouées] in their sectors, so it can be interesting. »
The first construction site? The composition of the government
Pierre Cannet expects to already have a more precise idea during the composition of the first government that Emmanuel Macron will put down. “This is the first ecological project of his second five-year term, he believes. We will see the ambition that he attaches to this ecological planning”. The WWF Advocacy Director will be attentive to the skills and experience of each of the ministers and to the overall consistency to avoid blockages and refusals of past dialogues, in particular between the Ministers of Agriculture or the Economy and that of the Transition. ecological.
But it’s not just a matter of name. Pierre Cannet and Anne Bringault also hope to learn more, very quickly, about the method and the guarantees for carrying out this ecological planning. Before the legislative again. “The challenge is to ensure, through new tools, that all the decisions taken in this five-year period also respond to the climate emergency and the erosion of biodiversity”, insists the first. “That none is contradictory with the carbon budgets that France has set itself, sector by sector, in the National Low Carbon Strategy (SNBC) adds Anne Bringault.
NGOs have been thinking about this for a long time. The WWF, for example, offers the climate pass, which plans in particular to create an independent institution to assess and guarantee the compliance of French policies with our climate commitments. A mission tailored, in theory, to the High Council for the Climate (HCC). This body of twelve experts was created in November 2018 at the request of Emmanuel Macron to provide an independent view of the government’s policy on the environment. “But it already has very few resources to fulfill its mission,” laments Anne Bringault.
Large-scale projects to launch without delay?
Still, with ecological planning, we are mainly talking about method. The goal to be achieved remains the drastic reduction of our greenhouse gas emissions in the 2030s. Doubling the rate of decline in these emissions (see box), the course set by Emmanuel Macron, is not even the right one, points out Sarah Fayolle. “We will have to go even faster to stay on the trajectory of the Paris agreement”, she indicates, before listing the major projects that should be launched immediately or at least accelerated. “This is, for example, the deployment of renewable energies, on which we are the most backward country in Europe, she laments. But also the subject of the regulation of large companies, by imposing on them reductions in their emissions, the transition of the most polluting sectors (transport, agriculture, etc.), the energy renovation of buildings, better consideration of biodiversity issues, etc. »
On these subjects too, the NGOs regret that Emmanuel Macron remained on the surface during the campaign. But political deadlines to come will quickly make it possible to measure the real ambition of the president. They are mainly European. “As part of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)Member States must present a national strategic plan declining in what ways they will locally dispatch the aid allocated, illustrates Anne Bringuault. France has already seen a first copy rejected by the European Commission, because it was deemed too unambitious on the climate side”. She will have to present a second by June. “Let’s hope this time that this plan does not rely solely on digital and robotics to ensure the transition of the sector”, continues the RAC program coordinator. At the national level, Sarah Fayolle mainly gives an appointment in September, with the start of the examination of the 2023 finance bill. “A crucial file since it will be a question of discussing how we spend public money…. To the ecological transition or to polluting activities? »