What to remember from Emmanuel Macron’s five-year term on climate and energy transition? The synthesis is not easy as the executive has multiplied strong declarations and drawn up major ambitious laws on these issues. From the Egalim law (on the balance of relations in the agricultural and food sector) to the Climate and resilience law, via the mobility orientation law (LOM), the anti-waste law for a circular economy (Agec )…
But, at the same time, “justice has taken two historic decisions, in the Case of the Century and that of Grande-Synthe, which recognize the insufficiency of the actions of the government to respect its climate objectives and oblige it to act” , remember
the Climate Action Network (RAC), federation of French climate NGOs.
The sign that the account is not there? The RAC publishes this Wednesday its assessment of the five-year term of Emmanuel Macron and his presidential majority on these climate and ecological transition issues. Anne Bringault, coordinator of the NGO’s programs, responds to 20 minutes.
“Since the start of the five-year term, we have never done so much for the ecological transition”, advances the Minister for the Ecological Transition? Barbara Pompili. Can we attribute such progress to this five-year term?
Unfortunately, this five-year term has done as little as the previous ones on the environmental side. Certainly the environmental theme was very present in the speeches, at least at the beginning of the five-year term. But this displayed voluntarism has materialized very little in concrete actions and the environment has rarely won in the major arbitrations carried out at the level of government policies. In the end, we stayed with facade environmental convictions. This discrepancy came to light in September 2018, with the resignation of Nicolas Hulot, who made this observation: although appointed Minister of State, he did not have the controls to move towards a truly ambitious ecological transition.
Are the citizens’ convention for the climate and the fate reserved for the 150 initial proposals drawn up by this assembly of citizens in your view another strong disappointment during this five-year term?
This is another example of the discrepancies that there have been, during these five years, between stated ambitions and actions. But it is undoubtedly, in fact, one of the most emblematic, because there was this public and repeated promise by Emmanuel Macron to submit without filter to parliament, by way of referendum or direct application, the proposals what would these 150 citizens chosen by lot* do? The reality was quite different. Many of the 150 proposals of the convention, among those included in the Climate and Resilience Law, have been watered down and many experts agree that this law does not contain sufficient measures to achieve a 40% reduction in gas emissions. greenhouse effect in 2030 as she was aiming for. But we weren’t so surprised at the RAC. The five-year term had started with the launch of several major consultations with civil society with this declared desire to do politics differently. There were thus the
General states of food, the Mobility conferences, a public debate on energy programming… We had taken part in several of them and we were quite satisfied with the conclusions. But they have been very little taken up in the laws drawn up in the wake of these great debates. Whether it is the Egalim law, the mobility orientation law, the Climate Energy law of 2019…
Do you still retain anything positive from the major environmental laws adopted during this five-year term?
Yes, we highlight positive points in our balance sheet. It’s the bicycle, for example, with extensive resources put in place to develop this mobility in France, which is obviously very positive. On the energy renovation of housing, the NGOs had pushed a lot, with the
collective Let’s renovate!, for
the ban on the rental of energy strainers. There are measures that have been taken in this direction during this five-year term, even if they are not enough to meet the commitment made in 2017 by Emmanuel Macron to remove these colanders within ten years. We could also cite the halting of projects that are harmful to the environment, such as that of the Notre-Dame-des-Landes airport, or the measures recently taken to support employees affected by
the closing of the last coal-fired power stations . It’s still too early to take stock of this support but it’s going, again, in the right direction…
But these few examples were often the trees that hid the forest from inaction and setbacks. If we look at the general picture, we remain far from the transformation of the sectors that it would be necessary to have to put ourselves on the trajectory of the Paris agreements. What the High Council for the Climate pointed out in its latest report [juin dernier] by estimating that it would be necessary to reduce emissions twice as quickly to hope to achieve the climate objectives that France has set itself.
In which sectors does the balance sheet of Emmanuel Macron’s five-year term catch the most?
There are shortcomings in just about all the main emitting sectors, starting with the first, that of transport [31 % des émissions en 2019]. Once again, if the LOM law has allowed some progress, in particular therefore on the bicycle, overall, this five-year term has not put in place the conditions which allowed a reduction in emissions which are stagnating in transport, excluding the Covid effect. Thus, the reduction in emissions from new vehicles is too low in France. Only 9.8% of new vehicles sold last year were 100% electric, compared to 64.5% in Norway, 13% in Germany. Highway projects and airport extensions and we have invested too little in rail. In agriculture too, we are far from the mark, in particular because Emmanuel Macron has very little tackled the major factors of emissions in this sector. There has been nothing on synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, for example, and if measures have been taken to reduce our meat consumption, in particular experimenting with vegetarian meals in canteens, but we remains at the experimental stage which still needs to be accelerated. Finally, in construction, financial resources have been increased for the energy renovation of housing, but the quantity of renovations currently takes precedence over quality.
Does this five-year term leave you with regrets?
Yes, there were misses. On the movement of “yellow vests” in particular. The NGOs had warned of the risks represented by an increase in the carbon tax without redistribution of the proceeds of this increase between the most modest households, i.e. those who are the most impacted. The “yellow vests” movement has pushed the government to freeze any changes to carbon taxation, fearing it will be perceived as unfair, which has hurt national climate outcomes. However, a study by Ademe shows that the French are ready to make efforts for the climate, but only if these are fairly distributed. It would also have been possible to seize the health crisis much more as an opportunity to restart the economy differently. Considerable financial resources have been allocated to enterprises. Some aid, such as the reduction in production taxes, should even last beyond the health crisis.
But no eco-conditionality was requested in return. These companies benefiting from this public aid have not been asked to reduce their impact on the climate.