Wind turbines and a solar park near the village of Avignonet-Lauragais, located south-east of Toulouse in the Midi-Pyrénées region.
(Photo illustration).
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REMY GABALDA / AFP
The High Council for the Climate, an independent body responsible for issuing opinions and recommendations on France's climate policies, is examining the Climate and Resilience Bill this Tuesday.
Always with this question: does the text, largely inspired by the work of the Citizen's Climate Convention, live up to France's climate objectives?
In particular that of reducing its emissions by 40% by 2030.
If the High Council for the climate notes good things in this bill, in particular measures which should improve the coherence of climate action, it points to other articles very weakened in view of the stakes.
It is the turn of the High Council for the Climate (HCC) to join the debate around the Climate and Resilience Bill.
The independent body, created in May 2019 at the request of Emmanuel Macron to issue opinions and recommendations on France's climate policies, is publishing this Tuesday an opinion on the ambition displayed by this last major law for the environment of the five year term.
The text, which will be examined in Parliament on March 8, will introduce "major ruptures in French society", promises the government.
From our trips to our food, through our consumption and our accommodation.
Expert battle over the impact of the bill
But with what ambition and what concrete impact on our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions?
On this point, the text is attacked from all sides.
As a reminder, it takes up a large part of the proposals of the 150 French people drawn by lot from the Citizen's Convention for the Climate.
From October 2019 and at the request of Emmanuel Macron - again - they worked on solutions to reduce France's emissions by 40% by 2030 compared to 1990. With the President's promise that their proposals would be transmitted without filter to Parliament.
However, many voices, including those of participants in the Convention, are rising to denounce the large gap between the measures set out in the final report of the CCC, submitted this summer, and what remains in the bill. Climate and resilience after being reworked by the executive.
"In total, (according to) current estimates, this bill helps to secure the achievement of between half and two-thirds of the way to go between emissions in 2019 and the target in 2030 [the famous minus 40 % of GHG] ”, estimates the impact study commissioned by the government.
But it has been criticized several times, including by the Council of State, the highest administrative court in France, which has denounced its "significant inadequacies".
The High Council for the climate is adding a layer on Tuesday.
"The limits of the current impact study did not allow us to express ourselves on the expected overall impact of the bill itself", regrets climatologist Corinne Le Quéré, president of the HCC.
France behind on its objectives?
In its opinion, the body then looked at how this bill will or will not achieve the climate objectives that France has set itself through the SNBC (National Low Carbon Strategy).
This roadmap sets, sector by sector, carbon budgets that must not be exceeded in order to achieve climate objectives: carbon neutrality in 2050. But also the intermediaries, including at least 40% of GHG in 2030. “France is currently in late, recalls Corinne Le Quéré.
The first carbon budget [over the 2015-2018 period] was not respected, with an overrun of 61 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent.
And the current drive to reduce emissions is still insufficient.
"
This is the challenge for the coming decade: accelerating the rate of decline in GHG emissions.
The recovery plan, despite its 30 billion euros allocated to ecological transition, leaves the HCC hungry.
"There is a lack of measures to initiate structural transformations to accelerate the low-carbon transition, and two thirds of the plan support economic activity in the continuity of current practices", assesses the High Council.
A missed possibility of catching up?
The Climate and Resilience Bill offers in theory a possibility of catching up, and the HCC does not give only bad points.
Among the 69 proposals, it already distinguishes those that aim to improve the management and management of the energy transition.
These “should on the whole make it possible to strengthen the consistency of public action with France's climate objectives,” notes Corinne Le Quéré.
This involves in particular assigning new powers to local authorities [on advertising, for example] or supplementing a certain number of government programs and plans to make them compatible with the decarbonization strategy [the Research Code, for example, or the national food plan].
This first package of measures could facilitate in the future the implementation of more ambitious climate policies, hopes the HCC.
On the other hand, the body is much more critical of measures directly related to practices emitting greenhouse gases.
“Many of them, which nevertheless have a significant emission reduction potential, have been reduced,” regrets Corinne Le Quéré.
Some have been so due to a limited scope of application.
This is the case with article 4, "which prohibits advertising only on fossil fuels and no longer on all goods and services incompatible with the low-carbon transition [which the Convention proposed]", continues the climatologist. .
Others provide for longer implementation deadlines, again deemed incompatible with the need to step up actions against climate change.
Corinne Le Quéré cites in particular article 60, which provides for the obligation to offer 50% quality products, including 20% organic, in private collective catering ... "but only from 2025".
Finally, the HCC regrets that several measures [deposit for glass, lanes reserved for carpooling, vegetarian choices in public catering, etc.] are still at the experimental stage.
Still time to take action
The High Council for the Climate therefore calls for rectification, and sees the examination of the text in Parliament as the opportune moment to do so.
The challenge will not only be to complete and improve the scope of the measures proposed, but also to ensure that those adopted are in line with the SNBC roadmap, insists Corinne Le Quéré.
Particular attention should be paid to the timing of the implementation of actions, in order to keep up with the rate of decline in emissions expected from 2024, points out the HCC.
From 1.5% per year over the period 2019-2023, it will be necessary to increase to 3.2% per year from 2024. And again….
The EU wants to raise its 2030 target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by lowering it from - 40% to - 55% [still compared to 1990].
Such an increase could imply an increase in the French effort, warns Corinne Le Quéré.
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