Compulsory work against thermal strainers in 2023, ban on heated terraces in 2021, aid for rail freight with the relaunch of the Perpignan-Rungis line, new protected areas: during an ecological defense council at the Élysée, the government resumed, Monday, July 27, 146 concrete measures issued by the Citizen's Convention for the Climate.

The 150 citizens participating had proposed 149 regulatory measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

To encourage the thermal renovation of buildings, the government will thus introduce by decree, from 2023, the notion of energy performance in the criteria of "decent housing", announced the Minister for Housing Emmanuelle Wargon. This will allow tenants of housing consuming more than 500 kWh per m2 of heating per year, or 120,000 rental housing, "to require the owner to do work, or even to submit the case to the judge who may decide to freeze the rent or to prohibit the rental of housing ".

And from 2022, it will be prohibited to install oil and coal-fired boilers in new homes or to replace an existing boiler with such boilers.

To respect Emmanuel Macron's promise that France will reach 30% of its land surface in protected areas, the Minister of Ecological Transition Barbara Pompili has announced the creation of a national nature reserve in the Robertsau forest in Alsace. She also recalled the upcoming creation of two regional natural parks, at Mont Ventoux and in the Bay of Somme - announcements already made in February.

Heated terraces will be banned in 2021

As for the moratorium on new peripheral commercial zones, demanded by the Convention and promised by Emmanuel Macron, it will wait for a law in 2021. But by then, the prefects will have to defer all projects that concrete more, including those in progress examination, to the National Commission for Commercial Development. What, de facto, freeze them by the passage of a law.

The government also wants to create a fund to "rehabilitate hundreds of hectares of wasteland" already artificial.

Another decision, the government will ban heated terraces, but after next winter, to take into account the crisis experienced by restaurant owners because of the Covid-19. In addition, added Barbara Pompili denouncing an "aberration", the doors of heated or air-conditioned buildings and businesses will have to remain closed.

A big blow for restaurant owners. "We are angry, this is really not the time! It is improbable. And where is the consultation promised by the government?", Indignant on BFMTV Didier Chenet, president of the GNI (union of hoteliers and restaurateurs ).

Measures should be included in the recovery plan

Prime Minister Jean Castex, traveling to Bonneuil-sur-Marne (Val-de-Marne), took over to announce toll exemptions for freight transport trains in 2020 and 2021, in order to encourage this mode transport. That is to say exemptions of 63 million euros per year.

Castex outlines the rail freight recovery plan

He also announced the relaunch of the Perpignan-Rungis freight line, suspended a year ago, as well as the creation of two other "rail motorways", Bayonne-Cherbourg and Sète-Calais.

On the other hand, the Council did not pronounce on the limitation to 30 km / h in the agglomerations or the increase of the ecological bonus for vehicles which emit little CO2, demanded by the Convention. On these sensitive measures, the minister will organize consultations with elected officials this week.

Some of the measures proposed by the Convention should be included in the recovery plan unveiled on August 24. The government then wants to present a law on these subjects to the Council of Ministers in November for consideration in Parliament in January 2021.

Measures deemed timid by environmentalists and NGOs

Ads that are not enough, according to environmentalists and NGOs. This Ecological Defense Council, "it's a gadget (...), we say: apply the Citizen's Convention for the climate and hurry up because there are less than 600 days left, this mandate is wasted for the climate for the moment ", lamented the national secretary of Europe Ecology Les-Verts, Julien Bayou.

For Matthieu Orphelin (ex-La République en Marche), these announcements go "in the right direction", but should not be limited to "half-measures", such as the decree on the criteria of the decency of a housing which according to him "does not even correspond to the label G of the diagnosis of energy performance".

Clément Sénéchal, of Greenpeace France, lamented announcements "which postpone (s) any development to 2023, or outside this five-year period", when Friends of the Earth fear that online commerce warehouses will escape a moratorium. "The lack of mention of a freeze is not by chance, while the government knows that Amazon's 76,000 m2 projects in Belfort and 190,000 m2 in Ensisheim could be authorized in the coming weeks ", they denounce.

With AFP

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