Rarely has a government communications operation gone so quickly.

Emmanuel Macron and the Minister for the Ecological Transition, Barbara Pompili, were however delighted to announce, last weekend on social networks, that France had exceeded its target of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions in 2019 But environmentalists immediately signaled the executive's sleight of hand: it changed its target in early 2020, from an initially planned decline of 2.3% to a more modest target of -1.5%, thus facilitating government efforts.

Ugly to truncate the truth and not to indicate that the 2019 target was changed in early 2020 to be made easier to achieve (with the revision of the SNBC).


The initial target was a 2.3% drop.


Postpone reductions until later is not responsible.

https://t.co/gEhzAbMIT2

- Anne Bringault (@AnneBringault) February 7, 2021

The Climate and Resilience bill, resulting from the work of the Citizen's Convention for the Climate (CCC), presented to the Council of Ministers on Wednesday, February 10, is it also free from its objectives?

This is what a hundred associations for the defense of the environment or the fight against poverty are already denouncing in an open letter addressed to Emmanuel Macron and published on Monday, February 8.

"While the citizens' proposals had to be transcribed into the law, it is clear that the account is not there", believe Greenpeace, the Nicolas Hulot Foundation, WWF, but also the Abbé Pierre Foundation, ATD Fourth World, Attac or the CFDT, UFC-Que Choisir, and the Confédération paysanne.

"As the parliamentary debate begins, our organizations expect your government and representatives of our nation to breathe new life into the original ambition of this bill. Do not deprive our country of this new lease of life. is needed more than ever ", they insist, regretting in particular that the text adopts an approach of" encouragement "to change practices" where government intervention is required ".

📢 # Open Letter to @EmmanuelMacron and parliamentarians: @RACFrance and more than 100 civil society organizations call for more ambition for the #climat and resilience law https://t.co/A2rPrUSTm0 via @RACFrance

- Climate Action Network (@RACFrance) February 8, 2021

End of the rental of thermal strainers in 2028, ban on advertising for fossil fuels, ban on domestic flights if there is an alternative by train in less than 2:30 ... The bill, which will arrive at the National Assembly in March, includes 65 articles.

It takes up six major themes (consuming, producing and working, moving, housing, eating, strengthening judicial protection of the environment) which, according to the government, reflect nearly half of the 149 CCC proposals intended to reduce France's greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030 compared to 1990.

"Many of our measures are missing or planed"

"There are good things in this text, but in the end, many of our measures are absent or planed, regrets Grégoire Fraty, one of the 150 citizens of the Convention, contacted by France 24. So I am a little mixed. We can regret that the ambitions have been revised downwards. "

>> To read: Citizen's Climate Convention: the participants between hope and disappointment

An opinion shared by Mélanie Blanchetot, another member of the CCC contacted by France 24, who denounces the work of undermining the lobbies.

"We see that there have been a lot of blockages on these issues for 30 years with lobbies that constantly highlight the job losses linked to certain measures, not to mention the job creation that these same measures would imply", she laments.

Others no longer hide their bitterness on social networks.

"The # ClimatResilience law lacks so much muscle that I no longer even recognize our #ConventionCitoyenne objectives. Where is the great victory for the climate? Why settle for so little?", Asks William Aucant in particular.

"Prepared with you" ?!

🙄


The

#ClimatResilience

law lacks so much muscle that I no longer even recognize our goals of the #ConventionCitoyenne.

Where is the big victory for the #Climat?

Why settle for so little?

Will you only have our weakened measures in reserve?

https://t.co/evuVTptUk2

- William Aucant (@WilliamAucant) February 8, 2021

The government retorts that of the 146 measures of 150 citizens approved by Emmanuel Macron last summer, 75 have been implemented and 71 others are in the process of being implemented.

In addition, the impact study produced by the Ministry of Ecological Transition attached to the bill affirms that the Climate and Resilience law will help to "secure" between half and two-thirds of the reduction in emissions expected from here. 2030.

"This is a bill that can be read by looking at all of the government's action during the five-year term, we whisper to Matignon. With this bill, we are providing the last tools that will allow us to keep our climate commitments. "

>> To read: Emmanuel Macron announces a referendum to include the fight for the climate in the Constitution

But beware, we warn the cabinet of Barbara Pompili: "We can achieve the goal we have set, but that supposes doing everything we voted and everything that is provided for in the bill , without slackening in just one of the sectors concerned. "

"Insufficient reduction in GHG emissions"

However, this is exactly the fear expressed by the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (Cese) in an opinion published on January 27.

"The many measures of the bill, considered one by one, are generally relevant but often limited, often postponed, often subject to conditions such that one doubts to see them implemented in the near term", considers the Cese, citing the example of housing renovation.

The EESC adopted today, in the presence of @EmmWargon, its opinion #Climat, #neutralitecarbone et justice sociale, presented by M. Badré and C. Bordenave on behalf of the environment section, chaired by AM Ducroux


📘 👉https: //t.co/C67T6wellQ@AMDucroux pic.twitter.com/2KkDZw6EJM

- EESC (@lecese) January 27, 2021

Likewise, in an opinion issued on January 26, the National Council for the Ecological Transition (CNTE) "is concerned about the insufficient reduction in GHG emissions [greenhouse gas, editor's note] induced by this law and asks to mobilize the necessary means, levers of action and public policy tools ".

For her part, the Minister of Ecological Transition assures us that this bill will help to change mentalities.

"It is a pivotal law, which brings ecology into everyday life, which will green our model and our society and play a catalytic role", assured Barbara Pompili, Sunday, February 7, in the JDD.

"Even if some of the bill's proposals are not as ambitious as those of the CCC, we still managed to move the lines, abounds Mélanie Blanchetot. On ecocide in particular: the text of the law does not go so far rather than referring to pollution offenses, but this is already a big step forward for environmental law. "

>> To read: In France, "the executive buries the notion of the crime of ecocide"

In the meantime, time is running out.

The State does not respect its own trajectory of reduction of greenhouse gases, which earned it, on February 3, to be recognized "responsible (...) for part of the ecological damage observed" by the Paris administrative court.

A decision similar to the decision of the Council of State, which had already denounced, in November, the failure of France to meet its climate objectives.

"Today it is not only NGOs or 'activists' who ask the State to act, it is justice, the Council of State, the HCC, the Citizens' Convention and millions of people. Making promises and blows of com 'will no longer be enough, Emmanuel Macron, sorry ", recently tweeted Cyril Dion, one of the guarantors of the CCC.

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