Pascal Canfin "totally" opposed to the carbon tax on heating and fuels

The European Commission wanted to give a boost to the energy transition by presenting, on Tuesday, a green pact, including a dozen measures supposed to bring the Union to carbon neutrality in 2050. Among them, the end of diesel cars and gasoline, a kerosene tax in the airline industry, the development of renewable energies and the taxation of less green goods imported into the EU. It also includes the creation of a new carbon market, on domestic heating and fuels, in 2026. This last measure is undoubtedly currently the most contested, because it will weigh on households. Pascal Canfin, president of the Environment committee in the European Parliament, warned Thursday on Europe 1 that he would fight it.

"I will try to ensure that there is no majority in the European Parliament"

"As much as I am in favor of almost all the measures of this climate package, as much as I am totally in opposition to this specific measure", assured the former Minister for Development (2012-2014).

"When, for example, you live 20 or 30 kilometers from a city center and you have to go to work by car and drive your children in the car anyway, you have no choice. It is not because gasoline costs 20 cents or 10 cents more. It's just that you have to pay. And you have no alternative. I think that this measure is not not good, "he insisted.

>> Find Europe midi in replay and podcast here 

And Pascal Canfin will do everything to ensure that this precise measure is finally retoked.

"I will try to ensure that there is no majority to support her in the European Parliament," he said.

"Besides, France, as a government within Europe, is hostile to it."

"When we take the plane, we emit CO2"

The former president of WWF France, on the other hand, said he was in favor of the kerozene tax for air travel within the Union, even if it was reflected in the prices of tickets. "You are still rarely obliged to take the plane. It is a choice", he noted. “Saying to the airline industry, 'It's okay to put a price on carbon because today all other industries have it, but you, you are kind of a stowaway in the fight against climate change ", it's just common sense. Indeed, it could make plane tickets a few euros more expensive. But everyone must understand that when we take the plane, we emit CO2. We must at least pay CO2 at its fair price. "

Same support from Pascal Canfin for another spectacular measure; the ban on the marketing of vehicles emitting greenhouse gases, including hybrids, from 2035. “2030 is too early to manage the industrial and social consequences of this transition. 2040 is too late to the climate, "said the former minister. "Our goal is to be carbon neutral by 2050. However, an average car lasts about 10 to 15 years on the roads. And so, if you don't stop by 2035 at the latest. , the sale of new combustion vehicles, you still have them on the roads in 2050. And so, by definition, you are not carbon neutral. "