The French government asked to take "all useful additional measures" to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Council of State has demanded new climate commitments from the authorities within a year, in a decision published Wednesday, May 10, on the case of the municipality of Grande-Synthe, without however imposing a financial penalty.

"The Council of State today orders the government to take new measures by June 30, 2024, and to transmit, from December 31, a progress report detailing these measures and their effectiveness," says the high administrative court, following the conclusions of the public rapporteur.

In 2019, the municipality of Grande-Synthe (North) had seized the Council of State for "climate inaction", considering that its city, located on the coast and neighboring Dunkirk, was threatened with submersion.

The highest administrative court had ruled in his favour in July 2021, leaving nine months for the France to "take all necessary measures" to bend "the curve of greenhouse gas emissions" to be in line with the objectives of the Paris Agreement (-40% by 2030 compared to 1990).

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No guarantee "sufficiently credible"

"The Council of State considers that, while additional measures have been taken and reflect the government's willingness to implement the decision, it is still not sufficiently credibly guaranteed that the trajectory of reducing greenhouse gas emissions can be effectively respected," it said in a statement.

The decision thus enjoins "the Prime Minister to take all necessary additional measures to ensure the consistency of the pace of reduction of greenhouse gas emissions" with the reduction trajectory that the country has set itself.

"The measures taken do not show a sufficiently marked leap to convince of the achievement of the 2030 objectives" but "the effort nevertheless seems to us notable", had noted the public rapporteur in presenting his conclusions on 12 April, in a case where the city of Paris is also among the applicants alongside NGOs (Notre affaire à tous, Greenpeace, Oxfam).

>> Read also: Air pollution leads to the premature death of 1,200 miners per year in Europe

With AFP

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