France: in a tribune, Emmanuel Macron calls for support for emerging countries on the environment

In an op-ed written in French and English, Emmanuel Macron once again calls for a reform of global financial governance to facilitate the energy transition. In particular, the French president insists on the need for increased support for emerging countries through financial tools, calling for a rapid exit from coal.

Emmanuel Macron during the Presidential Council of Science on December 7, 2023. AFP - LUDOVIC MARIN

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Without announcing any major innovations, Emmanuel Macron insists in an op-ed on the support to be given to emerging countries. The aim would be to get out of both dependence on coal and the current financial mechanisms that impose too many constraints on them for their climate transition.

In this text published this Friday in the columns of Le Monde, the head of state advocates, among other things, for a relaxation of debt rules, like what was done in Europe during the Covid-19 crisis. According to him, this requires a reform of the Bretton Woods agreements establishing the functioning of the IMF and the World Bank. These institutions, which "have an eminent role in setting standards and financing the ecological transition on a global scale", are undersized in the face of the size of the global economy and population, insists the French president.

A 'Lack of Responsibility'

Once again, Emmanuel Macron wants to show himself as a climate champion and as a privileged interlocutor for emerging countries. In particular, he recalled that France would organize summits jointly with Kazakhstan and Costa Rica.

A strategy that questions the MEP of the Greens David Cormand: "He tells them 'we are going to reform so that you can no longer go into debt to buy nuclear power plants from me'. To get out of coal, we need to use renewables and nuclear power. And that's a good thing, we sell them. It's a logic that I find difficult to perceive as real cooperation," he told Aurélien Devernoix. "The prosperity of the countries of the North, and in particular Europe, today has been based on the capture of a certain number of resources, these emerging countries. I also see a lack of accountability for what they are proposing.

A way also for Emmanuel Macron to breathe new life into his second term after a year 2023 marked by pension and immigration reforms, but also to continue to be heard on the international scene where France's voice is marginalized in the two major current crises: Ukraine and the Middle East.

Read alsoEcological planning: French President Emmanuel Macron unveils his objectives

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• France
• Emmanuel Macron
• Energies
• Environment