“The cost of inaction is higher than the cost of decarbonization”, warns Yamina Saheb, economist and author of the IPCC

In a column recently published on the franceinfo website, environmental NGOs call for action against the pension reform on the grounds that “to work more is to produce more, it is to extract more, it is to pollute more.” Is working longer compatible with the climate emergency? Economist Yamina Saheb understands that people are mobilizing, starting with young people, against the pension reform: “You can see that young people are projecting themselves into the future and not into the economic model in which we grew up. In the economic model proposed by the government”, says the author of the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“Pension reform is nothing more than the pursuit of an economic model that has reached its limits and young people do not want it. They want a model of advantage oriented towards the economy of well-being and sharing.”

Yamina Saheb, economist and author of the IPCC

at franceinfo

“Young people want a model of advantage oriented towards the economy of well-being and sharing”continues the researcher.

“Measures and tinkering”

The decarbonization of the French economy is estimated at 50 billion euros per year. But according to Yamina Saheb the government is doing it wrong. “We try to keep the same system and we take measures. We tinker. We try to be in the 21st century with the 20th century system which has reached its economic and societal limits.”

Massive investments are being made in the decarbonisation of the economy, whether through France 2030 or France Relance for example. “These are investments that are made within the framework of techno-solutionism and not in societal transformations. We have been implementing this type of solution for thirty years, and we are failing. Our emissions are increasing,” nuance the researcher at the OFCE.

Watch the full interview: