2003-2015
“I had the feeling of great uselessness”
Disappointed hopes and a first protest
2007
Grenelle of the environment
2013
Backtracking on the “ecotax”
Is this heat wave an electric shock in the minds of politicians? Do they understand the link between soaring temperatures and human activities? Not really. “What is going to be of interest, and it’s a shame, is the health issue. We’re talking about the effect rather than the cause”regrets Roselyne Bachelot, two decades later. “When, after the heatwave, I say [dans une interview au Monde] that at the end of the century, the summer of 2003 will seem cool, you have to see the insults and the mockery that I received, from journalists and politicians.” The following years, however, would prove him right.
At the international level, the COPs follow one another and, without the United States, establish a form of collective powerlessness. Five years after the momentum of Kyoto, “I had the feeling of great uselessness”confides Roselyne Bachelot.
“Frankly, at these COPs, people were sluggish, we had the impression of experiencing the tail of a comet.”
Roselyne Bachelot at franceinfo
In Paris, climate concern is no longer a political compass for the government of Jean-Pierre Raffarin. “In the fall of 2003says the minister, Jacques Chirac told me: ‘You know, we have to stop talking about ecology, it annoys everyone’. And there, I say to myself ‘my days are numbered'”, says the one who is at the origin of the Environmental Charter. Backed by the Constitution, this text establishes the “precautionary principle” And “the right to live in a balanced environment that respects health”.
Serge Lepeltier replaced her in March 2004 and made this subject, which he knows well, his priority. The author of the very first parliamentary report on climate change completed, upon his arrival, the National Environmental Health Plan (PNSE) that his predecessor had developed. “I was the one who launched the multiplication of biofuels, quotas [sur les émissions de gaz] greenhouse effect for industry and research into clean cars”the former minister boasts today.
In fact, there is no shortage of failures. His “bonus-malus” project, a tax system on the purchase of new vehicles, remains at a standstill: deputies from his own camp will have the skin of the measure. The national sustainable development strategy, for which he is responsible, is also falling behind schedule. “For political reasons – the risk of losing certain voters – we ensured that there was no longer a general mobilization on this theme”explains the former minister, who left in 2005.
However, he is launching a very first Climate Plan (link to pdf file), modeled on the French ambition established in Kyoto. Housing, transport, “Exemplary State”, industry, agriculture… The document makes no secret of the levers to be activated to reduce emissions. As the 2007 presidential election draws closer, the subject returns to the forefront, thanks to the release of the documentary An inconvenient truth, where former American vice-president Al Gore warns of an imminent climate catastrophe. At the same time, a certain Nicolas Hulot made the twelve presidential candidates sign an ecological pact, so that everyone commits to applying “five concrete proposals” And “ten goals” for the planet.
As soon as he was installed at the Elysée, Nicolas Sarkozy took up one of the ideas of this Pact: creating a super-ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Planning. Jean-Louis Borloo recovers this unique portfolio, whose ambition is embodied in the deployment of a “war machine” : the Grenelle Environment Forum. Thanks to an extended scope, Jean-Louis Borloo’s balance of power with the Ministry of the Economy will turn to his advantage.
For the first time, from July to October 2007, a French minister brought unions, NGOs, local authorities and the State around the table to publicly discuss biodiversity, food, energy and transport, in with a view to enshrining the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in law. “The nation wanted it, there was a very, very strong awarenessremembers the person concerned. We had the means, we had incomparable power in the West, and we had, basically, relatively little resistance.”
One night, Jean-Louis Borloo is expected in Brussels, where an ambitious “energy-climate package” is being negotiated in parallel. In the National Assembly, the opposition defends its amendments on the Grenelle. “I tell them: ‘Look, it would be so simple that I arrived in Brussels saying that we had passed the Grenelle law.’ They withdrew all their amendments, which were basically secondary.” The law was passed almost unanimously, including the left, with 526 votes in favor and only four against. “The atmosphere is euphoric, in the territories, between NGOs and farmers, unions…” This momentum gives rise to hopes of great progress at COP15 in Copenhagen (Denmark) in 2009. Instead, the negotiations stumble over the distribution of efforts, and the meeting will be presented as a failure. Jean-Louis Borloo, at the negotiating table, puts things into perspective: “France has done everything necessary to ensure that there is a commitment from rich countries to poor countries.”
The Grenelle dynamic is also running out of steam in France. “A policy like this needs evaluation and permanent monitoring”, analyzes the then minister. In full expansion, part of the renewable energy sector will thus suffer “a stop” in the following years. Jean-Louis Borloo cites the example of solar energy, first financially encouraged by the State, then slowed down by a moratorium in 2010, after the arrival of Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet at the Ministry of Ecology. Victims of their success, subsidies are abandoned in the face of the risk of damaging the State’s accounts. If he “understand” this budgetary decision, Jean-Louis Borloo considers that “It completely demoralized the photovoltaic sector.”
The election of François Hollande to the Elysée in 2012 does not mark a break. Quickly, the ecologist Delphine Batho torpedoed the “bad” portfolio budget; she was dismissed in July 2013 and replaced by Philippe Martin. To maintain the support of scalded environmentalists, the former Gers MP announced a “climate-energy contribution”, the famous “ecotax”. The idea of making polluters pay, already defended by Dominique Voynet, is resurfacing.
This time, the initiative directly clashes with the anger of certain French people, worried about their wallets. The following fall, the violent protest of the “red caps” in Brittany caused the government to back down. “There was a lack of explanation, of pedagogy, of compensation perhaps, also, for the most modest”recognizes Philippe Martin today. “You know, people are also short-term. There is the idea of not having a commitment beyond one’s own life, in a way. And that’s a real danger.” From his short-lived stint in government, he remembers that the ideal Minister of Ecology, “it is a man or a woman who is elected to the presidency of the Republic”. François Hollande is perhaps not that president, but he is being convinced to organize a crucial COP in Paris.