“Our planet is rapidly becoming uninhabitable. We are entering a reality hostile to human hope”, explained on Wednesday August 10 on franceinfo Clément Sénéchal, Climate spokesperson for Greenpeace France. Since the beginning of the summer, France has been faced with numerous fires on its territory.
franceinfo: What do you think of what is happening in France, especially the drought?
Clement Senechal: Our planet is rapidly becoming uninhabitable. We are changing worlds and entering a reality that is fundamentally hostile to human hope. Nothing pleasant but nothing abnormal either.
“It’s been 40 years since international climate negotiations began and never have so many greenhouse gases been emitted into the atmosphere as in the last decade.”
Clément Sénéchal, climate spokesperson for Greenpeace Francein francenfo
We know very well that the result is an intensification of hostile phenomena such as heat waves, droughts, fires.
We did not respect the Paris agreement of 2015?
The French state has been condemned twice for climate inaction. Greenhouse gas emissions have been reduced in a completely anecdotal way since the signing of the Paris agreement, often due to increasingly mild winters which lower the pressure on energy demand rather than by committed climate policies.
“During the extraordinary parliamentary session, what did the government do? It refused to tax superprofits like those of Total. Instead, we continue to subsidize the consumption of fossil fuels, including for the most privileged households, which do not don’t need this discount.”
Clement Senechalat franceinfo
Unlike countries such as the United Kingdom and Spain, which have undertaken to tax the superprofits of oil groups. Other states like Canada have decided to overtax luxury goods like private jets, yachts, sports cars. This is the direction to take. The advantaged classes have an overall environmental footprint that is completely disproportionate to the rest of the population.
Is there a thirst for the most modest justice?
There is a social justice problem. The urgency is to change the economic system, to abandon the completely fanatical paradigm of growth, to reposition human activities within the framework of planetary limits. Six out of nine limits have already been crossed, starting with climate change and the erosion of biodiversity. Sobriety must be organized so that it is fair. We must share the effort starting with those who have the highest carbon footprint, that is to say the richest. In France, the richest 1%, due to their lifestyle, have a carbon footprint 13 times higher than the poorest 50%.
What do you expect from the government?
Not much. The government has done absolutely nothing while we are in the midst of a climate emergency. We see it this summer with catastrophic events that are multiplying. In the purchasing power law, we relaunched coal and gave Total a new LNG terminal which will be built off Le Havre and which will generate new greenhouse gases. So we have a government that is completely against the grain of ecological transition because it is at the service of the wealthiest class and multinationals.