The objectives for reducing greenhouse gas emissions “are very distant” and “tend to delay the transition”, believes François Gemenne

Every Saturday we decipher climate issues with François Gemenne, professor at HEC, president of the Scientific Council of the Foundation for Nature and Man and member of the IPCC.

François Gemenne is tackling our objectives of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. More precisely, the way in which these objectives frame the debate on the ecological transition. These objectives are medium and long term objectives: -55% emissions by 2030, carbon neutrality in 2050, +2°C maximum by 2100, and even if possible +1.5°. François Gemenne believes “that the way in which these objectives are formulated tends to delay the transition”.

franceinfo: These objectives allow us to set a course, right?

François Gemenne: Obviously. But the problem is that these goals are very far away. And in my opinion this poses three problems. First of all, this poses a problem of credibility: it is not those who set these objectives who will have to be held accountable. When heads of state signed the Paris Agreement in 2015 and committed to targets for maximum temperature rise in 2100, they knew very well that they would all be dead in 2100, and that there was no not an opposition MP who will come to tickle them in 2099.

“Even when we set goals for 2030, we know very well that someone else will be in power in 2030.”

François Gemenne

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And it’s the same in companies, when they commit to being carbon neutral in 2050, who knows if these companies will still exist in 2050? In any case, it won’t be the same CEO, that’s for sure.

It’s like passing the hot potato on to the next guy, right?

I would even say to the next person’s successor, but that’s exactly it, it’s a dilution of responsibility. And that’s just the first problem. Another problem is procrastination. When I give my students an assignment, their first reaction is always to try to negotiate with me a due date as far in the future as possible. And when I’m reluctant, they always come up with what they think is a strong argument: “But sir, that way we’ll have more time to work!” We all did this when we were students. But we all also knew that we were going to do this assignment at the last minute anyway, the weekend before the due date.

It’s the same with our objectives for 2030, 2050 or 2100, we imagine that we will always have time later, and that there are other, more urgent things to resolve first. Emergencies which can be very legitimate, obviously: social or geopolitical tensions, inflation, etc. But our problem is that unlike the students, we will not be able to make up for lost time, because climate change is a problem of accumulation. Every year, we send about 55 billion tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and the vast majority of these gases have a very long lifespan in the atmosphere, and so they will accumulate, and their concentration level will increase continuously. Each year that passes, each emergency that takes precedence over the climate emergency, there are billions of tonnes of additional greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which we will have great difficulty recovering.

“When we set long-term objectives, not only will we have a tendency to procrastinate, but we will also have a tendency to drift from a linear trajectory of reducing emissions.”

François Gemenne

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What do you mean ?

We will say, for example, that if we want to reduce emissions by 55% by 2030, we must do -7% per year. But this is misleading, because it draws a linear trajectory, while not all emissions are as easy to reduce as each other. So we should ideally reduce emissions massively in the first years, even if the reductions are less significant subsequently, because these are emissions which will not accumulate in the atmosphere. A linear trajectory, paradoxically, will tend to restrict us in our ambition.

Is the trajectory that important?

It’s essential. And this is the last problem associated with long-term goals, it creates discouragement. Sometimes we have the impression that these objectives are out of reach, are insurmountable Everests, and this leads certain governments, like recently the Scottish government, to abandon these objectives, because we think that we will not achieve them. not.

“The problem is that we have set a horizon, but we have not set a path, so the more we move forward, the further the horizon seems to move away.”

François Gemenne

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Whereas if we set a path, a trajectory, with much closer objectives, that would allow us to correct our course if we deviate from the objective, and above all it would allow us to guide our action. And these benchmarks would be small victories that we could cling to, not only to convince ourselves that we can get there, but also that we can raise our ambition. And that, at a time when we are increasingly doubting the possibility of making a successful transition, I think we really need it.