While France has just experienced an episode of air pollution, the Vrai du Faux unit took a closer look at the declarations of presidential candidates on this theme, including greenhouse gases.
“France represents only 1% of greenhouse gases in the world”
We start with Éric Zemmour. According to the candidate Reconquête!, France’s responsibility in global emissions should be put into perspective: “I am simply saying that France represents 1% of these CO2 emissions. And therefore, we do not have to sacrifice the French, and French industry, on the altar of the fight against global warming.”
What the candidate is saying is wrong. He found this figure in the annual report on energy published by the oil giant BP, except that this report is only interested in emissions produced on French soil and does not take into account imported products. Your phone, for example, surely comes from China. Its construction and transport therefore generated greenhouse gases, but they are not measured in Eric Zemmour’s calculation.
However, according to the High Council for the Climate, these imported emissions have been rising continuously for many years and, above all, they are now greater than the emissions produced on national territory.
“The Polish and German coal-fired power stations that pollute France every winter”
For Nicolas Dupont-Aignan too, the responsibility is not only French concerning pollution. “The real problem of pollution is the Polish and German coal-fired power stations which pollute France every winter”he says.
It’s wrong. If the pollution does not stop at the borders, as we have seen recently with the sand of the Sahara for example, it is still a specific episode and linked to the weather.
Specifically concerning coal-fired power plants, the air quality monitoring networks in Île-de-France and in the Grand Est have not noted an increase in particles characteristic of coal for several years. Moreover, a large part of the pollution above our heads is mainly emitted locally, mainly because of heating, road traffic, agriculture or even industry.
“Pollution kills 40,000 people a year”
We end with the quantified consequences of this pollution by Philippe Poutou: “Pollution kills. Today there are 40,000 people dying from pollution”according to the candidate of the New Anti-Capitalist Party.
It is rather true. This figure of 40,000 deaths per year in our country is an estimate from Public Health France, updated last year. Except that this official figure may be underestimated: this is what a recent study conducted by Harvard with a different methodology says. According to her, the number of deaths in France could actually be around 100,000 per year due to pollution.