With this roadmap for getting through the winter, is the government up to it?

“Prime” for “households that control their energy consumption“, “bonus for any new carpooler“, “drop of 1°C” of “swimming pool water temperature“public,”maximum heating temperature in officesx” at 19°C… The energy sobriety plan presented Thursday, October 6 by the government is massive, but will not revolutionize our daily habits.

>> Energy crisis: find the latest information on the government’s sobriety plan in our direct

Instead of revolution, the government has rather led a change of direction, with a first step towards sobriety. The latter wants to be chosen: there will be no reduction or modification of economic activity. We are not in a change of system or organization. For the private sector, the plan is essentially based on charters or commitments on an internet platform. Entire sectors of activity are not affected, such as agriculture, for example. The government does not encourage car manufacturers or consumers to move towards lighter vehicles to save more energy from raw materials.

It must be said that these new government measures are made by constraint, in reaction to the war in Ukraine, but also to the deep deficit of nuclear energy production and the delay in the development of renewable energies. France combines handicaps in terms of energy supply, so it is launching this plan to avoid cuts or shortages this winter. With the idea of ​​then using it as a first stone to significantly reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases. This would be the second stage with another ambition, that of modifying our behavior in depth so that this culture of sobriety allows us to reduce our emissions by at least 40% by 2030.

In the meantime, it is difficult to say whether the proposed measures will allow us to get through this winter without any damage. We know that the government is expecting a 10% drop in the consumption of energy over two years. But there are no goals accurate for this winter and certain measures will be difficult to quantify. Others promise to be technically complicated to implement, such as the separation of the uses of hot water in the administration. Finally, others could be counterproductive if they are not done in a very targeted way, such as teleworking.

The government also intends to assess each week the consumption of electricity and gas to see if it is falling compared to previous years. Most of the proposed measures are considered effective in the short term by the Negawatt association. Several of them had been proposed by the Citizen’s Climate Convention two years ago, but they had been rejected by the president and the government, considered too radical at the time.