Dhe devastating forest fires on the Atlantic coast and in Brittany have reinvigorated the climate protection debate in France. The leader of the green party Europe Ecologie Les Verts (EELV), Julien Bayou, accused the government of inaction in the fight against global warming. In the future, France is increasingly threatened by extreme weather conditions that could lead to major fires. During a visit to the Arcachon Basin fire area, President Emmanuel Macron announced that new trees would be planted, but no new climate protection measures were planned. “Of course it has to be reforested. But we must finally change our way of life,” demanded the Green Bayou.
Macron campaigned for climate protection. At his rally in Marseille in April, he pledged that France would be “the first major nation to phase out of oil, gas and coal”. But because of the expected supply bottlenecks, one of the four French coal-fired power plants will remain in operation. You also take your time with the gas phase-out. France is planning a new floating gas terminal in the port city of Le Havre to meet demand with LPG. The government is subsidizing fuel and natural gas for millions of consumers in the name of boosting purchasing power. This is justified with reference to the “yellow vest” protests, which were sparked by fuel taxes.
In 2017, Macron introduced himself as “climate president”. He responded to Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement with a snappy “Make our planet great again!”. At the beginning of his second term in office, there was a wide gap between expectations and reality. Macron’s High Council on Climate, a body of experts, has given the President bad marks. The measures adopted were not sufficient to reduce the CO2-Achieve the Paris Agreement target of minus 40 percent by 2030.
Former environment minister wins case
The highest administrative court, the Conseil d’Etat, has twice condemned the French state, in November 2020 and October 2021, for failing to combat global warming. In January 2019, Damien Carême, then green mayor of the municipality of Grande-Synthe near Dunkirk, filed a complaint about “climate inaction”. Located on a polder, Grande-Synthe fears flooding if sea levels continue to rise.
The second lawsuit goes back to Greenpeace, Oxfam, Notre Affaire à Tous and the Nicolas Hulot pour la Nature et l’Homme Foundation. Hulot was Macron’s first environment minister, but resigned in 2018 in protest at the power of industry lobbies. The supreme administrative court agreed with the plaintiff environmental organizations in the procedure known as the “Affair of the Century”. Article L.100-4 of the Energy Code, which stipulates a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, has been declared legally binding by the Conseil d’Etat. The climate protection law that came into force in August 2021 is considered insufficient.
This is also due to the work of the Senate, which is dominated by the right-wing conservative majority. The goal of anchoring climate protection in the constitution failed because of their resistance. The senators gave the mayors the right to veto wind farms, which means that the already sluggish approval processes are taking even longer. The ban on domestic flights when there is a train alternative under two and a half hours did not come into effect on April 1 as planned. It would have affected five Air France connections Paris – Bordeaux, Paris – Lyon, Paris – Nantes, Paris – Rennes and Lyon – Marseille. But the EU Commission is still examining whether the ban is “discriminatory” and distorts competition.
After initial enthusiasm, Macron has clearly rejected the German approach to climate protection. With the 2030 Agenda, he gave up his plan from the first term of office to reduce the share of nuclear energy to 50 percent and to close twelve reactors between 2025 and 2035. France wants to build six new nuclear power reactors and have eight more built. The service life of the existing 56 reactors will be extended. The new credo is that nuclear power is urgently needed as a bridging technology for decarbonization.
When it comes to expanding renewable energies, France is setting less ambitious goals than Germany. A 40 percent share of renewable energies is to be achieved by 2030, in Germany it is 65 percent. Of the 50 offshore wind farms planned, only one (in the bay off Saint-Nazaire) is under construction, three are in preparation for construction and three are in the planning stage.
The expansion of photovoltaics in the sunny south is proceeding at a similarly slow pace. In France there are fewer solar systems in operation than in Germany. Photovoltaic electricity accounts for 2.8 percent in France and 10.5 percent in Germany. “We honestly have to admit that we’re late,” said Macron when presenting the new energy transition program in February. For months, the bourgeois right and the right-wing populists of the Rassemblement National have been up in arms against the “wind farms made in Germany”, which threatened to spoil the landscape of France. During the election campaign, Marine Le Pen promised not to approve any more new wind farms. She wanted to expropriate existing wind farms and have them dismantled.
