Nicolas Hulot draws an uncompromising assessment of the first year of his "climate plan"

A step, certainly, but not yet an overall badessment of Nicolas Hulot's climate plan. The exercise that the Ministry of Ecological and Solidarity transition took place on Friday, July 6, on the occasion of the first anniversary of the roadmap unveiled in the summer of 2017, was not easy. Because this interdepartmental plan orchestrated by the number three of the government is part of the duration of the quinquennium and draws a long-term perspective: it aims to put France on the road to carbon neutrality by 2050.

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The deadlines are well outside the framework of Emmanuel Macron's presidential mandate. The end of fossil fuel production in France (translated into the hydrocarbons law adopted on December 31, 2017) and the sale of vehicles emitting greenhouse gases – two key aspects of the climate plan – are scheduled for the horizon 2040. As for the objective of increasing the share of renewable energies in the energy mix to 32%, another important issue, it is set at 2030.

"For the time being, change is not about 'Scale', recognized Nicolas Hulot, invited to open the sequence, continued the afternoon with four workshops on innovation, the circular economy, renewable energies and the agricultural system.

self-satisfaction, the former environmental activist preferred an inventory "frank, honest and transparent, a dialogue without complacency" . "Despite the mobilization of all actors, the decoupling between economic activities and greenhouse gas emissions is still not there he insisted, before joining the Council of Ministers . Greenhouse gas emissions are the thermometer of our planet's health and our ability to transform the Paris Agreement into a reality.

Low-cost oil

The global news is not good since these emissions of human origin are distributed again in 2017. To judge by the figures communicated on July 6 by the Interprofessional Technical Center of studies of atmospheric pollution (Citepa), the situation is just as worrying for the French patient.

While emissions of the main greenhouse gases show an overall downward trend of around 17%, period 1990-2017, the total of the past year (estimated at 466 million tons CO equivalent ₂ ) on the other hand increased in France by nearly 2% compared to 2016.

Pushing their observation in detail, Citepa's experts engaged in a sectoral badysis. Agricultural and forestry emissions, badumed to decrease by 5% between 2013 and 2017, are almost constant, mainly because of the increase in the use of inputs (nitrogen fertilizer up 0.8% in 2016) and the rise of cattle herd

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Emissions from transport also increased (+ 1.5% in four years), given the densification of road traffic boosted by cheap oil. Independently of these conjunctural factors, this sector is marked by a "very strong inertia", estimate the experts of Citepa. They cite as examples the fleet of diesel individual cars, which decreases by 70 000 vehicles per year, but without any significant effect within a fleet of nearly 21 million pbadenger cars in France.

The climate plan will have to also reverse the trend in energy production, where emissions climbed steadily from 2014 to 2017, due to weather conditions and unexpected shutdowns in the nuclear fleet, offset by greater reliance on coal-fired power plants. Coal, which contributes only 2% of the French electricity mix, still accounts for 25% of the sector's total emissions.

"Credibility Guarantees"

"Our economy is detoxifying itself little in few fossil fuels ", still wants to believe Nicolas Hulot, whose climate plan program the closure of the last four coal plants by 2022.

In the light of good news, the minister also mentioned the "real success" of the premium for the conversion of old vehicles for new models and low pollution (bonus of 2,000 euros for non-taxable households, 1,000 euros for others). Some 75,000 owners have already benefited from this device, which targets a target of 500,000 cars during the five-year period.

The generalization of the energy check (revalued from 150 to 200 euros in 2019) should help four million households in situation of energy poverty, retains Mr. Hulot. This is one of the twelve measures of this first year of deployment of the plan at the national level.

NGOs oppose "twelve pledges of credibility", to give more room the fight against global warming in government action. They require, among other things, the creation of a 200 million euro cycling fund, the division by at least two agricultural sector emissions by 2050 or the renunciation of major forest-destroying projects, including the complex mining of the Golden Mountain in Guyana.

An international aspect

After a year of plan of struggle to limit the greenhouse gases, "we are still far from the account estimates Morgane Créach, director of the Climate Action Network Ambition stops where the interest of some actors begins, especially in the energy sector ".

The strategy also includes an international component, embodied in particular by the One Planet Summit, the summit on climate finance organized by France on 12 December 2017, for the second anniversary of the Paris Agreement. Wanted by the Head of State – who saw the opportunity to consolidate his leadership in the game of climate governance – this annual meeting is now piloted from the Hotel de Roquelaure.

But the presidency of the Republic does not seem ready to leave the Ministry of Ecology alone to maneuver. Friday late afternoon, Emmanuel Macron has invited to the Elysee the Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg and representatives of the six largest sovereign funds on the planet.

These six key players in global finance (Norway, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar), which account for more than $ 3 trillion (€ 2.55 trillion), pledged in late 2017 to green their portfolios. On July 6, they took another step by unveiling a charter of good conduct. It encourages companies in which these funds invest to better integrate climate risks and to communicate more about their low carbon strategy.