A citizens’ panel criticizes the French government’s response to reducing emissions

The French Citizen’s Climate Convention gave the government a deplorable score for its “unambitious” response to recommendations to limit the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, giving President Emmanuel Macron’s administration an overall rating of 3.7 out of 10 in a final vote on Sunday.

Meeting for the last time this weekend by videoconference, the CCC, composed of 150 members, was asked to assess whether the government’s response to its proposals would achieve the goal of reducing emissions by 40% by 2030.

The panel’s response was a clear indictment, with an average score of 2.5 out of 10.

“It’s disappointing,” CCC member Benoit Baubry told Franceinfo radio. “This bill on climate reduction is not ambitious enough and does not meet our recommendations.

“We call on MEPs to help us put in place new amendments to reduce carbon emissions as much as possible.”

The CCC also gave below average scores on the other major themes on which it has been working since 2019. The theme “housing” obtained an average of 3.4 out of 10, “production and work”, “food” and “ transport ”3.7 each,“ Consumption of natural resources ”4 and the proposals on governance 4.1.

Of the 150 citizens initially chosen at random, 119 registered for the final vote.

They also discussed lessons learned from their experience, which has been described as an unprecedented exercise in participatory democracy.

Implementation

The government claims that 75 of CCC’s proposals have been implemented and 71 are in the process of being implemented.

Some of them have found their place in the recovery plan or the budget, others in the decrees and a quarantine in the bill on climate and resilience, which will be debated in parliament at the end of March.

France has pledged to reduce its emissions by 40% by 2030, and the bill – aimed at rolling out 146 citizens’ proposals – is how the government hopes to keep its promises.

Last week, the French High Climate Council, another review body set up by Macron, added to criticism of the government’s climate bill, which it said was weak and insufficient.

The council warned that France would fail to meet its Paris Agreement goals in the current form of the bill.