Editorial of the “World”. The new alert launched on April 4 by UN experts specialists in climate change and the energy crisis provoked by the invasion of Ukraine by Russia should make the climate challenge a central issue of the second round of the French presidential. On this crucial topic, the extreme right program demonstrates abyssal deficiencies. The Marine Le Pen project succeeds in a tour of strength: it risks increaseing France’s greenhouse gas emissions, preventing it from achieving its climate goals, isolate it in Europe, to cost more Dear households, while increasing our dependence on imported fossil energies.
M me Le Pen assured, Wednesday, April 13, do not want to leave the Paris Agreement on the climate. The details it has provided and its program indicate on the contrary that it does not have the intention of respecting the climate trajectory that is necessary in this context. The idea of a complete moratorium on renewable energies – including the project to “disassemble” existing wind turbines – is not based on any scenario established by climate experts.
Even by relaunching the nuclear as quickly as possible, France is forced to increase its production of electricity very quickly from renewable energies and to limit its consumption. Refusing this option is to condemn the country to build new gas power plants to produce electricity.
Effectiveness and social justice
The cost of such an operation would be triple: an increase in our greenhouse gas emissions, a greater imported gas dependence – while the European Union is precisely to free themselves from Russian sources of energy – and an increase in invoices paid by households. Finally, the desire to unilaterally out of the European electricity market would have major consequences for France: it is actually a draft exit from the EU that does not say its name.
The decline in VAT on the essence promised by the far-right candidate would dig up the state budget of 12 billion euros and to encourage the use of imported fossil energies. As this tax is paid by all households, the easiest as the most precarious, the measure is in no way redistributive, while this aspect must be at the heart of the energy transition. It’s a matter of efficiency and social justice.
Other crucial topic: Marine Le Pen opposes the prohibition of the rental of “thermal coquership” from 2025 – France, however, has nearly 5 million of these unattractive housing and very emitters of co 2 . A gift for landlords who do not wish to engage in work, but a disaster for the millions of households concerned, who will continue to pay important energy bills while being poorly protected from cold winter. Accommodation is, after transportation, the second set of greenhouse gas emissions in France.
The many shortcomings of Emmanuel Macron’s climate policy make France, at the end of his five-year, is not on the good trajectory of the Paris Agreement. But the project of M me Le Pen has otherwise more consistent risks: by its inconsistencies, its gray areas and its support affirmed to imported fossil energies, the extreme right program would result in a dramatic decline. , at the moment when the UN experts call for immediate action to “guarantee a strong future”.