betting on incitement more than on constraints, the Head of State has promised to reserve an envelope of 10 billion euros for large French companies which would reduce their CO₂ emissions.
by Claire Gatinois
The Minister responsible for industry, Roland Lescure, had warned the guests. The exercise would be “neither a confessional nor a popular court”. In the audience, where we could see Patrick Pouyanné, boss of Totalenergies, among actors in construction, sugar industry or chemistry, no one looked truly worried. Guests, Tuesday, November 8, at the Elysée, the representatives of the fifty most polluting sites in France, alone weighing 10 % of greenhouse gas emissions in the country, were not on enemy. >
Just back from Charm El-Cheikh, Egypt, where COP27 is held, Emmanuel Macron has them, at the start, reassured. There is no question of sacrificing industry on the altar of ecology. The head of state has been holding the line that has continued to be his since 2017, that of a probusiness president. “I would still be paradoxical to come here to explain to you that the solution for the climate would be to do the opposite of what we have done in economic or industrial matters in recent years. I believe in coherence, we must Simply hold it, “said Macron. “There is a French success model. We have a future if we know how to hold three major objectives together: climate, industrialization and sovereignty,” he insisted.
To achieve the carbon neutrality of France by 2050, as he has engaged, the tenant of the Elysée counts on the cooperation of the great actors of the economy. Without law or constraint but thanks to a substantial financial incentive. Emmanuel Macron offers a simple contract: public money against environmental commitments. An envelope of 5 billion euros is already planned as part of the France 2030 plan to reward the decarbonization efforts of industrial sites.
“A form of planning”
granted by the end of the year, these 5 billion must lower the emissions of co 2 by 10 million tonnes in just under ten years (out of a total of ‘just over 45 million tonnes). The solutions are already sketched. The Elysée, which believes in particular in hydrogen, in the capture of co 2 and in biomass, had invited start-ups representing these technologies. One way to prove that climate change does not condemn industry but can, on the contrary, stimulate research and innovation to relaunch it. “We are here faced with 20 % of the problem since industry is 20 % of greenhouse gases but you also represent all about 100 % of solutions,” summed up Roland Lescure.
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