Several reflection groups believe that the tariff shield set up to help French people face the increase in energy prices is an obstacle to ecological transition.
By Rémi Barroux
Identifying favorable or unfavorable expenses or assessing where the sums promised by the candidate Macron are to combat climate change in the 2023 finance bill is not easy. Two studies published this week make it the observation. One, written by the Institute of Economy for the Climate ( i4ce ) and presented Thursday, December 8 at a conference held with the Institute of Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI), the Jacques Delors Institute and L ‘French Observatory of Economic Conditions (OFCE), is interested in the additional 10 billion euros per year devoted to the ecological transition promised by the “candidate president” for the duration of the five -year term. The other document, published two days earlier by Climate action network (RAC) , is a “panorama of harmful expenses for climate and the environment”, evaluated at 67 billion of euros in 2023.
First element of observation, out of the ten billion euros additional annual public investment announced by the President, to be added to the credits of France Relance and France 2030, only 3.5 billion more compared to 2022 appear in the 2023 budget. In the I4CE study, the authors, Charlotte Vailles, project manager “Industry, Energy and Climate”, and Damien Demailly, deputy director of the Institute, warn only if the parliamentary debate on the PLF is not yet finished, they have taken into account the modifications made up to 1 er December. “And it must be noted that the 2023 budget greatly moves away from what was planned by the president during his campaign. There is fewer, much less investments and public co-financing than expected,” they write.
The increase of 3.5 billion euros in public investments is essentially made up of expenses in favor of the renovation of buildings and aid for the purchase of clean vehicles. But, alert Damien Demailly, “part of these new budgetary credits in fact take over from the credits of France relaunches [the recovery plan] which are starting to get upset”. Thus the credits for the renovation proposed by France Relance fell from 520 million, compared to last year.
“counter-intuitive”
For all the think tanks present at the Thursday conference, at the heart of the problem is the price shield. With his 45 billion euros devoted to support for household and fossil fuel -foster -foyer spending, in priority, he responds to an economic and social emergency. “The price shield pursues several objectives, advances Xavier Timbeau, director of OFCE. The main objective is not the ecological transition but the response to an exceptional situation and the management of inflation.” In a Report of July 2021, “ Analysis of the recovery conditions of a fair value of the carbon “, the Ademe, the Transition Agency Ecological, analysis that the shield “promotes emissions of co 2 and maintains energy dependence”.
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