Reshuffle: the ecological transition weakened | EUROtoday

If Emmanuel Macron hoped to give clarity to his second five-year term by changing government, he also created great vagueness on one of his campaign promises: ecological planning, supposed to put France on the path to phasing out energy. fossil fuels and carbon neutrality.

Thursday January 11, through the announcement of the brand new government, the “climate division” was shaken up with the disappearance of the Ministry of Energy Transition, a strategic place for outlining trajectories for lowering greenhouse fuel emissions, and the relegation of the Minister of Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu, to the penultimate protocol rank. At the identical time, the entourage of the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, specified that Bercy was taking up the vitality portfolio.

During the 2022 marketing campaign, Mr. Macron dedicated to main the struggle towards local weather change – “the fight of the century”, in his phrases –, to create an structure devoted to ecological planning. After his election, the promise was stored: a basic secretariat for ecological planning (SGPE) was arrange in Matignon and Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne was entrusted with the accountability of orchestrating the work of two “strong” ministries. “, that of ecological planning and that of the energy transition.

No specific word on ecology

Since his appointment, the new head of government, Gabriel Attal, has had no specific words on ecology, contenting himself with evoking the imperative of ” Protect the planet “. Matignon, however, retains responsibility for planning and the SGPE is maintained. But with the disappearance of the Ministry of Energy Transition, only a year and a half after its establishment, it is one of the key elements that is removed. “I am dismayed to see that there is no longer a full-fledged Ministry of Energy even though the stakes are considerable,” deplores Jules Nyssen, the president of the Renewable Energies Union.

This attachment to Bercy comes at a time when many projects are underway: accelerated deployment of renewables, relaunch of nuclear power, extension of the current fleet, regulation of electricity prices… After months of consultations, Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher also had presented in recent weeks the first building blocks of the new French energy-climate strategy, crucial texts which must be adopted in 2024.

With this new configuration, questions of vitality and local weather are sidelined from the problems of biodiversity, water or adaptation to local weather change. A profound evolution, whereas the vitality transition has been built-in into the ecology middle since 2007. “Separating the ecological transition from the vitality transition can solely create tensions between totally different visionsestimates Anne Bringault, program director of the Climate Action Network. They are breaking a corporation the place the ecological transition was the widespread thread between vitality, transport and housing. »

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