“The State must put in place governance that meets ecological challenges”

2023-09-27 08:30:09

At a time when a set of measures to achieve France’s climate objectives has just been announced, the time is more than ever for the implementation and organization of action.

In April 2022, the Circle of State Reform published a note calling for building governance that meets ecological challenges and formulated fifty proposals. We then supported the idea of ​​ecological planning but called for “governance enabling it to be designed, implemented, monitored and evaluated”.

Real progress has been made, which can contribute to coherence in environmental policies among themselves as with other policies. Ecological planning is now part of the Prime Minister’s mission, which relies on a general secretariat (SGPE) directly linked to the two ministers, one responsible for the energy transition, the other for the ecological transition and cohesion. territories.

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This organization enabled the presentation, in May 2023, of a action plan defining trajectories and levers, sector by sector, actor by actor. The quality of the document was highlighted. Over the past year, awareness-raising among central and decentralized administrations has been undertaken on a large scale, and reference delegates have been designated in the general directorates of the administration. An interministerial dialogue was established under the leadership of the SGPE. The General Commission for Sustainable Development (CGDD) is now present in various bodies, offering a point of support for a broader integration of ecological concerns in the diversity of sectors and institutions. The fight against “Greenwashing” has been initiated, as well as the regulation of advertisements having a negative impact on the environment.

Overall consistency

The program announced on September 25 is a new step. We must now work on four areas of progress to organize the actions to be carried out more effectively.

First, we must prevent a specific mechanic from being created alongside the existing one.. It is indeed our entire institutional and administrative system that must be mobilized for effective, tangible ecological planning, adjusting the tools to the objectives, and to this end supported by a building designed for the long term. The place of the SGPE in relation to other administrations must be clarified, for example the articulation with the CGDD.

It is above all necessary to build instruments of budgetary coherence: environmental budgeting (the “green budget”) is being consolidated but the process of developing, examining and measuring the performance of the State budget should include verification of the compliance with ecological objectives. The idea of ​​medium-term budgetary programming is essential, but, if the choice is made not to integrate it into the public finance programming law, it is nevertheless necessary to provide transition points between ecological planning and budgetary programming. to ensure overall consistency.

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