Two days after the start of COP27, the Head of State hopes to convince these professionals to invest “massively” to green their facilities.
«Decarbonize and reindustrialize, not decarbonize by deindustrializing“: thus we could summarize the watchword of the meeting which takes place this Tuesday, November 8 at the Élysée. During this meeting, which brings Emmanuel Macron and the leaders of the fifty industrial sites emitting the most greenhouse gases in France face to face, the executive hopes to convince professionals to fully commit to the ecological transition. by investing massively in these facilities. Objective: to make them more competitive and greener.
Are therefore invited, this Tuesday, actors such as the cement manufacturer Vicat, its competitor Holcim, ArcelorMittal, the aluminum manufacturer Trimet, Butachimie, the energy company TotalEnergies, the sugar producer Tereos, Air Liquide, Arc France, or the Air Liquide group . A majority of the sites concerned are located in the Grand Est region, or in Hauts-de-France.
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The stakes are high: if the industry weighs 12% of French jobs, it also represents 20% of greenhouse gas emissions in France, according to the authorities. However, the fifty sites represented at this meeting alone account for 30,000 jobs and “50% of industry emissions», that is, approximately, 10% of the total emissions of France. “This is the equivalent of the CO2 emissions of four million French people“, we observe at the Elysée. Reducing emissions from these sites will not be easy, but the limited number of places to be treated makes the task more accessible, we argue on the executive side. Emissions are also concentrated in certain well-identified sectors, such as metallurgy, the manufacture of minerals, cement or chemicals.
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The meeting is therefore an opportunity for aboost“, on the occasion of COP27, which began in Egypt last weekend, in order to engage French industry, and these most polluting sites as a priority, on the road to decarbonization. The government hopes to convince these groups to invest “massivelyto green their business, to make them more competitive in the future and less dangerous for the environment. “The whole point is that these investments are made“, we plead, otherwise these sites”will be condemned, in the long termovertaken by greener and more innovative foreign competitors.
“Considerable” sums at stake
Among the topics discussed should be the financial support of public authorities for private actors, the sums involved in greening production being at the very least “considerable“. An understatement, while the industry must already face, in the immediate future, the explosion of energy costs, which burden the accounts of professionals. The efforts to be made will bedifficult“, but essential to allow the tricolor sites to prepare for the decades to come, we argue at the presidential palace. Participants should also address the issue of technologies to be deployed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, such as “about carbon capture and reuse».
During the event, the Head of State should speak, and the industrialists should, for their part, make specific commitments, it is hoped at the Élysée. One thing is certain: for Emmanuel Macron, there is no question of letting decarbonization rhyme with deindustrialization or relocation. The area “will make his transition» et «will stay in France“, hammers the entourage of the head of state.
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