2023-09-25 03:54:46
The government will put energy and public finances into a greener future. On the eve of the National Council for Ecological Planning at the Élysée, Emmanuel Macron outlined, during a major television interview on Sunday September 24 on TF1 and France 2, the outlines of the State’s method to promote the ecological transition . With one objective in mind: to go “twice as fast” to meet commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. But also with a substantial budget: 40 billion euros to invest “in all sectors”.
On ecology, “we are halfway there. Because we have reduced our CO2 emissions twice as quickly over the last five years, insisted the Head of State. But we will have to speed up the process. » The executive first announced the definitive exit, by 2027, from the use of coal to produce electricity. “This is the only right path and we will be the first European country to abandon this fossil energy,” insisted the President of the Republic.
End of coal: “He makes this seem like progress when it is an admission of failure”
But the deadline did not convince everyone. “This is a disappointing announcement because this abandonment had been promised for 2022 and it makes this seem like progress when it is an admission of failure,” says Nicolas Nace, ecological transition campaigner at Greenpeace France.
To materialize this renunciation of coal, the president announced the conversion of the last French coal-fired power stations — Cordemais (Loire-Atlantique) and Saint-Avold (Moselle) — to a combustion method using biomass. “We will use recycling from our farmers and forests instead of coal,” he said.
“We must pay attention to the origin of the wood that will supply them, in particular by avoiding taking from forests already suffering in France and by avoiding deforestation in other countries to obtain their supplies,” the representative of the environmental NGO. “There are logistics to put in place to continuously supply the power plants because, until now, existing projects imported wood,” confirms Olivier Appert, advisor to the Energy-Climate center of the French Institute of International Relations ( Ifri). While praising this reorientation: “Power plants of this type have the advantage of being controllable and being mobilized as soon as the electricity networks require it, unlike renewable energies which depend on external elements,” underlines the expert.
The Élysée also wants to encourage the French to give up their thermal “car” for an electric vehicle. This will involve a new bonus/penalty system. But, above all, by finalizing a “leasing” project (rental with option to purchase) with a rent of 100 euros per month which would favor electric cars manufactured in Europe.
Gas boilers still permitted
The president also said he had given up on banning heaters considered more polluting. “We will not prohibit” the installation of new gas boilers, “because we cannot leave our compatriots, particularly in the most rural areas, without a solution,” explained Emmanuel Macron.
But the Head of State also wants to “support households to equip themselves with heat pumps, because heat pumps are intelligent, they save energy and they significantly reduce emissions”. He therefore unveiled an ambitious plan which would triple the production of these heating systems in France.
“It’s interesting because we are going to move away from a logic of subsidizing offers on the market, half of which are foreign, towards an industrial policy and job creation,” welcomes Olivier Appert. “The electric car and heat pumps are two important tools for the ecological transition but it has been limited to a form of techno-solutionism, without mentioning thermal sieves, alternative transport or energy renovation,” deplores Greenpeace France.
To set an example, Emmanuel Macron, however, stressed that the Élysée Palace had reduced its ecological footprint by 80% by using geothermal energy.
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