In the aftermath of the National Council for Ecological Transition, one question remains: how to finance climate action? While a report submitted to the government recommends recourse to public debt and taxes, the Minister of Economy and Finance, Bruno Le Maire, brushed aside this possibility.
This report, commissioned by Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne from economist Jean Pisani-Ferry, estimates an additional 66 billion euros per year, including up to 34 billion in public funds, the investments necessary to achieve the objective in 2030. a 55% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared to 1990.
To finance them, the document proposes to resort to public debt and to introduce an exceptional tax on the financial heritage of the wealthiest French people. Asked about the creation of a new tax, the Minister of Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu, for his part estimated on Monday that it was “not a taboo subject”.
“The two options, which are not good options in my opinion, are the increase in taxes or the increase in our debt, which is already too high”, on the other hand swept Bruno Le Maire at the microphone of RTL . “We won’t raise taxes, we don’t think a new tax, a new tax, is the solution,” he stressed. On the contrary, the government’s policy is to “lower taxes […] in a country that has the highest tax burden of all developed countries”, he insisted.
“All of this should allow us to have the means to finance the ecological transition without worsening the state of our public finances”, assured Bruno Le Maire. The report was published as Elisabeth Borne presented her plan on Monday to accelerate the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in France by 2030.
