The non-governmental organizations (NGOs) at the initiative of the “case of the century”, which have already condemned the French State in 2021 for its shortcomings in the fight against global warming, asked, on Wednesday June 14, for a financial penalty of 1.1 billion euros, believing that he still has not done enough in this area.
“We have not made progress in the state’s ability to change its policies, so we are asking the administrative court today [Wednesday] for the full and effective execution of the judgment of 2021, that is to say the implementation of structural and systemic measures to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions,” said Cécile Duflot, Director General of Oxfam France, one of the applicant associations.
The sum of 1.1 billion euros corresponds to nine semesters of delay already accumulated, according to the calculations of the NGOs, which are based on the Quinet method, named after a senior official who published a report a few years ago. on “the value of climate action”. Concretely, the NGOs filed a new brief before the court on Wednesday morning, as well as an appeal for excess of power to have access to certain administrative documents.
The dispute had been brought before the Paris administrative court in 2019 by four NGOs (Notre affair à tous, Greenpeace, Oxfam and the Foundation for Nature and Man, which has since withdrawn), united under the banner “L ‘deal of the century’ and backed by a petition of over 2.3 million citizens. They denounced France’s failure to meet its emission reduction commitments set out in the first National Low Carbon Strategy (2015-2018 period).
In February 2021, the court ruled in their favor, declaring the State responsible for breaches of its commitments and the resulting “ecological damage”. Then, in October of the same year, justice ordered that “December 31, 2022, at the latest” be compensated for the 15 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent (MtCO2e) emitted in excess of France’s objectives in 2015. -2018.
A “sham accounting”, which is “not exactly up to the stakes”
Emissions fell by 2.7% in France last year, according to the latest provisional figures published by the organization Citepa. However, NGOs believe that this decline is mainly attributable to economic factors (Covid-19 pandemic, war in Ukraine or mild temperatures in winter). “The State has not acted in a structural and structuring way, the reductions in emissions are linked to exogenous factors beyond its control”, judged Pierre Terras, of Greenpeace.
A change of direction could, for example, take shape with “the insulation of buildings, another agricultural policy, less polluting means of transport…”, suggests Cécile Duflot. “Our country is keeping its commitments to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions,” reacted the ministers of energy and ecological transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher and Christophe Béchu.
“The government is confident that France’s good performance in terms of greenhouse gas emissions compared to the ceilings of the second carbon budget (2019-2023) will make it possible to repair the ecological damage resulting from the overrun of the first carbon budget ( 2015-2018) under the mandate of François Hollande,” they said.
The government refers to the average emissions for the period 2019-2023, in the nails of the last climate plan, but this plan had been revised downwards, which NGOs did not fail to recall. Jérémie Suissa, general delegate of Notre affaires à tous, mocked a “sham accounting”, which is “not exactly up to the stakes”.