Backtracking on climate policy is a sign of populist pressure – Technologist

In mid-2023, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and environmental associations were urging Emmanuel Macron to speak out, as France’s general secretariat for environmental planning (SGPE) had mapped out trajectories for reducing greenhouse gas emissions through to 2030. Shouldn’t the president be lead the way, and show the French people what efforts need to be made?

Several sources close to him at the time pointed to what was happening on the other side of the Rhine: In Germany, the government was being pushed around by the far right. The Alternative für Deutschland (AfD, far-right) was fanning the flames of anger against a planned ban on gas and oil-fired boilers, a reform that was watered down and then eventually postponed. Among Macron’s supporters, bad memories of the Yellow Vest movement – which erupted in the fall of 2018, over a badly-explained carbon tax – were still very much present. As the parliamentary session resumed in September, they closely watched as Marine Le Pen (Rassemblement National, far-right) honed her narrative against so-called “punitive” environmentalism.

On September 25, 2023, the French president finally spoke to describe his vision of a “French-style” environmentalism, without constraints. “We have decided to encourage our compatriots, not by imposing bans, but by persuading them to change more quickly,” he declared. This analysis was echoed by Prime Minister Gabriel Attal when he presented the government’s environmental transformation plan on March 28. “Many people believed that the environmental transition necessarily had to involve ‘full constraint.’ That if it didn’t hurt, it was useless, it was futile. Since 2017, we’ve been proving the opposite,” said the PM.

The Green Deal became a burden

To explain this tone, which is very different from that taken by scientists, sources in the entourages of French leaders have always mentioned the political context and the rise of populism. The far right, while not in power at the national level, is already influencing discourse; justifying silence, inaction and, in some cases, backtracking on environmental issues.

During February’s farming crisis – a warm-up round before the European elections – when Europe’s populist parties were supporting tractor road blocks by railing against “Brussels-imposed” regulatory standards, the French government promised to simplify everything, weakened the Ecophyto plan to reduce pesticide use, and excluded environmental organizations from the discussions. Then, in Brussels, the Green Deal – a set of measures aimed at lowering greenhouse gas emissions, which also included environmental and health protection objectives – suddenly became a burden.

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