J’étais, ce lundi, invité de l’institut français de Londres pour un débat consacré aux politiques mises en œuvre par Paris et Londres pour faire face au changement climatique. Je suis intervenu pour présenter les initiatives prises en Ile-de-France et leur impact sur l’économie de la région, dans un débat où participait également ma collègue écologiste de la Chambre des Lords, Jenny Jones, une élue par ailleurs très francophile. Ci-dessous le prononcé de mon intervention en anglais.
« Your Excellency Mrs Sylvie Bermann, the French Ambassador in the UK, Baroness Jones, my dear colleague in the House of Lords, Dear Matthew Pencharz, Dear Julie Angulo, Cher François Croquette, Dear Friends, Chers amis,
First, I would like to thank you warmly for inviting me tonight. Actually “warmly” might not be the best way to open this debate: so, please don’t get me wrong here!
Before getting to the point, let me explain the nature and also the limits of my intervention on this subject. As you’ve just been told, I’m a member of the French Senate. I was elected in 2011 in the Departement of the Hauts-de-Seine, part of the urban aera of Paris.
Hauts-de-Seine is located on the outskirts of Paris, to the West of the city. It is home to 1.6 million inhabitants (to be compared with the 2.2 millions of the inner Paris).
With Paris, Hauts-de-Seine is the richest department in France, thanks to the wealth created by the first European business district, called La Défense.
If you’ve yet visited Paris, no doubt you’ll be familiar with the skyline stretching from the Champs Elysées…
I’m Vice-chair of the Senate’s Finance Committee and a member of the Ecologist group in this assembly. Among other attributions, I report on the Arctic topics. In this capacity, I have been able to witness the dramatic impact of climate change in Polar areas and its consequences on the rest of the planet.
As an economist, I know how difficult it is trying to articulate the traditional economic thinking – based on short-term profits – and the duty to preserve our natural environment for the coming generations.
London and Paris are the two biggest urban areas in Europe in terms of population, size and in terms of their share of the GNP. They are located on the same latitude and share the same climate – except maybe for the amount of rain… but we, in Paris, pay cash for this advantage through systematic pollution peaks when we enjoy too much sun or not enough wind!
We have just heard the findings of the excellent report presented by Jenny Jones. I’m convinced that the impact of Climate change on Paris’ economy is the same than here in London – even though we lack such recent analysis based on the same methodology.
The French Senate, however, has just come up with an inquiry led by my colleague Leila Aïchi on the cost of air pollution for the French economy. This is of course a slightly different topic, but climate change and air pollution are closely linked. The study only took into account the direct cost of air pollution on health, urban infrastructure, agriculture and loss of workforce due to a certain type of diseases.
It estimates that the global minimum cost for the French economy is more than 100 billion euros a year. If we apply the same data to the large Paris area, the annual cost would be around 30 billion!
We can therefore agree that the impact of climate change and pollution on our respective economies is roughly the same.
Let us then discuss how we currently manage this question and how we can learn from each other’s experiences.
Comparing Paris area and London area, I would say that we are at a disadvantage in terms of our organisation.
Our handicap is that we are fifty years late on London when it comes to coordinating and organising our metropolis. We do not enjoy yet the equivalent of your Greater London.
Our capital region is very fragmented and there is a strong competition between all our levels of territory : municipalities, communities of municipalities, departments and region. The region Ile-de-France is very diverse and, with more than 10 million inhabitants, it covers a territory much more larger than the urban area of Paris. Its powers are limited (mainly regional transportation, part of infrastructures’ investments…) and its global budget is half of the City of Paris (for a rather small population) and less than one third of the Greater London! In France, municipalities and departments are very powerful and inequalities between them – especially in IDF – very strong.
In a nutshell: the wealth, the more dynamic activities and business offices are concentrated in the Inner Paris and in the Western part of the region.
Poverty, working people and housing are in the Northern and in the Eastern parts.
We pay a heavy price for this situation : daily commuting between East and West, North and South is incredibly high and generates traffic saturation, loss of time, air pollution, health problems among children and elderly persons, high greenhouse gas emissions.
This different organisation makes it difficult to compare the Paris and London areas. But it also makes political action on climate issues complex to engage and coordinate.
The good news is that, after a long and difficult debate, we have just passed a new law establishing the Greater Paris Metropolis. One of the main objectives of the new Greater Paris Métropole next year is to build a « Plan Climat, Air, Energie » in order to be more ambitious and more coordinated inside the urban area.
This body will be in place next year and will gather 6.9 million inhabitants.
So you could say that we borrowed a page from the London book, albeit 50 years late !
********************
I do believe, however, that we might have some practical experiments and concrete achievements in terms of climate action that we could share with you.
The region Ile-de-France (since 1998) and the City of Paris (since 2001) have been led by a left coalition including the Green party.
This has led to some interesting initiatives regarding environment and climate action.
Of course, not all our political partners are converted to ecology, but ecologists and environmental associations have a higher influence in Paris than at the national level.
Thanks to meteorological data, we know that minimal temperatures in the Paris area have increased by 4 degrees during the 20th century.
We can’t give precise predictions on a such a small area, but forecasts show that the temperatures will be much higher in 2100, with more frequent long heat vawes and more rain in winter.
The dramatic experience of the heat vawe in France in August 2003 where around 15 000 people died (especially elderly persons in Paris) had a strong impact on the opinion.
Experts predict that part of the city could be affected by an Urban Heat Island : the difference in temperatures with rural areas nearby could reach 10 degrees.
In 2007, the City of Paris decided to launch its « Plan Climat Energie » with a goal to reduce its GGE by 75 % in 2050.
It involves strong actions on mobility and transportation, on housing and urbanism, on vastes management – and I will be interested to hear about the work of Veolia here in London.
The raising awarness on climate warming has led us to set more constrained objectives on the short term from 2004 to 2020 :
- Reducing the GGE by 25 % ;
- Reducing the energy consumption by 25 % ;
- Using 25 % of energy coming from renewables.
Between 2007 and 2012, we had rather good performances on these objectives, for example…
- 21 000 social housing have been renovated ;
- 26 000 square-meters of solar installations have been launched…
Many actions on public transportations have been engaged :
- The Plan Vélo (2011-2020) with 800 km of protected cycle lanes have been created inside Paris (700 km are yet to be built) and the Velib was launched in mid-2007 (24 000 bikes at disposal in more than 1 750 stations in Paris and 30 municipalities around, 267 000 suscribers). I’m glad to see that the Mayor of London has adopted a similar scheme ! In the space of 10 years, bike use has doubled in the Region. Today, it amounts for 5 % of the mobility inside Paris ; Our objective for 2020 is to reach 20 %. We believe we are on target : in the last year, bicycle use has increased by 15 %.
- AutoLib : electric cars in free-service, launched 4 years ago (3 300 cars and 973 stations inside Paris and around). This technology is improving fast, as Renault, an official partner of the COP 21 conference, has proved it with its all-electric Zoe car which is on display outside of the French Institute.
- Significant reduction in the price for the monthly pass for tube and buses. From September 1st, users inside Paris or from the most remote part of the region pay the same fare. This was a Green proposal in 2010 and I’m glad it has been achieved.
- In 15 years, car traffic inside Paris has been reduced by 25 %.
Concerning housing, a plan for a better isolation has been launched. The criteria adopted are higher than those used at a national level.
We believe these reforms have had a positive impact on business. The successful launch of our website platform ParIS GREEN dedicated to local, national and international investors goes to prove there is a strong interest from companies when we link energetic transition, new technologies, innovation and strong political commitment.
A study on the impact of a green policy in the greater Paris area on the workforce has concluded it could create 164 000 more jobs in the region in 2020.
To conclude, let me ask as some of you may wonder: why all these efforts at a local level when we know a global climate action is what we need ?
After all, even if London and Paris may be 2 big cities, but they only represent some 20 million inhabitants on a planet which hosts more than 7 billion persons…
Why should we do more than the average population, more than national pledges drawn by our governments in the run up of COP 21 ?
Is it a drop in the ocean ?
I believe it is not !
First, because COP 21 is not only about a series of national pledges.
The commitments made currently by 57 states are not enough to reach the goal of a limitation to 2 degrees the increase of temperatures by the end of the century – as Laurent Fabius, the French Foreign Minister, has made it clear.
The analysis done by various NGO’s shows that if nothing is done, the increase of temperatures on the current trend will be around 2.9 degrees.
So far, the global impact of all the commitments taken by 57 States would be a reduction of 0.2 or 0.3 degrees ; a long way from the final objective.
That’s why the augmented objectives taken by large cities and other territories are so crucial.
Thanks for your attention ! »