Can we meet climate challenges without annoying people? This is the question of the Weekend (yes we are there!). Question raised by the air-climate plan submitted by the Walloon Minister in charge of the climate, Philippe Henry. This plan is an update of a catalog of measures to be taken for Wallonia to achieve its climate objectives in 2030. It was partly constructed by citizen panels.
2030 goal
As a reminder, the European objective in 2030 is one third more renewables, one third less energy consumed, halving greenhouse gases.
In the Air-climate plan tabled by Minister Ecolo, we find for example: doubling the production of renewable energy, prohibiting the installation of oil-fired boilers in new buildings in 2024, limiting the number of flights authorized in Walloon airports, require an improvement of the PEB (the energy certificate) when reselling a property, limit the speed on the motorway to 100 km/h.
Reaction of majority partners: it’s annoying.
Stop annoying me…
It’s annoying says Paul Magnette on RTL: “I don’t think it’s by punishing, taxing people, banning this and that that we’re going to convince that we have to embark on the ecological transition.“Yes, it is Paul Magnette who is speaking… Neither punishing, nor taxing, nor prohibiting, but what then? Before we bother people, let’s bother the billionaires, let’s bother the multinationals.
On the side of the other majority partner, the MR, the music was the same at Georges Louis Bouchez: “Ecologists must understand that it is not by boring the middle classes, that it is not by boring the population that we will save the climate”. Unlike Paul Magnette, he does not transfer the charge to the billionaires.
Climate populism
The presidents of the MR and the PS are caught in the act of climate populism. QWhatever one thinks of the very discreet Minister Philippe Henry’s plan, making people believe that we are going to get out of our dependence on fossil fuels without taking annoying or boring measures is simply false or illusory.
Spending money to change a boiler, rather than carrying out a project that is close to our hearts, is boring. Looking out your window and having a wind turbine slashing the horizon is boring. Not being able to continue driving an old car that you care about… It’s boring.
Of course, Paul Magnette designates those who should be bothered: the billionaires and the multinationals. But even getting out of capitalism by 2030 won’t avoid “pesky” measures. In the credible scenarios studied by specialists in decarbonizing the economy, including those who bet on nuclear power and technology, changes in lifestyles are inevitable. We will have to rethink transport and housing. For many people there will be “annoying” adaptations, even if the billionaires cough up all their money and even if the means of production are collectivized.
Illusions
Decarbonizing the economy also means decarbonizing lifestyles shaped by fossil fuels for a century. There are two elements on which there is a broad consensus today: first, the dependence on fossil fuels at an infinitely more annoying cost than the exit (an unlivable planet). Secondly: the political debate must focus on the fairest distribution of the “annoying” efforts to get out of the fossil fuel, on the means to be allocated, on the least annoying and most effective solutions.
There are arguably several “annoying” measures that are ineffective and unfair in Minister Henry’s plan. This freeway speed limit may be counterproductive. The political controversy is therefore very legitimate. But to make believe that we can manage to meet the most important challenge of human civilization without “boring the population”, without “annoying people” or at the limit just a few billionaires is at best an illusion, at worst a lie.