Emmanuel Macron will announce this Wednesday a series of measures for the protection of the environment, during an Ecological Defense Council. They will be mainly devoted to the prevention of floods and coastal erosion, but also the extension of protected areas to 30% of the territory, and finally to the implementation of a large ecological transition plan for the public services of the State.
The explanations of Elisabeth Borne, Minister of the Ecological and Inclusive Transition, in an interview exclusive to the Parisian - Today in France.
A new Ecological Defense Council is held this Wednesday at the Elysée. What is the emblematic measure?
ELISABETH BORNE. So far, we have made an impression with abandonment measures, such as the Montagne d'Or mining project or EuropaCity, and the creation of the tax on airline tickets. Previously, we had stopped the Notre-Dame-des-Landes project. This time, we touch everyday life, measures which commit all French people to accelerate the ecological transition. If we want to transform our society, we have to get everyone on board.
How? 'Or' What ?
We want to adapt our country more quickly to climate change, particularly in the face of the risk of floods, submersions and the decline in what is called the “coastline”. We must also speed up the protection of our biodiversity. This is why we decided that 30% of our territory would now be declared as protected areas. We are one of the only countries to do that, it's a third of our territory! Finally, we make 20 ecological measures mandatory for the State. 2.4 million agents are affected.
Ten years ago, storm Xynthia killed 47 people. What to do in the face of these increasing climatic disasters?
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Today, we have theoretically very effective tools, Action Programs for flood prevention. But the procedures are extremely cumbersome. It all goes back to Paris and it takes an average of eight years to complete a file. It is unbearable for elected officials who cannot undertake work! We will cut the instruction times in half.
Four years is still a lot, right?
Faced with floods, it is not a question of protecting a territory in disaster to threaten another! I was prefect of the region where Xynthia performed and, if we do not coordinate the work between the Vendée and Charente-Maritime, we are facing problems. We will also decentralize the decisions: everything relating to programs of less than 20 million euros will be processed without going back to Paris. This represents 70% of decisions, against 20% currently. And when there is a fear for lives, there will be an emergency procedure to allow much closer protection work. 17 million French people are affected by the threat of flooding or submersion.
Does that mean relocating people?
On a part of our territory, like in Vendée or in the Somme, the coastline shrinks from 50 cm to 1.5 m per year. For a long time, we erected barriers, built walls, but it doesn't always work in the face of the power of the ocean. We want to give elected officials tools to identify the areas that are threatened in the medium term, that is to say in less than thirty years. There, we have no choice, we will have to avoid new construction and relocate a certain number of homes and equipment.
Clearly, an elected official will be able to tell a family who lives in an area that has become flooded or submersible that they will have to move?
In the medium term, yes. We are going to tell people that their homes are threatened and that we can offer to relocate them to a protected area. We will support communities that want to initiate this kind of approach. With regard to the areas which we know will be threatened in the longer term, namely in the second half of the century, we will plan to dismantle constructions. This does not exist today and we are going to modify the town planning code to authorize temporary occupations of space.
How many people could be affected by these "relocations"?
We have a wide range of 5,000 to 50,000 dwellings threatened by this erosion of the coastline, by the end of the century.
But what will be the financial support? It's anxiety-provoking!
For areas that present an immediate danger, we have the Barnier fund, which is fed by a tax on insurance contracts.
The president promised on December 31 a “new ecological model”. Is this plan a translation?
We see it these last days with the storm which crosses Europe, the climatic disturbance, it is now! We must stop putting our heads in the sand and say to ourselves that we must adapt, prepare for this new era…
VIDEO. Presidential wishes: a “new ecological model” for 2020
Your political opponents, led by environmentalists, believe that things are not going fast enough!
I would like to remind Europe Ecologie-Les Verts, which gives us a lot of lessons, that they were in government at the start of the previous five years. Have they closed coal-fired power plants, the Fessenheim nuclear power plant? No. Have they ended the exploration of hydrocarbons on our territory? No. Have they stopped EuropaCity? No more. They even accelerated it. Did they accompany the French to get out of the oil boilers or change their car? Always not. Sorry, but I don't have lessons to receive from those who haven't done it before us.
We feel you bitten alive ...
It is the first time that such profound transformations have been undertaken! What we must aim for 2050 is a real revolution, of the same nature as the industrial revolution. There, we give ourselves a trajectory, with very concrete measures. We enter the hard.
Is it green ripolinage before the municipal elections?
What I am telling you is that after years when we set goals that we left to successors, there we act, we give ourselves the means. It has nothing to do with electoral issues. The president decided to have regular points with the ecological defense councils, and I can assure you that we will not have exhausted all the subjects today!
Listening to you, you would almost imagine that Emmanuel Macron will be the green candidate in 2022!
Ecology is not a party affair. Those days are over.
As a citizen, are you worried about the planet?
If we don't make the right decisions today, we run towards real threats. When we read the reports of the IPCC scientists, part of the climate change is already inevitable, notably the warming of the oceans. If nothing is done, events like Xynthia, which happened once a century, will happen almost once a year. No one imagines living with Xynthia every year!
