Le Figaro Bordeaux
Like environmental activists Greta Thunberg, Camille Étienne and Thomas Brail, environmentalist Pierre Hurmic was in the streets of Bordeaux on Sunday February 11, on the occasion of a large demonstration against the drilling of eight new contested oil wells on the Arcachon bay.
Ten days later, the mayor of Bordeaux wrote to the Minister of Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu, and to the Minister Delegate in charge of Energy, Roland Lescure, to ask them to intervene and prevent this construction site.
Already operating around fifty oil wells in La Teste-de-Buch, the Canadian company Vermilion Energy wishes to carry out eight new drillings, in order to be able to continue extracting oil until 2040, the date on which the law provides for the cessation definitive of all hydrocarbon extraction projects on French soil.
“The objective stated by the company is to compensate for the loss of yield from existing wells and thus continue to extract as much oil as possible
,” explains Pierre Hurmic in this letter that
Le Figaro
was able to consult, estimating that
“these drilling, like any new project or any extension of hydrocarbon drilling, proves to be incompatible with our objectives of limiting global warming
.
Also read: Fossil fuels: the world is moving further and further away from the objectives of the Paris agreement
The government favors drilling
For the mayor of Bordeaux, authorizing these new oil wells
“would contravene the Paris agreement”
as well as
“the exemplarity that should result from it for our country”
.
An analysis shared by Christophe Cassou, French climatologist and co-author of the sixth report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which recalls that
“today's choices and actions determine warming and the level of tomorrow's risk
.
Pierre Hurmic also states in his letter that the argument according to which
“it is better to produce oil in France than to resort to imported oil with a much higher environmental cost”
is
“inadmissible if we consider that the total French production represents only 1% of the oil consumed in France, which means that this specific project does not contribute in any way to the energy independence of our country
.
This letter from the mayor of Bordeaux to Christophe Béchu and Roland Lescure, however, risks remaining a dead letter.
At the beginning of February, the Minister of Ecological Transition recalled that the law “
sets a framework, that of 2040
”.
On the day of the Bordeaux demonstration against oil drilling, the Minister for Energy, Roland Lescure, said he was frankly in favor of these eight new oil drillings, affirming that it would not be possible to tell the industrialists to stop
“everything overnight”
.
Despite much pressure from scientists, elected officials and part of civil society, these drillings could indeed be authorized.
The prefect of Gironde, Étienne Guyot, should make a decision at the end of the meeting of the departmental council for the environment and health and technological risks (CODERST), scheduled for the first half of 2024.