Ecological planning: where is the government's project?

Last September, at the end of the Ecological Planning Council, Emmanuel Macron presented his “French ecology”at a time “accessible and fair”. The opportunity for the Head of State to present the ecological planning plan on which the General Secretariat for Ecological Planning (SGPE), under the leadership of Matignon, has been working for 14 months. On the program, 50 “levers” which revolve around six major themes, namely: transport, buildings, biodiversity, energy, agriculture and consumption. A month later, the project is well and truly underway.

10 new recruits have joined the ranks of the SGPE. The organization created in July 2022 and led by Antoine Pellion, aims to find solutions to reduce France’s greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030 and to fight against the collapse of the biodiversity.

The reinforcement of Barbara Pompili

Now, 26 employees work on ecological planning at SGPE, including Barbara Pompili. The former Minister of Ecological Transition took the position of special international advisor at the SGPE this Monday, October 23. She left the National Assembly on September 24 to continue her parliamentary mission on low-emission zones (ZFE) extended by the government. “It is about inspiring other countries, while some, like Brazil or the Netherlands, have requested the SGPE on French planning, but also about being open to good practices implemented abroad . You have to stay humble…”summarizes Barbara Pompili, as reported The echoes.

The plan of the General Secretariat for Ecological Planning provided for the launch of “discussions with stakeholders on the different measures and objects by sector”from September 2023. They will take the form of “Regional COPs”, based on the model of the COP for the climate, co-hosted by the presidents of the regional councils and the regional prefects. The first of these will take place in mid-November with the aim of developing a plan “sharing” “by summer”, said Elisabeth Borne on September 28 during the annual congress of the Régions de France association in Saint Malo. At the same time, the Minister of Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu, launched a “ecology tour of France” last September to discuss planning with communities and citizens.

Additional texts expected

“We are entering an acceleration phase, our work is far from finished!”, confided Antoine Pellion to Les Echos. The part “adaptation” of the plan which must be presented “by the end of the year”, still needs to be clarified. This is the part which predicts how France could adapt to global warming of +4 degrees. Of the “post 2030 elements, on the path to carbon neutrality in 2050”will also be added to the plan says the director of the SGPE.

Other texts are expected, namely the multi-annual energy programming (PPE) and the national biodiversity strategy (SNB). Furthermore, the current national low-carbon strategy (SNBC) expires in December 2023. An SNBC 3 must therefore be put in place. Three bills are included in the plan: the green industry law was published in the Official Journal on October 24, 2023. There remains the agricultural orientation bill as well as the energy-climate programming bill.

For the plan to be carried out successfully, it must be sufficiently funded. This is the whole purpose of the possible establishment of multi-year climate financing. At the end of September, deputies from the Renaissance group tabled an amendment to this effect to the public finance programming bill for the years 2023 to 2027. The finance bill (PLF) for 2024, currently being examined in the National Assembly, provides an additional 7 billion euros for the ecological transition. 10 billion euros in total will be committed by the State.