110 000 people took to the streets in several cities across France marching for a "real climate law" instead of what they describe as Macron's smokescreen reforms.
The French parliament are due to start a debate on a climate change bill. The draft law is the result of the initiative of 150 randomly selected individuals in what was a 'citizens assembly', the Citizens' Convention for Climate, which discussed and eventually agreed propositions on how to fight global warming.
But critics say the draft legislation, "Climate and Resilience", has excluded some of the citizen's assembly's far-reaching recommendations, despite a promise by French President Emmanuel Macron, to implement them "without any filters" either applying them directly or submitting them unchanged to parliament. But many of the measures proposed by the Citizens Climate Convention were watered down before being sent to parliament.
They say the bill is not sufficiently ambitious enough to limit the country's carbon emissions and reach a goal set at the Paris Agreement to limit the rise of global temperatures. They have described it as a "pseudo" climate change bill.
More than a dozen lawmakers initially elected with Macron's La République En Marche (LREM) party have quit over what they see is the president's perceived lack of commitment on environmental and social issues.
“His commitment is skin deep,” said Jennifer De Temmerman, an MP and former LREM member. “It’s all communication, smoke and mirrors. He lectures others, but in reality, his actions in France don’t pass muster.” She explained, “We were expecting a grand bill, a landmark piece of legislation, and it falls very short of our expectations. On transport, we’re only banning flights that are shorter than two-and-a-half hours, that’s almost nothing. And on advertising, we’re encouraging greenwashing by allowing fossil fuel companies to promote their green products.”
France’s High Council on Climate, a body set up to advise on climate policy, said the measures won’t “fill the gaps in France’s transition to low carbon” and will only deliver “between a half and two-thirds of the cuts needed between 2019 and its 40 percent target for 2030”.
It’s crunch time for Macron’s climate bet – POLITICO
These events didn’t make the headlines in UK news, we can only wonder why.
But socialists fully understand that one point is clear, well-intentioned initiatives such as citizen’s assemblies simply have their recommendations ignored if they doen’t fit in with capitalism’s plans.
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