Posted on November 19, 2020
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This is the first open breach in climate justice in France. The commune of Grande-Synthe, supported by Paris, Grenoble and the NGOs of the Affaire du Siècle, has won its battle. The Council of State asks the government to demonstrate that its climate efforts are consistent with a 40% drop in emissions by 2030. The copy must be returned in three months. If it is not convincing, the highest administrative court can force the state to act.
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The Council of State is giving the government three months to demonstrate its climate efforts in the direction of a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2050. The highest court administrative, which rendered its decision (1) this Thursday, November 19, was ruling for the first time in a dispute related to climate change. For all the environmental actors involved, elected officials and NGOs, this is a historic moment.
There you are, those obscure words from @Conseil_Etat REVOLUTIONIZE policy on #weather. The programmatic laws and objectives on greenhouse gases become OBLIGATORY for the State. Thank you to the Council of State for being part of history #GreatSynthe #LAffaireDuSiecle pic.twitter.com/jTc1nGfwfS
– Celia Gautier (@CeliaGautier) November 19, 2020
The coastal town of Grande-Synthe (North) asked the government at the end of 2018 to take additional measures to bend the emissions curve. The ecological mayor, Damien Carême, elected since MEP, believed that his municipality and the neighboring nuclear power plant of Gravelines were threatened by the rise in sea level if the government did not keep its commitments. A refusal having been opposed to them, they seized the Council of State in January 2019, joined by the cities of Paris and Grenoble and several NGOs (Oxfam France, Greenpeace France, Notre Affaire à Tous, Fondation pour la Nature et l’Homme ) and the Affair of the Century.
“A pace never reached before”
Before deciding definitively on the request, the Council of State asks the government “to justify, within three months, that its refusal to take additional measures is compatible with respecting the reduction path chosen to achieve the objectives set for 2030 “. However, the senior administration notes that France “has, in recent years, regularly exceeded the emission ceilings it set for itself” and that'”part of the efforts initially planned is thus postponed after 2023, which will then require achieving a reduction in emissions following a pace that has never been achieved so far “.
“Strong words for a body like the Council of State“, underlines Célia Gautier, of the FNH. “The Council of State underlines that the State has obligations not of means but of results. On two occasions, it uses the word of effectiveness, which means that the policies must not only be pretty commitments On paper“, assures Corinne Lepage, lawyer of the commune of Grande Synthe. “It’s for days like today that we founded Notre Affaire à tous in 2015, so that climate justice shakes up society“, summarizes Marie Toussaint, MEP.
Other remedies to be expected
If in three months, the justifications provided by the government are not sufficient, the Council of State may then cancel its refusal to take additional measures. In other words, force him to act. “What will happen is an evaluation of the public policies implemented. Usually, this exercise takes place in a parliamentary committee or at the Court of Auditors. The enormous difference here is that the Council of State can go much further, since it has the possibility, at the end of this evaluation, of ordering the State to act, on points precise! It is therefore a decision that has the potential to bring about very concrete changes.“, analyzes Guillaume Hannotin, lawyer for the Affair of the Century in the Grande-Synthe case.
The State, for its part, had chosen not to send a lawyer to the hearing and requested a rejection of the requests, for reasons of form and substance. The Ministry of Ecological Transition had however assured that it would be “fully available“to participate in an additional investigation. He must also answer for his climate commitments in another case, the Affair of the Century, in which the Administrative Court will have to take into account the jurisprudence of the Council of State.
Concepcion Alvarez placeholder image @conce1
(1) See the decision of the Council of State
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