News/Interesting Stories/Beautiful Pictures from Europe 🇪🇺
(Current banner: Thunder mountain, Germany, 🇩🇪 ) Feel free to post submissions for banner pictures
(This list is obviously incomplete, but it will get expanded when necessary)
Also check out !yurop@lemm.ee
I assume like every other country's big climate plans they'll announce it, do nothing and then back pedal on it 2 years from now.
Credit for goals hit, not just stated.
It's already planning to do almost nothing. Most of the plan will rely on people replacing their cars with electric ones, and their fuel heaters with heat pumps.
Credit for actually reducing emissions. It is better to fail a 80% reduction target with a 78% reduction, then to hit a 25% target perfectly.
We're literally about to enter a runaway climate catastrophe, and we're only catching up with the last 20 years of emissions now. If we stopped burning all fossil fuels world wide tomorrow, it would take 20 years for the effects to stop. We are far past fucked my friend.
The time to end fossil fuel use is 3 decades ago. The second best time is right now, not years from now.
Ending fossil fuel use by the year 2030 is as "right now" as it is possible to get. It would require big changes starting immediately. No more petrol cars being sold, as of right now. Massive investment in freight transport by electrified rail, start building as soon as possible. Huge transformation of agriculture, you've got to replace or adapt every single fossil-fuel powered thing. Aviation, you won't have time to save much of it if the goal is 2030, so you're going do a lot less flying. The military is going to need a complete overhaul. Commercial and recreational watercraft will all urgently need to find new ways to operate. France goes through something like 40 billion cubic metres of natural gas per year for a variety of residential, commercial, and industrial uses all of which will need to find new energy sources or be discontinued.
Doing it in less than ten years starting from the very little that's been done so far would be a world-changing accomplishment if they managed it.
The aim, he added, was to reduce this dependence from 60% to 40% by 2030.
Oh right, apparently they're only looking to reduce its market share by a third, not "end" it. That is... somewhat less impressive.
It should be a world changing event. We should be all hands on deck right trying to solve this issue. Instead, most everyone is worried about the economy. Always reminds me of the dinosaur meme when the asteroid hits the earth. One of them says, oh shit, the economy. Really points to the absurdity of worrying about the economy when a liveable planet is at stake.
Damn Macron couldn't even be bothered to invent a time machine. 😡
Every climate action plan I've seen is always 10-20 years away. Climate change is clearly getting worse every year. This summer was the worst on record for heat waves all across the world, and we still aren't getting the message. It's honestly beyond idiotic that we aren't taking it seriously.
Yeah, it still seems a weird place to complain about it when this is actually a measure of moving the goalposts closer (2030 is certainly less than 10-20 years,) while other industrial nations like the UK and Germany are even backsliding.
I think it's totally fair to criticize that it isn't enough, because it isn't. I just don't see how engaging in hyperbolic scenarios and defeatism is supposed to help anything. I think it's also okay to acknowledge when something is at least moving in a slightly less shit direction and use that as a source of encouragment to turn things around further, instead of just saying "well, this is shit".
Germany is not backsliding. They won't reach their climate goals, but they reduced the gap in reaching these goals significantly compared to the prior Merkel led government.
So what would you call the backpedalling on the laws on new heaters and energy efficiency of new buildings then? Or the abolishment if sector goals?
Not backpedalling. The law on heating is still an improvement to prior regulation and the climate law, that enforces being carbon neutral in 2045, still stands. There will probably be another round of lawsuits soon forcing the government to sharpen their ambitions.
Yes, it's an improvement to prior regulation and a step back from what they initially set out to do.
It's ok to not accept a liberal politicians half assed attempt at stopping climate change. It's insufficient plain as day.
Stupid little question, but how this:
It was essential, he said, that “France reduces our dependence on so-called fossil fuels, coal, petrol and gas, which we don’t produce any more but on which we depend”. The aim, he added, was to reduce this dependence from 60% to 40% by 2030.
The same as no fossil fuels by 2030. If you are 40% dependent on fossil fuels by 2030, you are still using fossil fuels or am I somehow mistaken.
I am guessing it is no fossil fuels in the electricity grid by 2030, but that is just a guess.
Not that far! Only no coal in electricity is planned...
Article was edited
Very ecological, massive car subsidies and some breadcrumbs for public transit 🙄
Macron is a liberal through and through.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Emmanuel Macron has unveiled a national “ecological plan” to reduce France’s greenhouse gas emissions by 55% and end the use of fossil fuels by 2030.
Speaking after a special ministerial council at the Elysée, the French president said an extra €10bn (£8.7bn) would be put towards the 50-point programme, which he described as “ecology à la Française”.
The plan was aimed at addressing the climate crisis while ensuring that France remained competitive in agriculture and industry, said Macron.
Other measures in the plan include the acceleration of electric car production, with brakes on gas boilers, though the president stopped short of a total ban.
It also includes new projects for offshore windfarms, the opening of several electric battery factories in northern France, a map to establish where natural resources can be found in France, including hydrogen gas and essential elements for lithium batteries, and €700m state investment in the regional train network.
Antoine Pellion was tasked with “coordinating the development of national strategies in the fields of climate, energy, biodiversity and the circular economy”.
The original article contains 397 words, the summary contains 174 words. Saved 56%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
And privacy I suppose ¯_(ツ)_/¯