Are we on the right track for a just and equitable transition? How to enter a more sustainable society while preserving purchasing power? Is it only possible? Maxime Binet’s Alex Reed this morning on DH Radio, François Gemenne, tries to answer these questions.
“We are very clearly not on the right track for a sustainable and fair climate transition. The indicators for Belgium are not at all favorable at the moment. There is therefore a real urgency to straighten the situation, in particular because Belgium does not is not one of the good students of the European class. We are often called to order regarding the commitments we have made, in particular in the Paris Agreement.”
Where is the biggest problem in Belgium’s climate policy? “In transport. It is very clearly the sector in Belgium which manages to decarbonize the slowest. This is where it is most difficult to achieve the objectives. There is a culprit and a person responsible who must be designated : company cars. I think they should be abolished and this salary advantage should be given back to employees. The problem with these cars is that they are obviously used to travel between home and the place of work But since gas is paid for by the employer, there is no reason why they should not be used for leisure trips or for any trip. Public transport will always be more expensive than a free car which is paid by the employer.”
In terms of infrastructure, especially in the south of the country, few Walloons have access to a station. “We agree, the supply of trains is very clearly insufficient. We told people: ‘Go and settle in the countryside, it will be nice’, except that there is no train. It’s also a problem for the outskirts of Brussels with these RER works which take even longer than the scaffolding of the Brussels Courthouse. In Belgium, there is really a problem with a public transport offer which is undersized while the density of population in the country should encourage us to have the most efficient transport networks in Europe.”
A series of experts will produce a report for the spring of 2023, to launch a kind of national climate conference. The fact that Ecolo is in power in Belgium, will it have an impact?“The environmentalists have a huge responsibility. They can no longer say today that they do not have the levers of power. They have all the key ministries. They have transport, mobility, energy, climate and biodiversity. Within the French-speaking and Flemish greens, there are almost all the skills necessary to put Belgium back on the right track of climate action and biodiversity action. it will be a huge collective failure.”
What conclusions can we draw so far? “For the moment, there is a lot of stagnation. It is not only the fault of environmentalists, the context of the pandemic and the war do not help. But there is a big responsibility and there is also a way to work with the N-VA. For example, in Flanders, they will make the thermal renovation of housing compulsory. It’s a step that we still hesitate to take in Wallonia, yet we have to do it.”
By 2030, we must reduce our CO2 emissions by up to 40%. How to do? “The only year we found ourselves on this trajectory was in 2020. The year of the pandemic, the confinement and the economy at a standstill. We found ourselves on this trajectory not because “We had chosen it with ambitious climate policies, but because we were suffering from it. To get there, it involves a 90° turn and, in Belgium, an immediate stop for company cars in particular.”
