It鈥檚 almost hard to believe. Three years ago, Paris was the scene of a groundbreaking deal on climate change. Now, it is reeling from its worst riots in 50 years, ignited by a proposed tax on dirty fossil fuels.
What started as an online petition against rising fuel prices soon exploded into violent protest. Cars have been set alight, shops have been vandalised and four people have died in the past month. Prime Minister Edouard Philippe 鈥� who was scheduled to open the UN climate conference in Poland this week 鈥� has instead had to address his own citizens, promising to freeze the fuel tax for the next six months.
The French government is, of course, right to respond to this level of anger, which poses a serious public threat. But those world leaders who have since signed the Paris Agreement 鈥� 聽and are now in Katowice to discuss how to move forward with their climate commitments 鈥� must be aghast.
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They have ahead of them the unenviable task of finding ways of limiting global warming to well below 2掳C, and hopefully to 1.5掳C above pre-industrial levels. Don鈥檛 forget, the pledges made in Paris will only put us on track to between 2.7掳C and 3.7掳C of warming by 2100. Reversing fuel taxes is the last thing we need.
Dirty fuels
France鈥檚 climate commitment targets a range of sectors from energy to agriculture, but the deepest emissions cuts will come from transport, achieved in part by taxing dirty fuels such as diesel that release greenhouse gases, such as nitrogen dioxide, into the atmosphere.
This makes sense for two reasons. The first is that viable alternatives, such as hybrid and electric vehicles, already exist. The second is that it brings a huge public health benefit by also tackling air pollution, which has been linked to 400,000 premature deaths across Europe each year. France鈥檚 Paris pledge 鈥� like that of other nations 鈥� was only ever intended as a starting point. The commitments made in 2015 would need to increase fivefold to limit warming to 1.5掳C.
Now it seems that those early promises are being met with resistance. The problem extends beyond France. The UK, for instance, has had a freeze on fuel levies for nine years running, costing an estimated 拢46 billion in lost revenue.
The 鈥済ilets jaunes鈥� or yellow-jacketed activists responsible for France鈥檚 latest unrest have their own ideas for how President Emmanuel Macron鈥檚 government could cut carbon. Their proposed reforms include incentives for insulating houses as well as the construction of shopping malls in rural areas to discourage car use. World leaders now firming up their climate pledges in Poland should take heed of this message from France: the public expects as much of the carrot as the stick.
But the hard truth is that leaders such as Macron 鈥� and UK prime minister Theresa May for that matter 鈥� need to find some backbone.聽 We鈥檒l see little progress on cutting carbon until a tax on dirty fuels such as diesel is as widely accepted as a tax on cigarettes. One is, after all, just as harmful as the other.
