The Government had never planned to allocate so much public money to the ecological transition, a “good ecological move”, say experts and NGOs, for whom the 2024 finance bill is “not adequate”, “of scale” and apparently inconsistent . of the climate crisis.
With 7 billion in additional funding, for energy renewal, biodiversity and even railways, “it’s going in the right direction,” but it’s still “a pale green budget, and we’re going to increase it,” Anne told reporters on Tuesday. . , program director of the Climate Action Network (RAC). Total funding for the ecological transition needs to be increased to around €40 billion, “but we are not at the right scale,” she says.
Examined in committee in the Assembly starting next Tuesday, the 2024 budget will be debated on October 17 and, in the eyes of the forty associations federated in the Network, the text is above all rich in its contradictions and in the measures that do not contains. .
According to the specialized information site Context, the General Treasury Inspectorate had tested in a confidential report published in May ten measures to adapt taxation to the demands of the ecological transition, which will probably bring in 8 billion euros per year until 2027, but very few. The ideas have been retained in the 2024 PLF.
The “insufficient” budget still includes an excessive part of this “financing that is harmful to the environment and biodiversity, the amount of which is estimated at €22 billion in 2022,” says Elise Naccarato of Oxfam France.
Large SUV too surplus
Even regressions, according to Jean-François Julliard of Greenpeace, who points to “an announcement of an exit from coal by 2027, a step back from Emmanuel Macron’s previous commitments.”
The only good news reported is the obligation starting in 2024 for the State to undertake a multi-year programming exercise to finance the ecological transition. In other words, the end of visual navigation and visibility for elected officials and the private sector to invest and hire.
First angle of attack: the plane. “Without taxes on tickets and zero tax on kerosene, the train is 2.6 times more expensive per kilometer than the plane,” criticizes Naccarato.
Second criticism: MaPrimeRenov’, whose allocation increases by 1,600 million euros to reach 5,000 million in 2024, but which will continue to finance hundreds of thousands of aid limited to a change of heating or windows.
Third criticism: the lack of incentives for sobriety, as well as the “massive penalty” for heavier and more fuel-consuming cars.
The penalty is certainly steep, but it will still save too many large SUVs, especially electric ones. “However, a 1.9-ton electric vehicle has the same impact as a 1-ton thermal vehicle,” explains Michel Dubromel, co-pilot of the Energie de France Nature Environment (FNE) network.
“Lack of political will”
“Therefore, we propose to extend the weight penalty so that it is truly a deterrent, for example up to 1.3 tons, much more than the car that everyone needs to go to work, and to include electric vehicles starting at 1.8 tons. “, it states. .
The Climate Action Network also puts forward several proposals to put more public money on the table to achieve the big green shift, including taxing super profits and establishing a climate FSI. This would mean between 8,000 and 12,000 million euros and 17,600 million euros per year, respectively. The solidarity tax on wealth would be proportional to the climate impact of the assets.
In the end, no NGO denies that “the budget just got better”, in the words of Damien Demailly, deputy director general of the Institute for Climate Economics (I4CE).
And according to him, the budget closure from 2024 remains unclear: for example, the planned state expansion for railway infrastructure, weak in the face of needs, raises questions. As is the “schizophrenia” towards local authorities, invited to get out of their debts, not to tax too much but to be on the front line of the energy transition.
In the end, the looming showdown over the taxation of large airports and highways should not make us forget that the 2024 budget contains “a little bit of green taxation, but not that much,” he says.
Source: BFM TV
