Council of Toulouse Métropole, a piquant debate against a backdrop of climate emergency
With several deliberations relating to decisive plans and projects for the development of the Toulouse metropolis, the question of the climate emergency was naturally invited to the council of Toulouse metropolis, this Thursday, February 10, 2022. The introductory proposals thus gave rise to an enlightening debate on the relationship that the various elected officials have with ecology.
With an agenda including deliberations on the assessment of the Territorial Air and Energy Climate Plan (PCAET), the environmental authorization of the third metro line (TAE) or the development of the Local intermunicipal urban plan-Habitat (PLUiH), the introductory remarks of the council of Toulouse Métropole on Thursday February 10 gave rise to exchanges of views, sometimes salty, on the climate emergency and the community’s environmental policy. Between the spades and the little nuanced portraits, evenly distributed between the majority and the opposition, the debate of the day allowed the elected officials of the Toulouse metropolis to reveal, in broad outline, the relationship they have with ecology.
Karine Traval Michelet or the ecology of weighting
It was Socialist Vice-President Karine Traval Michelet, signatory of the majority governance pact, who first suggested the issue of the environment by returning to the mid-term review of the Climate plan presented by Jean- Luc Moudenc, on January 21. Without dwelling on the results, she recalled the climate emergency and the need for the community “to accentuate [ses] efforts and provide additional tools to achieve [ses] initial objectives. The second vice-president then detailed a vision of the metropolitan ecological project placed under the sign of weighting. Taking the development of the new PLUiH as an example, Karine Traval-Michelet defended an approach that reconciles the “demographic and climate challenge” then, on the subject of ZFE, an implementation that “is not an obstacle to mobility”.
“It is essential to offer a little pleasure and happiness to our fellow citizens”
Isabelle Hardy and popular ecology
For her part, Isabelle Hardy, metropolitan of the group Métropole, ecologist and citizen for united territories (MECTS), insisted on the importance of the environmental issue of advice, particularly in terms of public health. Recalling that pollution kills more people than alcohol and tobacco, she declared the political courage needed to “dare to declare a climate emergency”. Criticizing the shortcomings of the various plans and projects implemented by the majority, the elected official called on the assembly to the choice of a “popular ecology”. In particular by densifying the network of alternative mobility to the car, by promoting “vegetation wherever possible” and, finally, by preventing the ZFE from being reduced to an “urban toll”.
For Joseph Carles: ecology but not without pleasure or industry
Recognizing the importance of environmental issues, Jospeh Carles, vice-president of Toulouse Métropole, nevertheless wished to relativize the place of the price by the ecological imperative in public policies. “These are important subjects, but which should not make us forget to support and revitalize the flagship of our territory: the space and aeronautics industry “, he notably defended before praising the virtues of entertainment. “I believe that punitive ecology is a catastrophe that risks causing rejection. Of course the climate emergency is there. But we must also build cultural and animation policies in the appropriate course, we are also going to make our fellow citizens forget all these concerns. It is essential to offer a little pleasure and happiness to our fellow citizens and we have forgotten this dimension in our speeches”.
Agathe Roby denounces a techno-centric ecology and “gadget”
Grateful to Jean-Luc Moudenc for being “neither climatosceptic nor stupid”, Agathe Roby, of the group Alternative for a citizen metropolis (AMC) attacks much more frontally the environmental policy of the majority that she judges “irresponsible”, wait-and-see and techno-centric. “Your response to the climate crisis boils down to a few connected gadgets: urban canopies that do not consume, algae trees installed on deserted ramblas… But, for you, technology will save us. You are waiting for the green plane and for the automotive industry to manufacture, perhaps one day, less polluting vehicles. [Vous restez] in inaction while waiting for technology to solve all our problems and, above all [vous mettez] everything on the backs of the users, ”she charges.
“Your answer to the climate crisis comes down to a few connected gadgets”
Denouncing failing choices and an ostrich policy consisting in “minimizing the figures”, Agathe Roby also ironically talks about what she considers to be a form of disconnection with the reality of the majority. “Several of you are among the powerful who can, like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, see the future with serenity and tell you that there will always be a little cool place, somewhere, for you and your loved ones. I don’t know if you exchanged a group price with Philippe Perrin to go into space, in a rocket in the shape of an Occitanie tower, or if you instead offered a collective bunker where you can live decently in a few decades.
Recalling the majority “to reason”, Agathe Roby concluded this diatribe by calling “to work together on a new PDU that meets the challenges of mobility”.
Sacha Briand, for a transition based on growth and nuclear power
As usual, it was Sacha Briand, the great treasurer of the metropolis who took it upon himself to respond, with a certain virulence, to the criticisms and observations of his colleagues. “I am struck by the convergence of speakers on the issue of the climate emergency. A reality, like that of the ecological transition, that no one denies. Nevertheless, I am also struck by this desire for pessimism, this vision of emptiness, ”attacks Sacha Briand before targeting the more qualified Agathe Roby. Making the link with his job as a medieval historian, Sacha Brian lends him “anxieties of the year 1000”. A way for the vice-president in charge of finance to oppose progress and decline.
“I am struck by this desire for pessimism, this vision of emptiness”
“For our colleagues in political ecology, the climate crisis is the announcement of the end of time, the end of the world. We would, according to them, collectively organize the disappearance of the human species to bring it back to the finite world, to the capacity that our planet would have to feed the human species ”, outbids the elected representative of the majority. To this declinist painting, Sacha Brian opposes an environmental transition based on economic growth and the development of wealth. The only way, according to him, to combine environmental issues and social justice. “Without wealth creation, there can be no distribution,” he argues. For this, it offers in particular strengthen the national production of nuclear energy.