"Climate runaway": Green MPs want "emergency" measures to "get through the summer"

“Adaptation” to global warming “is no longer a choice, it is a necessity”, insists the president of the group Cyrielle Chatelain, in the “emergency” plan sent to AFP.

The EELV elected officials plead first for "the adaptation of the habitat" with a vast plan of global thermal renovation.

To "spend the summer", they are now asking for "improvements" by subsidizing solar protection (shading, shutters) and making them compulsory in the event of major work by condominiums. To "return the rays of the sun", they call for "repainting all public buildings white" and encouraging the private sector to do the same.

In schools, they demand the revegetation of 100% of playgrounds by 2035.

On the transport side, the ecological group wants to regulate car traffic in metropolitan areas during heat peaks, with the lowering of speed, and alternate or prohibited traffic in the most exposed areas. He also wants the implementation of "reasonable air conditioning solutions for public transport" to strengthen their attractiveness to the car.

The twenty-three Green MPs are calling for working conditions to be adapted to high temperatures with the launch of interprofessional negotiations on the subject and the introduction of a "right of withdrawal from 33 degrees in the Labor Code". The Insoumise Caroline Fiat also proposed on Tuesday a right of withdrawal in the event of heat waves, emphasizing the exposed professions: construction, agricultural workers...

To protect access to water, EELV elected officials propose "to prohibit the watering of golf courses in the event of level 2 and 3 drought".

They would like the prohibition of "megabasins", the water reservoirs of farmers against which elected EELV had protested in Sainte-Soline (Deux-Sèvres), during the demonstration of March 25 marked by violent clashes between demonstrators and law enforcement.

To “finance adaptation”, they are asking for an additional two billion euros to be added to the green fund, intended for communities.

In a recent interview with the newspaper Le Parisien, the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, had promised to add an additional 5 billion euros to the already planned increase of 2 billion in 2024, in order to double the rate of reduction of gas emissions to France's greenhouse effect and meet the objectives for 2030.

On Wednesday, the deputies LFI Gabriel Amard and Jean-François Coulomme presented for their part a bill to finance in an "original" way "100% of the work" of thermal renovation of buildings. They are calling for public investment of up to 1.000 billion euros over fifteen years, financed by a "mortgage guarantee".

Reimbursement of costs incurred in each dwelling would take place when the property is sold, or no later than thirty years after the completion of the work.

The elected LFI were inspired by a citizen proposal from Françoise Verchère, Maxime Combes and Daniel Ibanez, auditioned in March in the Senate.