Conversation with Dr Laurence Tubiana, CEO European Climate Foundation
A conversation with Dr Laurence Tubiana, CEO, European Climate Foundation and Emmanuel Rivière, Director of International Polling and Political Advisory, Kantar Public
To read this interview in French, please click here >
Founded in 2008 as a philanthropic initiative, the European Climate Foundation (ECF) aims to develop solutions and activate political engagement and public consciousness about the global climate crisis.
The ECF consists of a network of 500+ organisations working strategically to define and drive the policy in Europe that is needed to achieve a net-zero greenhouse gas emissions society.
ECF’s CEO, Dr Laurence Tubiana is a French economist and diplomat. She was appointed French ambassador for international climate negotiations in connection with the 2015 COP21 Climate Change Conference in Paris.
In this interview, Laurence Tubiana offers her perspective on the growing demand of European citizens for climate action, and their critical role in driving the transformation of our society to ensure a liveable planet for future generations.
Emmanuel: Convincing citizens of the urgency of tackling climate change is no longer the issue today, as climate change scepticism represents a minority attitude in many countries. The issue now is that citizens are not yet fully aware of the consequences of this climate crisis. How can we mobilise people to do more and to accept the necessary changes?
Laurence: There is a fundamental gap between the scale of the climate crisis, and the scope for individual action. It’s a fact. For a long time, the thinking was that this gap would get in the way of citizen action and engagement.
And yet, election after election – including in the recent Federal election in Germany – citizens have expressed through their votes an ever-growing demand for climate action. This could be better mobilised via democratic processes.
We need to bring our democracies closer to the people, and not always expect the opposite.
In France, the Citizens Convention for Climate launched in 2019, is a perfect example of the potential of deliberative democracy, even though the French government’s commitment to the solutions proposed was uneven.
Various events point to the same trends, whether it is the climate justice campaign ‘L Affaire du siècle’ launched in 2018 in France, the Eurobarometer report on climate change published by the European Commission in June 2021, or recent polls by More in Common which reveal the strong public concern about climate issues regardless of political orientation.
The trajectory is clear: it is the citizens who will make governments face up to their responsibilities for climate change.
Emmanuel: At the same time, public opinion polls show that a majority of citizens consider that their national government and public authorities are not doing enough to address the issue of climate change. Does this expectation from the public represent a lever for government action?
Laurence: Absolutely. And this expectation for climate action manifests itself in different ways: during local and national elections; through the increasing use of the law to resolve climate issues; and more broadly speaking, in the fact that governments are rarely ahead of society.
In addition, public opinion is driving change through a multitude of actors at different levels: local authorities, business, and civil society. These are essential levers that could bring a society together at all levels.
During the negotiations that led to the Paris Agreement, we leveraged this multi-stakeholder dynamic as an extremely powerful driver of progress on a global scale. Cities, regions, NGOs, businesses, investors… all played a critical role in shaping the Paris Agreement.
As well as sparking momentum among states, this approach resulted in non-governmental commitments by a range of actors to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, and allowed us to begin to envisage climate action on the scale that is needed.
While the Paris Agreement was a framework for governments first and foremost, it has become an international benchmark thanks to this mobilisation of non-state actors.
Emmanuel: The COVID-19 pandemic has relegated the issue of climate change to second place in the list of citizen concerns. In hindsight, do you think that this pandemic has left us with valuable learnings for the fight against climate change?
Laurence: One thing is certain: the lack of coordination between governments during this crisis has exacerbated the impact of COVID-19 beyond the virus itself.
The emergency economic stimulus packages relegated to the background the long-needed and critical economic debate on the ecological transformation and the significant public investment required to achieve this transformation globally.
In terms of learnings, my hope is that this crisis would have at least moved us to start looking beyond the artificial debate in public finance between ‘frugal’ and ‘high spending’, which currently divides political opinion but does nothing really to address the climate emergency.
Indeed, does it really make sense to place so much importance on debt and growth, when our main duty to future generations is to preserve our planet, our biodiversity, and the stability of our societies?
Both the European and the American recovery plans have sent a strong signal, and we must continue to encourage this kind of debate in public finance. The growing interest in green investment pacts is also a shift.
Emmanuel: Could the response to the climate crisis also be an opportunity to redefine the future in a positive way, to restore faith in the future of our societies which are more often dominated by so many concerns?
Laurence: Absolutely. We must create the momentum needed to initiate and implement this great transition that awaits us. Public opinion demands action in the face of the climate emergency.
The facts are clear: the transformation of the economy into a completely decarbonised one is something that has never been attempted before; and this is now an urgent imperative. It is a social and democratic challenge that – if properly addressed – could give citizens what they want in terms of new politics.
The Citizens Convention for Climate has also offered wonderful evidence for the fact that it is possible to build consensus around public policies – including highly complex policies – among citizens from diverse backgrounds. Our society demands ambition, despite the political and social divisions that threaten our democracies, and citizens are not afraid of complexity.
We will need both ambition and consensus to create this positive momentum, as Saint-Exupéry expressed so well: “If you want to build a ship, don't drum up your men and women to gather wood, don’t divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”
Emmanuel: The Eurobarometer studies show that the fight against climate change is high on the European agenda, as well as highlighting strong support for increased European cooperation in this area. How can the European Green Deal meet this challenge?
Laurence: During the first six months of 2022, the French EU presidency will play an essential role in the progress of the Green Deal. The government will be expected to take forward the 'Fit for 55' reforms that aim to reduce Europe’s net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030, and ultimately achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. This will not be easy, either in France or across the wider EU, particularly with France's residential and parliamentary elections taking place during the French EU presidency.
These European reforms present many social challenges, notably in terms of energy prices (gas, electricity, and petrol) which are already a source of great anxiety, and inevitably call to mind the backlash against the carbon tax in France of 2018.
None of this is easy, but it does also offer an opportunity to reconsider the European social contract, at a time when trust in public institutions and politics is declining across Europe. These reforms will have to be developed first and foremost with citizens’ needs in mind – any other approach would be doomed to failure.
But if this revision of the European social contract can be achieved, we stand a much better chance of overcoming this great new existential challenge, both for Europe and for our planet.
References and notes
1. The Citizens Convention for Climate is a citizens' assembly held in 2019 and 2020 which discussed reducing France's carbon emissions by 40% from its 1990 levels in a spirit of social justice. It was initiated in response to the Yellow Vest protests to the fuel tax. It includes 150 randomly selected citizens designed to be representative of the French public across six demographic dimensions: gender, age, socio-economic background, education, rural/urban area, and region.
2. ‘L’Affaire du siècle’ (‘The Case of the Century’) is a climate justice campaign in France launched in December 2018 by four associations (Fondation pour la nature et l'homme, Greenpeace France, Notre affaire à tous, and Oxfam France), with the objective to sue the French government for its inaction in the fight against global warming.
