Macron slammed for asking: 'Who could have predicted the climate crisis?'

The French president’s speech recorded at the Elysée Palace and broadcast on December 31, 2022. AFP

On Saturday, December 31, 2022, during his New Year's address, French President Emmanuel Macron uttered a short phrase that rubbed many climate change activists the wrong way. It was a reminder to the president to be aware of the impact of his words.

Noting the "singular" aspect of these speeches, which "force us to talk about an uncertain future," the president reviewed the crises that France and Europe underwent during the past year. "Who could have predicted the wave of inflation that was unleashed? Or the climate crisis and its spectacular impact on our country this summer?" asked the president. After a long discussion on pensions and the need for the French to work more, Mr. Macron only mentioned the climate crisis once; stating that the "energy transition is a battle that we must win."

The president barely spent a few minutes discussing one of the most important issues of the century, during which he questioned the predictability of global warming. His words were immediately perceived as a disconnect by several experts. "'Who could have predicted the climate crisis?' Funny, that’s one of my favorite sayings to mock politicians who are out of touch with reality," tweeted Gonéri Le Cozannet, a geologist and co-author of the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Paleoclimatologist Valérie Masson-Delmotte, who was invited to the Elysée Palace on August 31, 2022, to raise the awareness of the government, criticized Mr. Macron's phrasing while providing documents from the latest IPCC report on the effects of global warming in Europe. "You would not guess this speech was from our time. It could have been given in the 1980s, not in 2022," Magali Reghezza-Zitt, a geographer and member of the High Council on Climate (HCC), created in 2018 by Mr. Macron, told Franceinfo.

'Macron is acting as a tactician, not a strategist'

"It is appalling and it went straight to the heart of everyone who works on these issues," said Matthieu Auzanneau, director of the Shift Project. "The Kyoto Protocol dates back to 1997, Jacques Chirac said that 'our house is burning down' over 20 years ago. You have to be completely ignorant to write and then speak sentences like that. The most worrying thing is to say the same thing about inflation, which started in September 2021 and is also a symptom of the scarcity of resources. This means that the most informed person in France does not understand the fundamental causes of these crises, which are all linked and not cyclical. He is paying lip service, acting as a tactician and not as a strategist."

Le Monde contacted the Elysée, which did not respond or specify the conditions under which the speech was written. It is impossible to know if Mr. Macron wrote this part himself. "Some people may view it as an awkward phrase. He wanted to express that the French people may have felt that some events were happening quicker than scientists had predicted," said Pascal Canfin, an MEP for Macron's party Renaissance. "But the accusations that he is unaware of the situation have no merit."

This president’s speech came at a time during the holiday season when global warming was once again a hot topic in the media, with monthly heat records being broken across France.

National weather agency Météo-France was expected to announce this week that 2022 was the hottest year on record. The French public, meanwhile, is still discussing the heat waves, droughts, and fires from the previous summer, the hottest ever recorded in Europe according to the European service Copernicus, beating the 2021 record by 0.4°C.

To the president’s credit, he was stunned by the "drastic effects." Even some meteorologists were surprised by the intensity of the heat waves in July and August 2022.

His naivety in calling the global crisis unpredictable is more surprising. The first IPCC report dates back to 1990. Since then, 27 United Nations Climate Change Conferences (COPs) have taken place. Between August 2021 and April 2022, the IPCC published three parts of its sixth assessment report. In the first part, devoted to the physics of climate change, experts warned of "rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, and biosphere" and noted that extreme events, such as heat waves, heavy rain, or droughts, had become more frequent and intense.

Read more Macron goes online to win over French youth on climate action

As a result, Mr. Macron’s opponents are speaking out to highlight his ignorance. "I fell out of my chair," said Marine Tondelier, national secretary of Europe Ecologie-Les Verts (EELV). "These words are written, read and reread by his team and then spoken by the President of France. That no one noticed the problem shows a disconnect between the politicians and the scientists and environmentalists, who have been concerned about this for years, but also with young people, who are worried about their future."

"It is absolutely scandalous. By questioning the predictability of global warming, he is siding with the climate change deniers," said Aurélie Trouvé, La France Insoumise MP (LFI, left) and leader of her party on the renewable energy bill. "This sentence holds political weight. He is preparing his renunciations and his irresponsibility, even though he has been in office for six years. He can’t say he didn’t foresee the trajectories."

While the first deadlines are coming up fast, with the vote on the renewable energy bill taking place in the Assemblée Nationale on January 10, this speech casts doubt on the government's commitment to this matter.

During his presidential campaign, it seemed as though Mr. Macron wanted to make a shift. On April 16, 2022, in Marseille, he described energy transition as "the battle of the century" and ended his speech with a promise: "My policy over the next five years will be focused on the environment or nothing at all." Since then, he has set up new frameworks, including a general secretariat for ecological planning at the Prime Minister's residence.

But, despite an evening speech at the beginning of the Council of Ministers on August 24, 2022, on "the end of abundance," he hasn’t delivered a keynote speech since he started his second term. Rather than building a doctrine or a global narrative on the subject, Mr. Macron defended his pragmatic approach which is a mix of level-headedness, innovation and economic growth. "At the same time, France must rely on nuclear and renewable energies, which will allow us to, at the same time, reduce our energy consumption and decarbonize electricity," he stated in one of two YouTube videos he devoted to the environment at the end of the fall.

"Macron is having trouble in existing and being honest on this issue," said Emmanuel Rivière, international director for political studies at the Kantar Public Institute. "With regard to climate change, his 'at the same time' feels like a watered-down answer, while people are receiving countless opinions and information. In this context, prominent stances emerge more easily."

'The climate issue has taken hold in public opinion'

Some ecologists in the majority are increasingly skeptical about the president’s climate change ambitions and are counting on Elisabeth Borne, who is in charge of planning, to create projects under the watchful eyes of the French public.

In opinion polls, after the summer of 2019, climate change was overshadowed by concerns about purchasing power and the war in Ukraine. But in the Eurobarometer published in September 2022, it was the number four concern on the minds of Europeans.

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"There is a ratchet effect, the subject has taken hold in public opinion," said Pierre Cazeneuve, Renaissance MP. "The French are well aware that the climate is linked, in one way or another, to many other current events, such as our dependence on certain countries for fossil fuels or inflation. There is an awareness that the end of the month and the end of the world are intertwined. In our majority too, more and more MPs believe that there can be a third ecological way." Some scientists, disheartened by this New Year's Eve speech, still need to be convinced.

Matthieu Goar Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version.