HASfter a long suspense, COP27 ended with mixed results. The creation of an aid fund for poor countries affected by climate change has been rightly welcomed. But key points, including fossil fuels, have been treated as if it were still possible to ignore the urgency in which we find ourselves. It is difficult not to see in this second point a reason to continue to despair; especially in a context which, with the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, has for months posed another danger.
However, it is indeed possible to consider the situation in a positive light. This is the whole paradox of the global drama brought about by the Ukrainian tragedy and its multiple geopolitical consequences. Because, if the world seems more than ever on the edge of the precipice, a path finally seems to be opening up within intellectual spheres, public debate… and even, therefore, within international summits from which we no longer expected much. . A path towards a real consideration of the ecological question, in its triple physical, biological and political dimension.
Let us consider, without being exhaustive, the contributions to the public debate from the intellectual world over the past months. Without even mentioning the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), nor academic or activist works, nor the latest books from big names in ecology and remaining in relatively short or affordable formats by non-specialists, many publications enriched the discussion. There was the issue of the magazine Green devoted to“war ecology” in all its dimensions, under the leadership of the philosopher Pierre Charbonnier.
New convergences
There was the Global Inequality Report 2022 [Seuil, 496 pages, 24 euros] including a chapter on carbon inequalities, and the note by Jean Pisani-Ferry and Selma Mahfouz documenting the macroeconomic difficulties that the ecological transition will cause. There was still the report that the Rousseau Institute devoted to fossil fuels seen as “new subprime” or, to go beyond the French borders alone – because this movement obviously exceeds them –, the latest edition of the world panorama published by the International Energy Agency, the World Energy Outlook.
If contradictions persist, new convergences emerge from this work, beyond scientific knowledge, which we absolutely must take seriously. We tend to forget it despite the evidence: ecology and economy proceed from the same etymology. Strictly speaking, one claims to study our house, the other to govern it. The tragedy is that with this decoupling the first has literally rendered itself powerless and the second insane. More than any other sectoral measure, if we want to be able to finally act effectively, it is therefore to bring them together that we must first proceed. Now, this is precisely what these new convergences now seem to make possible.
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