“The scientific, not to say ideological, basis of the Blanchard Tirole report on the climate leads to blindness to essential questions”

Tribune. The report of the cinternational commission chaired by Olivier Blanchard and Jean Tirole intends to meet three major economic challenges of our time: climate, inequalities and insecurity, and demographic change.

The choice to limit environmental issues to climate alone is problematic, because it leads to abandoning the others … It is behind the European taxonomy which will organize the relationship between finance and environment around six environmental objectives: the mitigation of climate change ; adaptation to climate change; sustainable use and protection of aquatic and marine resources; the transition to a circular economy; prevention and reduction of pollution; protection and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystems.

The strong systemic dimension of these closely related questions makes it necessary to deploy diverse and complementary assessment processes and political tools.

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However, the report presents carbon pricing as the ultimate tool, focusing all its criticisms on the shortcomings of sectoral measures: economic inefficiency, windfall effects, leakage … For those who only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Economic rationality seen from the sole angle of monetarization can easily be applied only to the climate: it is therefore tempting for its defenders to limit their field of consideration to the climate issue alone.

Small size operations

The second limitation of the Blanchard-Tirole report is the report’s focus on disruptive technologies and innovation, leaving aside “low tech” innovations and those concerning the organization and economic and social models.

In fact, the report sheds a scientifically established light on the management of certain technologies and international trade. It is indeed quite legitimate to finance the development of strategic photovoltaic technologies, the storage of electricity, the hydrogen vector or the sequestration of carbon.

It is also entirely justified to set up a carbon tax at borders that can offset carbon prices, which vary from country to country. Finally, it is just as necessary to apply a careful economic evaluation of climate actions which can generate, depending on the report, a cost ranging from 5 euros to 1000 euros per tonne of CO.2 not issued.

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