Sarkozy and his “New Deal” on Environment : Tomorrow’s key challenges
PARIS — During his first three-day state visit to China, French President Nicolas Sarkozy called on Chinese leaders to join a global New Deal on environment in a speech he delivered at Beijing’s Tsinghua University. He urged counterpart Hu Jintao to play a greater role in promoting sustainable development and to go in-depth on energy and environment issues. To promote the idea, the French president wants to create a comprehensive partnership between the two countries within a framework of mutual confidence. This would mark a new phase in French-Chinese relations, which is the long-term goal of this visit.
But beyond this visit to China, the issue of environment has become, in the past months, one of Sarkozy’s main initiatives in France. Know as the “Grenelle de l’Environnement” (an analogy for the multi-party negotiation on Labor — called les Accords de Grenelle — during the May 1968 riots at the French Labor Ministry, located on the Rue de Grenelle in Paris), this unprecedented event brought, from July to October 25, “all the civilian and public service representatives together around the discussion table, thus forming 5 colleges: the State, unions, employers, NGOs and local authorities.”
As Sarkozy mentioned during the conclusion of this initiative, the Grenelle “is calling for a revolution in the way we think and the way we take decisions; a revolution in our behavior, in our policies, in our objectives and in our criteria.” For the next five years, a first set of measures were decided to push on new environmental reforms : France will promote energy saving, renewable energies (without putting an end to nuclear power), and adopt a biotechnologies law by the end of spring 2008. A halt in building new highways should be balanced with an increase in railway transport. The president will also launch a “carbon tax” on fossil fuels and will revise the Penal Code.
This initiative was supported by Al Gore and Jose Manuel Barroso, who will hold a conference on energy in January 2008.