Fourteenth International Conference on Climate Change: Impacts & Responses

Abstract

Following the French President’s speech of 25 April 2019 in which Emmanuel Macron announced a change in the decision-making process regarding the ecological transition agenda, a Citizens’ Convention for climate change was set up in October 2019. Unprecedented democratic experiment in France and inspired from the Irish citizens’ assemblies, the mandate and the objective of this Convention were to rethink all concrete and practical measures designed to help French citizens cope better with climatic change in the fields of transports, housing insulation and home energy-efficiency improvements with the view to rendering them more efficient; to design complementary incentives or restricting measures and their financing. Following 8 months of discussion and debate, the Citizens’ Convention on climate made public its 150 proposals on 18 June 2020, which are groups into 6 clusters namely housing, food, consumer behaviour, means of transport, and means of production. The proposals which also included constitutional amendments were communicated to the government and Parliament, and in February 2021, an amendment of Article 1 of the Constitution to include the “concepts of biodiversity, environment and fight against climate change” and a Bill on the fight against climate change and on resilience strengthening in the face of its effects (the Climate and Resilience Bill/Act) were presented to Parliament. This paper provides a critical analysis of this legislative follow-up of the Convention’s proposals, notably of the Climate and Resilience Act adopted on 20 July 2021.