GREEN GOES DIGITAL: French ecology minister Jean-Louis Borloo (left) and secretary of state for ecology Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet pose with "green revolution" proposals, contained in digital memory drives rather than printed on paper, ahead of a high-profile environmental summit. Image: AFP
‘'We must reorganise society before dwindling resources force us towards a society of restrictions . . . We have no alternative but to radically change the rules'
By Emma Charlton
Agence France Presse
PARIS, France - Green taxes on gas-guzzling cars, lower highway speed limits and eco-labels on supermarket food — French campaigners and businesses have a blueprint for a green revolution ahead of a high-profile environmental summit.
Big business, trade unions, government and environmental groups have been pulled together for the first time to draw up a green master plan that will be publicly debated and finalised at a summit chaired by president Nicolas Sarkozy late in October, 2007.
Environment minister Jean-Louis Borloo said: "We have no alternative but to radically change the rules and bring about an environmental revolution
Road transport allegedly accounts for 25 percent of France's greenhouse-gas emissions and was defined as a key priority, with plans to drop national speed limits by 10km/h.
Consumers would be steered away from powerful, gas-guzzling cars — which account for half of all new vehicle sales in France — through a system of annual bonuses/penalties based on the car's energy-efficiency.
Both ideas were proposed in 2003 but dropped in the face of protests from drivers' groups. Now studies suggest that attitudes are changing; 93 percent of respondents to an environment ministry poll said they were ready to make effort in their everyday lives to protect the environment.
Borloo said: "Our biggest challenge is to reorganise society before dwindling resources force us towards a society of restrictions
He cited Paris' successful bike-rental program as evidence that "sustainability is not a tragedy. It can be a source of innovation and happiness.”
Environmental NGO's say the summit, which will also focus on pesticides, genetically modified foods and nuclear power, is a watershed: after years of being shunned, activists are being invited to the negotiating table as stakeholders.
Sarkozy promised during his election campaign to convene the summit whose name in French, le Grenelle de l'Environnement, recalls a 1968 conference when government sat down with unions to end weeks of social unrest.
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A. Their birthplace