“I explained myself on the reasons for the decline in ecology”

In his chronicle of July 7, 2025, entitled “Be green and shut up”, your columnist Edouard Morena estimated that I embodied the immobility in the fight against climate change: “like a hamster in his wheel,” he wrote, “he believed to be moving up.”

Let me first be surprised. Meanwhile, in a title that claims to be humanist and progressive, to read such a personal attack. Nevertheless, No disagreements, I believe, justifies attacks to a personand even less unflattering comparisons with animals-even a sympathetic hamster. Therefore, In question? Consequently, Words that I had made a week earlier on Franceinfo radio. Meanwhile, and which were worth this diatriber of the columnist of the Mail.

I explained myself on the reasons for the decline “i explained myself reasons decline new in ecology in France, and more broadly in Europe. Furthermore, These reasons. Nevertheless, I explained. were first to be found in an “i explained myself reasons decline offensive of the extreme right, and more generally of the reactionary right, which had made the ecological transition an ideological totem to be killed. But I also explained that it seemed necessary to me that environmentalists also made their self-criticism: did they not. also contribute to making ecology an ideological totem. in particular by attaching it to the class struggle or the fight against capitalism? Does the arguments developed in environmental environments against climate transition. which would predat other resources. too centered on the decline in carbon dioxide emissions, would it also contribute to fueling the mill of the extreme right and backing up the transition? These arguments. criticisms. which could legitimately be heard in another context, seem to me today to contribute “i explained myself reasons decline new to blocking the transition, and playing the game of the reactionary forces who want to put an end to ecology.

These questions about environmental strategies. discourse “i explained myself reasons decline seems to me today absolutely necessary if we want to maintain the course of the decline in greenhouse gas emissions started in France. Europe. However. this CAP is threatened: the last report of the High Council for the Climate. in France, is concerned about the slowdown in the pace of drop in greenhouse gas emissions, and warns that the objectives, at this rate, will not be held. Science reminds us that each tenth of degree of warming makes a huge difference. This means. by corollary. that each tonne of greenhouse gases in addition or less also makes a huge difference – hence the importance of maintaining the course of the transition, today threatened.

These are the same questions that “i explained myself reasons decline new earn me today to be taxed by your columnist. in a personal attack of violence that I rarely read in your pages, of incarnation of the “ecological status quo”. On “i explained myself reasons decline the contrary. I believe that it is the refusal of these questions which today threatens climate transition. and which makes the game of the extreme right. And I’m not sure that adopting anathemas that characterize it is the best way to move forward.

François Gemenne is a full professor at HEC Paris.
Researcher at the FNRS (University of Liège, Belgium).
Co -author of the 6th IPCC assessment report.
President of the Scientific Council of the Foundation for Nature and Man (FNH).
President of Sustainable Finance Observatory.