“We are deeply concerned about the way in which climate-biodiversity issues were made inaudible during the European and then legislative election campaigns,” note researchers Céline Guivarch and Christophe Cassou in their column.
This article is taken from the monthly Sciences et Avenir n°931, dated September 2024.
2024 is a dark year for the climate and biodiversity. One could imagine that this observation can be explained by increasingly frequent and severe extreme events in all regions of the world, all boosted by global warming. Repeated flooding in Pas-de-Calais, Beryl, the earliest category 5 hurricane in the Caribbean, etc. Certainly, but not only that!
Read alsoIn the Antilles, Hurricane Beryl poses “fatal” risks with winds of 180 km/h
Political instability
The year 2024 is also difficult because of the political upheavals that are occurring one after the other and are weakening actions for the preservation of biodiversity and the protection of the population against climate change.
Political instability in France is delaying the renewal of framework documents relating to climate (the National Low Carbon Strategy, the Energy-Climate programming law, etc.), which is undermining the credibility of the country’s action, as the High Council for Climate pointed out in a letter addressed in May to the then Prime Minister.
Read alsoEarly legislative elections: wind, photovoltaic, nuclear… the energy transition marks the great divide between political parties
Climate-biodiversity issues rendered inaudible
We are deeply concerned about the way in which climate-biodiversity issues have been made inaudible during the European and then legislative election campaigns. And ultimately, in the face of a National Assembly where climate skepticism, whether assumed or hidden, has progressed. This political moment further questions the communication of scientists on socio-environmental issues, which remains too disembodied.
More generally, it is the entire science-society contract that is shaken by the invisibility of scientific facts or even their misappropriation, in a context of generalized disinformation. This moment confronts us with a form of powerlessness that[…]
- sciencesetavenir.fr