This Wednesday, June 14, 2023, the organizations involved in the « The Case of the Century » (l’Affaire du Siècel), Oxfam France, Greenpeace France and Notre Affaire à Tous, have submitted a new memorandum to the administrative court of Paris. They observe that the State has not taken all the necessary measures to address the ecological damage and therefore ask the court to impose a financial penalty of 1.1 billion euros to compel the State to act.
The State has not implemented the necessary structural measures commensurate with the challenges and needs to address climate change. That is why the « Case of The Century » presents a new element in the legal proceedings against the State, represented by several ministries of the government. The organizations request the administrative court of Paris to demand that the State take additional measures and pay a sum of 1.1 billion euros for the first nine semesters of accumulated delay (122 million euros for each additional semester of delay). The objective is to force the government to implement structural measures for France to sustainably reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.
For the organizations involved in the « Case of the Century » « The government has not implemented the judge’s decision made in October 2021 since it has not taken measures to make up for its delay. However, the longer France takes to establish a comprehensive climate policy commensurate with the challenges, the more expensive the transition to address the impacts of past inaction will be. By failing to fulfill its responsibilities today, the government is indebting future generations. »
To establish this amount, the organizations relied on the Quinet method, also known as the « climate action value, » which was defined by an expert commission chaired by the high-ranking official Alain Quinet, who was an economist at the time within the cabinet of Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin. The climate action value assesses the cost above which it becomes more expensive to repair the impact of emitted CO2 tons than to invest in avoiding them. Although the Technical Interprofessional Centre for Air Pollution Studies (Citepa) recently calculated a significant decrease in CO2 emissions, this effort is not attributable to structural policies implemented by the government to rectify the situation but rather to circumstantial factors: the still noticeable effects of the 2020 health crisis, an unusually mild winter, the energy crisis, and price inflation have contributed to a significant reduction in energy consumption and, therefore, greenhouse gas emissions.
However, the government has repeatedly claimed to have fulfilled its objectives. Nevertheless, it has refused to allow the « Affaire du Siècle » access to the list of measures implemented, despite the intervention of the Commission for Access to Administrative Documents (CADA) that supports the organizations. In a context where everyone can now feel the impacts of the climate crisis, the organizations involved in the « Affaire du Siècle » remain more mobilized than ever and vigilant to ensure that the State takes the necessary structural measures to protect citizens.
Find the media kit (in French)
Consult the memorandum submitted to the Administrative Court (French).
