Above all the President of the Republic that will adopt it will remain in history

How do you consider the U.S. stimulus plan

The last version of the Obama plan is revolutionary: considering that his country is economically on his knees and that a crisis is an opportunity for initiating profound changes, he chooses to implement a reform of the Medicare and decided to create a market of CO2 with an auction total of CO2 quotas. His Chief of staff said that "should not spoil a crisis" and that is the philosophy that it applies: everything goes wrong in the present, so investing in the future! Europe would do well to emulate. During the years 2000, the US Government was thrown into scientific obscurantism, but the United States is preparing to resume the ecological leadership. The crisis of the 1930s had resulted under Roosevelt on the social State, this could well, with Obama, lead to the ecological state.

Europeans have a head start!

The European Union is still the world leader in the fight against climate change. It has implemented a market of CO2 as early as 2005, but it shows signs of weakness and had his second crash in recent months. The "energy-climate package" adopted by the 27 Member States in November last year is a necessarily imperfect compromise, but the decision to auction that very gradually permit emission is an error. With respect to the fiscal stimulus, the Union did not take the extent of the emergency, plans remaining below the critical size of 2 of GDP. The modesty of their green part does not allow European societies towards a sober carbon economy. In comparison, a small country like the South Korea, a catastrophic situation, decided to act fast and hard with a recovery plan, equivalent to the France but devoted to 80 in the green growth. China itself seems more convinced that the Europe of the need for a strong and sustainable recovery.

The Japanese plan exceeds 10 of GDP, but plans to make free tolls!

There is often a very wide gap between ecological rhetoric and the reality of the efforts made, including the United Kingdom and the Japan. The Japan is one of the few developed countries not to be fixed CO2 emission reduction objective. The green part of its stimulus package is extremely low, sign of contradiction between an immediate stimulus for jobs, even develop sites generating gas greenhouse as motorways, and a green conversion of long-term, complex sites and new skills.

Is the carbon tax applicable in times of crisis

No one denies that this is a difficult political decision, but it is easier after the collapse of oil prices. Above all, the President of the Republic that will adopt it will remain in history. Because the carbon tax, which will weigh progressively on the price of fossil fuels and will report rise them in the long term, will commit changes in behaviour. In my view, the real French economic recovery plan is the Grenelle of the environment, including carbon tax, which should accelerate the implementation. The study of impact of the text sales investments to EUR 440 billion over 12 years, 36 billion per year (2 of GDP). If it speeds up in 2009 and 2010 to 60 billion per year, this would correspond to more than 3 of GDP.