Paris Climate Discord

Back in the day New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman lobbied hard for a carbon tax. It’s the only way to save the planet, he opined, and it’s great economic policy.

Today, French president Emmanuel Macron, upon returning to rioting in his capital city and throughout his nation, wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed, calling for consequential action to fight climate change.

Tone deaf… comes to mind.

Citizens in different parts of France have donned yellow vests to protest, violently, the imposition of a tax on diesel fuel. Apparently, more taxes will mean less diesel fuel burned. And less diesel fuel burned will do wonders for the climate. At the least, it will allow France to comply with the terms of the Paris Climate Accord. You know the PCA, President Donald Trump withdrew from it and was denounced for having defiled the pristine purity of Mother Nature.

And yet, people who drive trucks and diesel-fueled automobiles will suffer. French citizens are being crushed by taxes... this one was one too many. Thus, they have revolted.

So, Macron is caught between Scylla and Charybdis, between a rock and a hard place. Either he caves on his climate tax and looks weak or he watches his country go up in flames.

Zero Hedge has the details (via Maggie’s Farm):

The reported size of the protest has varied between 36,000 and 75,000 yellow vests, while last week saw over 110,000 protesters at the Champs-Elysées in central Paris. Over 400 arrests were made and 113 injured in Saturday's unrest which began on November 17 over a hike in diesel taxes, but has grown to a general protest of Macron and his government. Macron's popularity rating has plummeted to just 26%, while opinion polls for the 2019 parliament elections predict that right-wing Marine Le Pen's National Rally party will be level - or far ahead - from Macron's La République En Marche.

"The violence is increasing at an exponential rate," said Claude, a resident in the affluent 16th district according to Reuters. "The state is losing control, it is scary. They cannot let this happen. Maybe the army should intervene."

It would be nice if it were a left/right conflict. But leaders of the radical left and the radical right agree that the taxes should be rescinded. They also want new elections to be called.

… Jean-Luc Melenchon, head of hard-left party La France Insoumise (France Unbowed) and far-right leader Marine Le Pen, … both demanded the government unwind its fuel tax hikes. They called for parliament to be dissolved and snap elections held.

So, let’s call the protests for what they are, a populist rebellion against a brain dead elitist class that wishes to impose its will and to enact its dogmas on an unwilling populace.

The Toronto Globe and Mail reports that serious French celebrities, like famed actress Juliette Binoche, are all-in on the diesel tax. Don't you know, when it comes to environmental policy what really matters is what actors and actresses think:

In September, just a few days after French President Emmanuel Macron’s environment minister resigned to protest the watering down of his policies, actress Juliette Binoche tapped 200 like-minded artists to sign a manifesto calling for “firm and immediate” action on climate change.

“We are living through a planetary cataclysm,” said Ms. Binoche, in a missive published in Le Monde alongside the likes of director Pedro Almodovar, actor Jude Law and writer Michael Ondaatje. “We thus consider that any political action that does not make fighting this cataclysm its concrete, declared and assumed priority will no longer be credible. We consider that a government that does not make saving what can still be saved its first objective will no longer be taken seriously … It is a question of survival. It cannot, by consequence, be considered secondary.”

Do you get it? Celebrities, people who have neither expertise nor knowledge about the climate, are beating the war drums for action against climate change. As it happens, President Macron is on board:

Mr. Macron gives the impression of trying hard. It was the French President, after all, who vowed to “make the planet great again” after U.S. President Donald Trump announced his intention to pull out of the Paris accord. Mr. Macron has pledged to spend more than €70-billion ($110-billion) on renewable energy subsidies by 2028.

And, starting on Jan. 1, his government is set to implement a carbon tax that will increase the per-litre price of diesel fuel used by most French motorists by 26 centimes (39 cents) by 2022.

It’s not the least irony that Macron’s climate change policy was designed to be a rebuke to President Trump. How smart does that look now?

The Globe and Mail sees the protests going international.

There are parallels between what is happening in France and almost every other developed country, including Canada, as comfortable urban elites seek to impose their climate change agenda on a broader population just struggling to pay its bills and earn an honest buck. No amount of hand-wringing over the fate of the planet, be it by the IPCC or by the likes of Ms. Binoche, is going to resonate with people who do not feel the elites have their interests at heart.

The exception must be the American government, which is not trying to impose a climate change agenda on an unwilling populace. But, then again, we Americans are not smart enough to allow celebrities to lead policy debates.