What does progress mean in the face of the climate challenge?

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Erik Orsenna

Hello everyone!
Today, I have the great privilege to discuss with André Comte-Sponville. We know him well, he is a philosopher, but he is also a watcher of our society, of the evolutions of society, of the contradictions of society.
My first question, dear André, what is this energy transition? What does it mean? What's behind? What are the clashes? What is this necessity?
Is it a word or is it an upheaval?
Is it less serious than you think?
What is it deep down?

André Comte Sponville

It's more than a word, it's a necessity and it’s even already a reality. This reality is that we are moving towards an announced ecological disaster which is not the one we were talking about in my youth, at the time of the Rome report, which bet on the depletion of resources. Today, there are more than enough carbon resources on Earth to cause such catastrophic climate change that it is doubtful that humanity can survive it. And so we went from a logic of scarcity to a logic of excess. Climate disruption is caused by an excess consumption of carbon products, but also by their existence.
We are heading towards an announced ecological disaster, but it is not our fault. This is what I would like to say against certain overly guilt-inducing speeches. My idea is that we are punished where we have not sinned: it is written in the Bible: Increase and multiply. We believed in it and therefore we grew. We have multiplied and wham, we are punished.
We are 7 billion human beings. And of course, a good part of our consumption is directly correlated to the number of inhabitants of our planet. Remember that we were 1 billion in the 19th century, it took 300,000 years to reach the first billion and it only took two centuries to make the next six. Except that this overpopulation, which is largely at the origin of the problem, is not that we reproduce like rabbits. We have never had so few children. For 300,000 years, that had never happened. The problem is not that we are having too many children, it is that our babies no longer die young. We are not going to blame ourselves for it. It is a tremendous scientific, technical, but also simply human progress.
And then, the second reason for this disaster, not only are there more and more of us, but we are also consuming more and more. But why ? Because we want to live better, we want our children to live better than we have. This is called progress.
And this progress has tremendously accelerated since the industrial revolution. But when we see what remains of misery in the world and even in our rich countries, as the life of many people remains cramped, difficult, we are not going to blame them for wanting their children to live a little better than they do. To ensure that children no longer die in infancy is  tremendous progress. It is a victory. Living better than our parents or our ancestors is a second victory and whammy, we are heading towards an ecological disaster. We are punished where we have not sinned.
I add one last word. It's because I'm a little tired of the trivial anti-humanist discourse on humanity being a predatory species. It's true, we are a predatory species, like any carnivorous or omnivorous species by definition. Except that we also forget to say that we are the only ecological species because basically, we are fighting to preserve the whales, the elephants. Imagine humanity becoming an endangered species, which may happen one day. Believe me, no whale, no elephant will lift the smallest piece of fin or trunk to preserve the human species.
So yes, we have damaged the planet because of our large numbers, because of our standard of living and once again, how could we be blamed for it? On the one hand, it is not our fault, and moreover we are the only species to care about the rights of other species and that must at least be to our credit.
And so I refuse punitive ecology. We will not be able to escape binding measures, we will come back to it. But I refuse the guilt-inducing ecology that would like man to be the cause of all the evils of the earth through an excess of selfishness. Wanting our babies to stop dying in infancy, wanting our children to live as well as possible, that's not selfishness, that's love. This is basically what is most beautiful, most respectable in humanity.
And yet. And yet, we are well on the way to an announced ecological catastrophe. Climate change is extremely important and therefore we really have to bite the bullet, if I may say so. Refuse guilt, but above all not say: there is nothing to do, or let things develop as they are.
On the contrary, we must act and I would even say that it is urgent to act.

So precisely, since we are here to emphasize the possible by showing that the possible exists, that the possible is complicated, that the possible will cost a lot of money, that the possible will cost time... This possibility will lead to questioning ourselves, that is to say having to choose between contradictions.
I take this example from my dear Brittany. We don't want wind turbines, we don't want methanisation because there would be too much animal waste, we obviously don't want nuclear power, we don't want coal and yet we want to be independent. How do you overcome a contradiction? Even if, and I agree with you, you shouldn't feel guilty.
But how do we do it even though we are not responsible? It's quite complicated.

André Comte Sponville

So there are contradictions that relate to economics and contradictions, including those you mention, that relate more to psychology.
A word on the economic dimension. You rightly said that this energy transition will be extremely expensive, but therefore wealth must be created to finance it. And I would say that is one of the obstacles to degrowth policies. We must also say a word about it, because basically, there are only two ways to avoid this announced ecological disaster or to reduce it: either the decrease, or sustainable development.

Erik Orsenna

It's not the same thing at all.

André Comte Sponville

As for decrease, the word must be taken in the strict sense: instead of producing more and more, we produce less and less, in any case less than at a certain time. From a strictly and uniquely ecological point of view, degrowth would of course be the best solution and even the only solution, if we mean by solution - this is one of the meanings of the word - what makes the problem disappear .
I would rather be for this decrease, ecologically speaking. Except that it seems to me economically destructive, socially deleterious, and perhaps above all, politically suicidal. No political party will ever win an election by announcing a drastic reduction in the standard of living.
And so my idea is that the decrease will not take place. Part of me regrets it, but it is my intellectual analysis. Degrowth will not take place, at least as long as the human population continues to grow. So until 2050-2060 if we rely on demographers who announce a plateau phase around the middle of the century, followed by a decline which some think could be rapid while others think it will be long . But as long as the population increases, in other words for the next 30 years, the decrease seems impossible to me.
And so there is only sustainable development left. Sustainable development, that is to say, to continue to grow but to grow really differently.
And with regard to energy transition, in particular, by replacing as far as possible, but quickly, carbon energies, that is to say coal, oil, gas, by renewable energies or in any case non-carbonated. Nuclear power in particular, which the Bretons do not want but which the Normans, of which I am a part, ended up accepting. I am 50 kilometers south of Cap de la Hague, where there is one of the main nuclear power plants. Honestly, that doesn't particularly scare me. So there is nuclear power, and then there is above all, because that is undoubtedly the most promising way forward, the so-called renewable energies, the wind, the sun, biomass, energy from earth etc.
And so we must continue to grow in a sustainable way, by fundamentally changing the mode of growth and especially the energy resources  we use. The sooner we replace carbon energies with non-carbon energies, the better.

Erik Orsenna

There is a very interesting questioning of the two main categories of space and time. Thanks to these new technologies that we have at our disposal, there are no longer large, highly concentrated power stations, but units dispersed throughout the territory. So it's interesting because the energy mix can be combined at the scale, either of the city, or of the region, or of Europe.
So this is a first questioning of space.

André Comte Sponville

We used to say a few decades ago: think global, act local. And I believe that indeed, this also applies to the energy transition. We must think globally, because global warming, by definition, is planetary, but act locally as much as possible. And indeed, I believe, but this is not my area of expertise, in the multiplication of small units rather than the gigantism of a few large units. It remains that even the people who live in the Côtes d'Armor do not want a nuclear power plant in the far west of Finistère. And they will want even less a nuclear power plant next door. In other words, the smaller the energy production units, the more numerous they will be and therefore the greater the chance or risk that there will be one on your land or adjacent to your land.
And that brings me back to what I call the psychological dimension of the problem, which is that no one wants that in their garden or in the neighbor's garden. We are all full of contradictions. Almost all of us are convinced that there is indeed global warming linked to human production, and that an energy transition must be made. Yes, but where are we going to do it?
And that is why I think we will not escape binding measures. This is true for the energy transition in general, but it also applies to sobriety, the two phenomena are obviously linked because a good way to enable the energy transition is to consume less energy, and that is what is basically called sobriety. My idea is that, when it comes to energy transition and sobriety, I count little on the individual moral conscience of each of us, be it yours, dear Erik, or mine.
Let me take an example that struck me personally to illustrate this point. You should know, you may already know, that I am a father. You know that I am a philosopher. You may not know that I have no taste for cars and that I don't like speed at all. This means that on the motorway, I rarely drove above 140. I knew very well that it was limited to 130 but well, like everyone else, I put my speedometer rather at 140. 150, of course, that happened once in a while, when I was really in a hurry. Yes, 160, it happened to me too, but there, it was really exceptional, I had very good reasons.
Even though I had read the greatest philosophers in the world, loved my children passionately, didn't like cars and wasn't interested in speed, my speedometer remained at 140, 150, 160 kilometers per hour. Three small speed cameras, three small fines, three small points less off my driver’s license have been more effective in making me slow down than reading the greatest philosophers in the world, than the love I have for my children, than my absence of taste for cars and speed, what does that mean?
It's very curious, because basically, I would not say that I voted for the laws which limited speed, but I voted for the people who voted for it. I am absolutely for these measures as a citizen. But then, why, as a driver, did I not respect them? It's that as a citizen, the speed I want to limit is yours of course. As a driver, the speed I have limited is mine.
It's very interesting and rather positive, it means that I'm much more intelligent, lucid, reasonable as a citizen than as a motorist or as a consumer.
And therefore collectively, all the citizens, that is to say the sovereign people, has every chance of being more reasonable, more efficient, than the sum of the individual consumers, even if they are the same individuals. In both cases, there will be roughly 68 million French people, a little less if we only count adult citizens. 
And so I believe very little in the moral conscience of individuals. Of course, you have to be responsible. “Take showers rather than baths” but that’s not going to save the planet. I believe much more in political decisions, no longer for consumers, but for citizens, that we will all take together. Because once again, as citizens, we are more reasonable, more responsible than as individuals consumers.

Erik Orsenna

Therefore, sustainable development implies coercion. How can constraints be accepted in a democracy? I saw immediate changes in China: we stopped spitting, we allowed the Yellow River to find the sea by prohibiting farming methods.
How can constraints be accepted in a democracy?

André Comte Sponville

There are two conditions: to enforce the law, including through sanctions. First, the laws must be passed, of course, but we have to ensure that these laws are as fair as possible or in any case the least unfair possible.  Because in France, for very good historical and political reasons, any measure perceived as unequal has no chance of being accepted. Do not believe that justice alone, legality alone, will solve the problem. If we don't give ourselves the means to punish those who violate the law, the law will not be respected. Even if we love equality, it's our Jacobin side, we remain what some call refractory Gauls, and no people basically respect the law for the love of the law alone. So yes, you have to accept sanctions but in France, it is becoming more and more difficult simply to enforce the law.
Then, it is still necessary that these measures are the least unfair possible. And there it is complicated because for the energy transition, the simplest thing is to increase the cost of energy, of course. Except that the richest don’t care about it. They will take their plane, they can pay. The poorest will not even be able to take their car to work. And at the same time, if we make sure to compensate for the additional costs of the poorest, they will continue to take their car as before, we will not have scored any points.
And so the real question is where do we place the cursor so that the measure is effective? Basically, that people take their cars a little less, heat their homes a little less, but without making it so that the poorest can no longer move or heat themselves, of course. Too much egalitarian redistribution risks weakening the ecological scope of the measure, but if there is no redistribution in an egalitarian spirit or a spirit of justice, the measure has no chance of being accepted or applied. And so, it will take a great political, democratic debate to know where to place the cursor.
I alone will not solve the problem, but it will be difficult and I wish good luck to the political leaders that we will elect in the coming years.

Erik Orsenna

The other question, alongside this central question of equality and coercion, is the question of urgency. We are in an emergency and at the same time, we can clearly see that to have these measures accepted, we must discuss, we must take time. We will not achieve sustainable development in 100 days but we are running out of time.
So we are stuck between the constraint and the acceptance of the constraint and on the other side the urgency, with the time needed to build a consensus.

André Comte Sponville

Yes, that's the big advantage of dictatorships, it goes faster. You mentioned China, things go faster. Strangely, they last rather less long. The U.S.S.R. lasted roughly 70 years. It is not certain that communist China will last as long, maybe a little more, maybe a little less. We saw it in the case of the pandemic.

Erik Orsenna

I happen to be an ambassador for Pasteur. I saw very well how it was going. A bad vaccine, terrible management and things changed at some point.

André Comte Sponville

Exactly. They very quickly took a so-called zero Covid decision and then the zero Covid policy did not work. They found it difficult to change it because when a measure is imposed in such an authoritarian way, it would be necessary to recognize that the government was wrong, that the party was wrong and of course, no dictator, no totalitarian party likes to do that.
So let's not spit too quickly on democracies. It is true that there is a form of institutional slowness. Debates take time, but over the long term, we can still see that democracies are ultimately doing rather better than dictatorships.
And then there is something else. It will be very difficult, and this is one of my reasons for thinking that on certain measures, we could dream of a kind of national union, at least of the major Republican parties. I dream that before the elections, the Republican Left, the Republican Right, the Center agree on a common base that they undertake to apply, whoever wins. So obviously, let's imagine that the Left wins, they will make the common base plus certain leftist measures. If the Right wins, they would do the common base plus some right-wing measures.

Erik Orsenna

This is the principle of the Constitution a priori, we agree on a certain number of practices.

André Comte Sponville
Yes, except that this is not the Constitution, it is the energy transition.

Erik Orsenna

I know, but it's the integration of a consensus of society around a few principles, as if we were in a state of war.

André Comte Sponville

Yes, but there, it will be necessary to go further than principles. They would agree on what I would call a minimal program of energy transition, it being understood that the party or parties that have won the elections will be able to go further, but that they all undertake not to fall short of this programme. And this would perhaps make it possible to take difficult measures which will be unpopular, because once the three or four major parties have committed themselves to take at least these measures, the French people would end up accepting it. Especially since there is urgency, but that we are realizing it better and better. 
Remember the heat wave and the drought this summer. If around August in the middle of a dodger, we had proposed a referendum to take such and such a measure of energy saving or energy transition, maybe  we would have had more votes than six months earlier, in the middle of winter.
And so we need to be skillful. But what worries me is that France is perhaps the country where it is most difficult to have any model of national unity whatsoever. See how hatred is taking over our political debates, hatred against Macron right now. We have the right to be against raising the retirement age, but this hatred is disproportionate, this anger is disproportionate. Just as fear at the time of the pandemic also seemed disproportionate to me. In short, we live under a regime of passion rather than rationality and dominated by sad passions, as Spinoza called them, hatred, contempt, envy, anger, indignation rather than by the positive passions that would be joy, confidence, love or generosity. And in this very tense, very deleterious, very depressive climate, which is that of France today, I am a little worried because I am not sure that we are in a position to take the measures that should be. In particular to consider what I called this minimal pact allowing the energy transition.
A last word: what also makes us not really want to throw ourselves into it all the way, is that assuming that France does it alone, it doesn't change much on the scale of the planet. We are a small country, a medium power, but a small country and everyone feels that they would be ready to make an effort if it really changed the situation. And that is the whole problem of individual behavior. That is to say, if you take a shower or a bath, on the scale of your life, what will that change on a planetary scale? Basically, nothing.
And yet, if we don't all do it, we're heading straight to disaster. And so we will have to change our individual behaviors.
Once again, I don't believe much in individual moral conscience in this area, but we still have to appeal to responsibility, to a civic sense, to a humanist sense and then to the love we have for our children, which is without doubt the mightiest force, the most powerful motivation. We will also need, as I was saying, binding measures, which must of course be absolutely democratic, and therefore we need a democratic debate. But on the scale of a country, it is so ineffective that it is not very motivating.
And so we have to hope, but there, it's a bit like a dream or science fiction, planetary political decisions, at least European, if possible planetary. The national pact is already quite complicated. As for the European pact, which would be the minimum scale, it is extremely complicated when we are faced with crises, such as the crisis in Ukraine, such as the crisis of industrialization, although it is the correct scale. When it comes to Ukraine, Europe has gone much further than ever before in the direction of a European foreign policy, a European military policy. So we must not lose hope either, but it is true that it is difficult. And then on a global scale, it is even more difficult.
I've been saying for years: we don't need less economic globalization, we need more political and legal globalization. And so everything that is played out at the UN, at the WTO, at the World Bank, at the International Bureau of work in Geneva, these things must be developed because here again, a decision that would be taken on a world scale would be much more convincing and much more educational for each of us, as citizens and as consumers, than a measure taken by the government of a single country, in which case, inevitably, we get into political quarrels.
But it's my wish, it's my dream. For now, it's a dream, but I tell myself that the situation is likely to deteriorate, can only deteriorate, let's hope that the feeling of urgency will make what seems today a dream will become an effective possibility in a few years.

Erik Orsenna

This is perhaps what this pandemic has taught us, this notion of one health, the fact that we cannot treat ourselves alone. There are no borders in this area. We could see that basically, we got along pretty well, even if there were more vaccines in the North than in the South, but finally, we saw a roadmap in the face of an aggression
That was already significant, even if less than the catastrophe that awaits us.

André Comte Sponville

It's true, but it was the easiest case because a contagious disease is really a typical example of solidarity. By protecting myself, I protect others, by protecting others, I protect myself.
9 million human beings die of hunger or malnutrition every year, including 3 million children. How is it that we are much less mobilized for these 9 million deaths every year for decades than for the few million, once in the century, of this pandemic? It is because for those who die of malnutrition, protecting them does not protect me. And so protecting them would be an act of generosity or compassion.
You are right, the pandemic was an opportunity for solidarity but because indeed we were objectively united, the interests of some converging  with the interests of others. When it comes to world hunger, this is not the case. But when it comes to the climate it doesn’t either, or not necessarily.
Of course, no one has an interest in the climate taking off. But finally, there again, for the billionaire who continues to take his private jet, for you and me who continue to heat their swimming pool, even if I don't have one, there is not necessarily a convergence of interests.
Let's take an example that concerns me. I have a very good carbon footprint, I never fly for health reasons, I have ear problems, I don't drive that much, but I have a country house. Disastrous carbon footprint, it has to be heated in winter, I go there by car, of course. Am I going to give up my country house to save the planet? No, but for a strong reason: whether I have a country house or not does not change the date of the end of the world by one day. So it's not very motivating. And that is why once again we will need binding measures that are no longer a matter of morality or psychology but of politics.
You are right about the pandemic, but it was the easiest case because when faced with a contagious disease, by definition, the interests of some and the interests of others converge. Protecting others means protecting yourself and vice versa. When it comes to climate transition, this is much less true. Solidarity is less immediate, less obvious. And yet, ultimately, it is true, especially if we think of our children. If we want to protect our children, we need to act collectively to limit global warming. This obviously assumes that we take effective and urgent measures for energy transition and sobriety.

Erik Orsenna

André, you are the embodied proof that there is nothing more concrete than philosophy.

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