"How are local elected officials tackling the energy transition in the territories?"

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Erik Orsenna

Today, I am very pleased to welcome Carole Delga, President of the Occitanie region, a region we love, a region of legend so greatly invested in the future. Carole is also the President of the regions of France. It is this level of the region that we would like to explore because energy has long been approached through centralisation, following the Jacobin tradition where decisions were made in a few Paris offices. 

Now there is the European dimension, as we have seen with the Russian gas trap. And the regional dimension, although there is not the same potential for energy mixes in regions such as Brittany and the Occitanie region. 

Carole Delga, can you explain to us in concrete terms what the regional level means for energy?

Carole Delga

I would like to emphasise that the region is the right level for thinking about energy. This makes it possible to develop renewable energy policies at the right level to reconcile acceptability through explanation and local and participatory democratic processes while deploying an effective renewable energy production policy. We really need to act in tandem with the State, because certain subjects, in particular nuclear energy or negotiations with Europe, must of course be dealt with at the State level. 

However, we must maintain a very strong capacity for action, a capacity for co-development on the issue of standards and the level of production, in order to provide a real answer on the issue of global warming and the need to develop renewable energies. 

For example, it was at a regional scale that we were able to increase thresholds for floating wind turbines for example. Initially, the threshold was far too low and all the French coastal regions joined together to make a pact, the Narbonne pact.

Erik Orsenna

The Narbonne pact, I love that. It feels a bit like energy rugby.

Carole Delga

Right. All the regions united to present arguments to raise this threshold. The government finally listened to us after several months of forceful dialogue. It demonstrated that by being united, the regions have been able to make the right arguments. There are multiple examples, such as on the acceptability of photovoltaics or methane.

This regional level must really be part of a European energy policy. Indeed, we experienced being dependent on Russian gas, and we have seen the disadvantages of setting electricity prices at the European level. We need to have a much stronger European ambition in terms of energy, whether in terms of production methods or pricing. We need to have national and regional variants of energy policies.

Erik Orsenna

That’s very interesting. So there are three relevant levels. There's the European level, as you explained so well. There's the national level, of course, which continues to be important as we have seen. And then there is the regional level. 

What interests me very much is also your other role as President of the regions; actually, it seems as though the regions have come together in unison to each pursue a different project from the others. So we're both united and diverse.

Could you explain the issues of acceptability to me? In Brittany, where I hail from, my fellow Bretons don’t want anything. They don't want wind power, they don't want nuclear power, they don't want coal, they don't want methane and they want to be independent. So there's a little problem.

Carole Delga

We must be aware that the environmental and energy transition requires political courage and of course conviction, but it must also involve acceptance. I hear some very dogmatic positions flourishing, which almost go so far as to challenge the need for democracy, advocating authoritarian methods on the pretext of an environmental emergency. That's a real step backwards, and it won't help us achieve our greenhouse gas reduction targets. Acceptability and democratic debate must always be a prerequisite for any emergency, even a climate emergency, and I'm very aware of the serious deterioration of the planet.

Erik Orsenna

This is an absolutely key point, because in all areas there is the temptation to say: “Democracy is incapable of fostering long-term values. Let's choose other methods and that way we'll be able to respond to the emergency", assuming that we can supposedly reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the cost of dispensing with democracy.

Carole Delga

I think this is a deadly trap for humanity. We must always, always be in the business of explanation, democratic support, popular support. And we cannot be a group of know-it-alls, a group of experts or a group of elected representatives who make decisions in a vacuum and don't take the time or make the effort to explain. Because when we go out into the field, when we explain the projects and the issue of energy sovereignty, people understand. The first reaction is the one you mentioned, Erik, i.e. “not in my backyard”, always in the neighbour’s garden. It is the same problem for waste, for the question of energy. But when we explain to our fellow citizens that we have an urgent need to act, and they are well aware of this, with warming, with rains and storms that are increasingly violent, with droughts, including winter droughts that we have experienced for the first time in France – they understand that we cannot continue with this development model. 

We must therefore have an energy mix because we need nuclear for sovereignty, but at the same time we need to develop renewable energies to decarbonise energy and decarbonise our economy. 

When we say renewable energies, we need projects. So we need to explain that methanisation plants, which collect unused waste from our farmers nearby, provide renewable energy. We need to develop floating wind turbines in a big way, because they have the capacity to reconcile fishing needs with the development of renewable energy. Photovoltaic, on polluted soil, is the right solution.

So we must take the time to explain, go into each local area. Regional natural parks can often be used to tell the population: “Take your destiny into your own hands. What energy mode do you think best suits you? "Do we go for hydroelectricity? Do we go for photovoltaics? Should we go for wind power, onshore or offshore? This is the mix we need to compare, and it is this awareness that will make renewable energies acceptable and ultimately lead to a major increase in production. 

We need to address the issue of acceptability. All regional Presidents, each in their own way, implement consultation processes. And then we must also always link the environmental issues with the social issues. We cannot opt for unfair policies that continually penalise the poorest. There has to be acceptance in terms of democratic support, but there also has to be acceptance in terms of social justice.

Erik Orsenna

This is an absolutely key point. I recently spoke about this with Grégory Doucet, the mayor of Lyon. We realised that it's the people of Lyon who are the most deprived, who go on the fewest holidays, who have the fewest trees, who didn't have any swimming pools until a recent project emerged, and so on. So acceptability is not something abstract, it also means listening to the viewpoints of the most vulnerable. There simply is no other way.

Carole Delga

What was behind the "yellow vests" demonstrations? They were poor workers whose car use was taxed too heavily when they had no other options. So, of course I am for electric vehicles, but with subsidies that allow the poorest to buy vehicles that have a high cost. At the same time, we need to create an industrial sector, otherwise we will have electric cars produced on the other side of the planet, which will be bad in terms of environmental impact. But we have to help our populations. The mayors and presidents of the regions are well aware that the poorest people live in poorly insulated homes because they don't have the money to renovate them.

In Occitanie, we have set up an advance payment scheme for subsidies. At the moment, there are a lot of grants that are either not known about or difficult to get because of the administrative hurdles. And when you're on a low income, you can't pay for the work in advance while you're waiting for the grant. This is why the regions, and the Occitanie region in particular, are setting in place advance payment mechanisms for energy renovation works. Because it is the people in financial difficulty who have the highest energy bills and who suffer the most from both hot cold and hot conditions. 

When it comes to social justice, policies must also be implemented in public spaces that enable quality of life. In urban environments, we need re-greening on a large scale. In school grounds, we have to remove the bitumen and put back permeable soil. In Rouen, they open school grounds during school holidays to allow people who live in multi-family buildings to have access to a green meeting place, with islands of freshness that are also islands of community. By doing so, we are tackling both social isolation and global warming.

The environmental issues must be explained and made acceptable, without taking a doctrinaire position and without recourse to authoritarianism. And they must also be linked to social issues by giving more to those who are the biggest victims of global warming. This is an objective that I have as President of the Occitanie region.

Erik Orsenna

In essence, we must get beyond the contradictions. What you said is of major importance. First of all, we can’t abandon democracy just because there is an emergency. Secondly, we can see that in authoritarian countries, even if we improve two or three things, there have never been so many coal mines and pollution. On the other hand, we can’t abandon justice simply because there some sort of environmental emergency.

This involves re-examination pretty much across the board, and I can sense that you are taking an extremely clear political line, from the examples you have given on a daily basis.

Carole Delga

We need to reconcile the environmental with the social, and the environmental with the economic. Actually, I am convinced that decent jobs must be created in green professions, because work is emancipatory. And by bringing together the various issues, we can also bring about reconciliation. In the course of politics, as the origin of the word implies, in urban management, in our approach to cities, we need to be in the business of bringing together and reconciliation.

Erik Orsenna

And what sort of targets are you working to?

Carole Delga

Our target for Occitanie is to be the foremost energy positive region in Europe. We will double renewable energy production by 2050. We also want to halve energy consumption with a lot of work on energy renovation. I cited the example of the advancing of grants. And then we also need to reduce our energy consumption and the first sector is transport. That is why we need massive investment in public transport. And in this regard, all the presidents of the regions of France have requested a sort of Marshall rail plan, at the European and French levels, to be able to provide more trains, to develop urban rail networks, with connections in rural and mountainous areas too. 

For Occitanie, we firmly believe in free public transport.

Erik Orsenna

You have proved that.

Carole Delga

This is what the Mayor of Montpelier will do, with completely free entry to the Montpellier metropolitan area from December. In Occitanie, we have also proved this since for several years we have set train journeys at 1 euro. In 2022, with 13 million tickets priced at 1 euro, 13 million people took the train. 

We need massive investment in public transport infrastructure and, at the same time, we must work on pricing to reconcile infrastructure and social pricing.

Erik Orsenna

It's a train to the future for everyone.

Carole Delga

Exactly, it is a train to the future for everyone and a train that must be on time.

Erik Orsenna

Yes, on time, and also on time for the future. 

Thank you very much, Madam President, for not abandoning your values because of an emergency. My sincere thanks.

Carole Delga

Thank you, Erik, speak to you soon.

Listen to the podcast (in French)

Carole Delga was born on August 19, 1971 in Toulouse and grew up in Martres-Tolosane, in Comminges, in the Pyrenees, where she still lives.

Quickly realizing the importance of work and its power of emancipation, she embarked on university studies in Toulouse and Montpellier, then joined the local civil service. From 1994 to 2008, she was responsible for historical and archaeological heritage in Limoges and then director of a water and sanitation union.

Between 2008 and 2014, she was elected and then re-elected Mayor of her village, Martres-Tolosane, as well as Member of Parliament for Comminges in 2012. In 2014, she was appointed Secretary of State in charge of Commerce, Crafts, Consumption and of the Social and Solidarity Economy to the Minister of the Economy. In 2016, she became the first president of the new Occitanie / Pyrenees-Mediterranean Region and was reappointed in 2021, with a score that made her the best re-elected regional president in France. Less than a month later, she also took over as head of Régions de France, whose mission is to represent all French regions to the French public authorities and European institutions.Li