After meeting over 45 people in 4 days, you would think I had met everyone who was anyone when it came to French climate and agricultural policy, but they kept the best for last...
 Laurence Tubiana and Cara Augustenborg at European Climate Foundation, Paris | The morning started with a meeting at European Climate Foundation (ECF) with Ms. Laurence Tubiana. In addition to being President of ECF, Ms. Tubiana is also a member of France’s High Climate Council and Chairperson of the French Development Agency in addition to having been ambassador in charge of COP21 and a key architect of the Paris Climate Agreement. Think of her a bit like “M” from James Bond – A classy, intelligent woman with glowing white hair that had me girl-crushing as soon as she curled up on her grey sofa talking climate policy. |
I’ve admired European Climate Foundation for many years. Since 2008, they’ve used international philanthropic donations to work with over 500 organisations to develop climate solutions in Europe and activate political engagement and public awareness on climate change. Some of the great work coming out of my favourite Irish environmental NGOs is due to the support of ECF, so I was excited to let Ms. Tubiana know how far Ireland has come in going from climate laggard (half way) to leader thanks partially to ECF support.
There was no shortage of things to discuss with Ms. Tubiana. Working in the climate arena as an economist for as long as I have been alive, she is a fount of knowledge on everything from French agricultural policy to international climate negotiations. Our time together passed very quickly as we immersed ourselves in conversation. Ms. Tubiana agreed with a number of other experts I’ve spoken to that awareness and interest in the climate issue in France has risen very quickly. While six years ago, you couldn’t even talk about emissions reductions in French agriculture, now there is an acceptance that those emissions must decrease along with emissions from transport and energy. As a result, the idea of regenerative agriculture is gaining traction here.
As for what to focus on back in Ireland, Ms. Tubiana told me it was time to “bring the EU Green Deal home”. She warned that the challenge now will be in making sure the Deal is owned by society and that requires the need to communicate impending climate threats and solutions appropriately and to find allies in various sectors to dispute fake information. -Good advice for all of us working on climate action.
Ms. Tubiana wasn’t the only powerhouse I got to meet on my last day in France. The last time I was in Paris was for COP21, there was no one more photographed than the “FaFa” of climate negotiations, Mr. Laurent Fabius. Prior to holding the Presidency for the 2015 climate negotiations, Mr. Fabius was the youngest ever Prime Minister of France at 37 years old in addition to holding several other political roles. As a youthful 75 year old, he now serves as President of France’s Constitutional Council (i.e. Supreme Court) in addition to volunteering his renowned negotiation skills at UN climate conferences each year. Before arriving in France, I asked if there was a chance to meet Mr. Fabius, but I never expected him to agree.
 Cara Augustenborg with Laurent Fabius at the Constitutional Council, France. | I was thrilled when I found out I was being granted 45 minutes with President Fabius in the gilded offices of the Constitutional Council. Even more so when we lost track of time and ended up chatting comfortably for an hour and a half instead! I’ve met a few major politicians in my life, and I’m used to them being distant and sometimes a bit patronising in my company, so I was completely disarmed when President Fabius was neither of those. Instead, I met a man who seemed to want to pass on everything he knew about international climate negotiations so that I could go on to create better impact in my work too. He was humble and passionate, sometimes impatient about the slow pace of progress on climate yet still hopeful. |
Mr. Fabuis emphasized how important civil society engagement has been in pushing COP negotiations to be more effective, and he gave me excellent advice about how we could better influence the next COP to be held in Egypt in November 2022. He was open to my criticisms of the process and, rather than being preachy or patronizing as I expected, we had what felt like a real conversation between peers. I left feeling inspired to work harder in my own efforts back home to “keep 1.5 alive”.
I couldn’t complete a final day in Paris without yet another traditional fancy French lunch. This time, I was joined by researchers from France's National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE). The meeting gave me a chance to check everything I had heard previously on agricultural policy with experts in the field. As I summarized my findings, they smiled and said it was nice to hear an outsider’s perspective, which they felt was more positive than their view of always wanting more ambition. Maybe that’s the added value of bringing someone over from abroad to learn about your country’s work in a certain area. -While of course no country is doing enough yet to solve the global climate crisis, I can see the strengths of France’s efforts by comparing them to Ireland. I’ve also been able to give specific examples to the French experts I’ve met on where Ireland is achieving more compared to them, for example on how we are implementing carbon tax while they are still recovering from the yellow vest protests.
One interesting philosophical debate that came up over lunch was the concept of “land sharing” versus “land sparing” with respect to how we use land to address climate and biodiversity issues. It’s something I hadn’t put much thought into previously, yet an important topic when you look at the environmental measures in the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy. Often times, CAP environmental measures are geared toward setting aside land for conservation. However, in places like Europe, we simply don’t have enough land to set aside to completely fix environmental problems. Thus, a “land sharing” approach that encourages farmers to improve soil health and biodiversity while also growing food may be a more sensible CAP methodology in an EU context. This is something the researchers I spoke with think will become more prominent in the next CAP reform, especially as we develop better ways to measure environmental effects at the farm level.
My last meeting of the day was held at the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI), founded by Ms. Laurence Tubiana in 2001. There, I met two researchers in agricultural science and policy and our conversations focused specifically on biogas. Prior to arriving in France, I read that France had nearly reached its target to build 1,000 biogas reactors in the country by 2020. As Ireland has only about 50 biogas reactors, I wanted to hear more about how France’s biogas efforts are progressing. During my travels this week, I’ve heard a few bad things about biogas reactors: They can leak and contaminate groundwater; they compete with food production if the wrong feedstocks are used; and they can negatively impact biodiversity by encouraging large scale monoculture production, to name a few. In my conversation with experts in this area, I realized it was a complicated situation in France. While biogas can be a useful part of a renewable energy transition, it has to be considered as part of the agricultural transition to more sustainable practices too. At the moment, the jury is still out in France on whether biogas will be considered as part of both sectors or just the energy sector, which may be less concerned about environmental issues beyond climate change.
 | After meetings with over 50 people in five days, I enjoyed my final debrief with the Ministry of European and Foreign Affairs over a Champagne Bellini in Café de Flore, made famous as the inspirational venue for philosophers like Jean-Paul Sartre. My two guides spent most of the meeting re-scheduling transport and hotels as my Saturday ferry was cancelled due to bad weather. I’m delayed in Paris for another night. On one hand, this is the unfortunate cost of travel by sea. On the other, I’m quite happy to have a day to explore this magical city. It gives me a chance to see my favorite museum (Musee D’Orsay), having not been there since my late father first introduced me to it 20 years ago. |
This week, I’ve felt like Cinderella at the ball. How many times in one’s life do we get the opportunity just to learn for the sake of learning on any topic of our choosing without any expectation of outputs or exams? I can’t say I’ve ever been presented with such a gift before, and I plan to make the most of all this new knowledge on my return to Ireland.
| I’m particularly grateful to the French Embassy in Ireland for suggesting me to the Ministry of European and Foreign Affairs as a candidate for their remarkable “Future Leaders Invitation Programme” and to my hosts for the week -Pierre and George. The French are known for their sophistication, and these were two of the classiest I've ever had the pleasure of getting to know, leaving no stone unturned in making me feel welcome and comfortable for my entire stay (while also making me laugh a lot in the process!). I hope this is just the beginning of collaboration and friendship with the people I met this week. |  |
When I began blogging about this trip at the start of the week, it was simply as a way to keep all the meetings from merging in to one another. I wrote presuming no one would actually read them, so special thanks to those of you who wrote to tell me you were reading and enjoying my blogs each day, which kept me writing every night.
 | Until now, I hadn’t blogged in over two years, but in the words of Jean-Paul Sarte, “For an occurrence to become an adventure, it is necessary and sufficient for one to recount it.” Thank you all for helping this occurrence become a true adventure (of the mind and of my taste buds). Keep fighting the good fight. All going well on the high seas, I’ll be back in Ireland to fight it with you once again by Monday morning! - Cara |
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