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Cara goes to France Day 5: Occurrence becomes adventure

12/11/2021

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

Read other blog posts from my trip here

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Cara goes to France Day 4 - From Fork to Farm

12/9/2021

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I started today meeting representatives from the Ministries of Agriculture and of European and Foreign Affairs. Aside from enjoying the great city views from their meeting rooms, it was also a good way to check my thoughts about what I’ve learned so far from my week in France. Both departments gave me more insight into specific details in the areas of climate and agricultural policy, which I’m hoping will develop into some kind of lessons Ireland can learn from the French experience.

For lunch, I joined the Mayor of Paris’ 12th district, Mrs. Emmanuelle Pierre-Marie, at a local primary school. Mayor Pierre-Marie is a recently elected Green Party member bursting with passion and energy.

I particularly enjoyed our lunchtime discussion about how she plans to transform her district over the next five years to make it more pedestrian friendly.

Mayor Emmanuelle Pierre-Marie with Cara Augustenborg

Currently, cars and motorcycles represent just 12% of the transport in the area but take up 50% of the public space. Mayor Pierre-Marie has been engaging widely with residents to create far more pedestrian areas. In fact, most of the schools plan to pedestrianize the streets outside their front doors over the next few years to make them safer for children.

Mayor Pierre-Marie is also responsible for logistics of all the schools in her district and serving healthy lunches is a big part of that responsibility. Over 9,000 students in the district are served hot lunches daily thanks to the efforts of approximately 150 canteen staff across the district. Over 70% of the food served is either organic, locally produced or certified as sustainable in some way, and the students are served a vegetarian meal at least one day a week. Once a year, all the students weigh their leftovers before disposing of them in a compost bin so that the school can track food waste and educate students more on the importance of reducing it. The schools also survey the students annually to improve the menu but always insist on serving a green vegetable as part of every meal.

I enjoyed my school lunch of chicken noodle soup, mushy peas, ham and baguette with flan for dessert, all served on a stainless steal tray that weighs less than a plastic tray and doesn’t require the hassle and weight of extra plates. This means both kids and staff don’t have to lift as much and can clean up faster, in addition to reducing plastic use. I was thrilled at the end of my tour when Mayor Pierre-Marie sent me away with two of these beautiful trays to bring back to Ireland. I’m hoping someone in my life might love me enough someday to bring me breakfast in bed on them. They can also double as a bullet proof vest!

Joking aside, the trays and the school visit inspired me to revisit the issue of school dinners in Ireland. In 2015, Ireland’s Green Party developed a great policy proposal to bring hot school dinners to every school child in the country at a cost of EUR 350 million and create hundreds of local jobs in the process. Political pundits said it was a well-researched, rock-solid proposal but yet it has gone nowhere yet to my knowledge. At the school I visited in Paris, children get one hour to eat a hot organic lunch and another hour afterwards to play. My 11 year old gets 10 minutes to eat a packed lunch at her desk in silence. If the children talk during lunch, they don’t finish their food on time so they are discouraged from doing so. This has always bothered me as I feel it creates an unhealthy relationship with food to make kids eat quickly in silence, but I’ve always felt like a lonely voice and been dismissed repeatedly at parent-teacher meetings for raising this.

During my visit to this Parisian school, I couldn’t help but feel my frustration bubbling once again as French students happily chatted amongst themselves over local, organic food and I thought about my kid back home and wondered “why can’t we have nice things like this”? As the school’s Principal pointed out to me, if we want the next generation to make smart consumption choices, we have to start educating them and teaching healthy habits in school now. We have so far to go in Ireland in this respect and a growing childhood obesity crisis in the meantime.

After that dose of inspiration from my school dinner, I headed from "fork to farm" 200km west of Paris to the Pays de la Loire region of France to visit a 150 hectare dairy farm that is part of France’s Low Carbon Farm Initiative. Part of me felt that this might be a bit of an oxymoron because cows can’t help but emit lots of carbon, but after several hours exploring every nook and cranny of Ghislain and Charlotte de Viron’s Low Carbon Farm, I’m convinced.

Ghislain and Charlotte are originally from Belgium but moved to France in 2001 to avail of the lower prices for entering farming before dairy quotas were abolished. Both came from farming backgrounds. Ghislain told me he was first inspired to look at his farm’s carbon footprint 15 years ago when he saw an airline magazine claiming airplanes emitted less carbon than cows. He was offended by this because he always felt he did his best to ensure his farming practices were sensitive to environmental issues. Ghislain and Charlotte became part of France’s Low Carbon Dairy Farm initiative when it was launched as a pilot project of 4,000 farms in 2013, funded in part by the EU. The initiative has since become an industry led, voluntary programme of over 14,000 farms (approximately 25% of France’s dairy farms). Farmers involved in the initiative pay about EUR 800 for a sustainability audit from a trained Cniel representative and then take on various voluntary initiatives over time to reduce their environmental impact. This includes measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve water and air quality, and enhance biodiversity. The audit uses a life cycle approach so the environmental impacts of imported products like feedstocks and fertilisers are also included in the assessment. Why can’t we have these nice things?

Ghislain took us on a tour of his whole farm, pointing out every detail of his practices, including the wide variety of feed his cows eat (spelt, sorghum, sileage, etc.); his fields of clover, rye grass, corn and other species; and his impressive rooftop solar array producing 290,000 kWh of electricity and grossing EUR 10-15,000/year! Why can’t we have these nice things?

Ghislain was honest about the challenges of low carbon farming – particularly the use of about 2% of soya as a feed stock for his cows. He’s doing his best to minimise use of this South American import while also giving the right nutrition to his herd to ensure their milk meets requirements to produce Emmental cheese. He’s hoping soya alternatives continue to develop so he can move away from it entirely. In the meantime, he produces most of the fodder on site (150 tonnes of cereals) to feed his 110 cows that he milks year round, producing 1,000,000 litres of milk annually. Through his current lower carbon farming practices, Ghislain believes he has reduced his carbon footprint by 20% already and has plans to go further. My heart sang when Ghislain pointed out to me that the lower lifetime of methane in the atmosphere (approximately 12 years compared to carbon dioxide’s lifetime of hundreds of years) presents a great opportunity to address climate change faster if we prioritize methane’s reduction. Why can’t we have these nice things (and nice attitudes!)?

I was joined on my farm tour by two representatives of the dairy industry group, Cniel, who lead the Low Carbon Farm Initiative. They explained that the French dairy sector has already reduced emissions by 20% between 1990 and 2005 and aims to reduce by a further 20% between now and 2030. Why can’t we have these nice things?

While just 25% of dairy farms are part of the Low Carbon Farm Initiative now, Cniel aims to increase this to 50% by 2025. They stress that all the actions they encourage farmers to take to become low carbon actually improve the profits of the farms in addition to lowering greenhouse gas emissions. Ghislain confirmed that his profits continue to increase as he applies low carbon practices due in large part to reduced input costs. All agreed that their main obstacles to getting other farmers to join the initiative were related to farmers already being too overworked to have the time to reflect and engage on the topic; the initial cost of getting an on farm assessment (approximately 800 euro); and the challenge of communicating the benefits of low carbon farming to farmers. These all seem like obstacles that are easily overcome and make me feel confident they will reach their targets within this decade.

As night fell in the Sarthe, I said good bye to new farming friends feeling hopeful and grateful that there were farmers like Ghislain and Charlotte in the world who recognize their role as “climate solvers”.

The truth is, we can have all these nice things from school dinners to low(er) carbon farms, if we think they are important enough to keep asking for them.

If I were a Green Party member, I’d ask my elected representatives to dust off their School Dinners policy and make it happen. If I were a farmer, I’d ask my farming association to get moving on a plan to help me reduce emissions by 30% over the next decade. I’m neither of those things, but I’ll keep asking anyway in the hopes that, if enough of us do, something might stick.

Tomorrow, I finish my official tour of France in meetings with some outstanding leaders in climate policy. I've got butterflies in my stomach at the thought of them, but I’ll leave their names as “une belle surprise” until then.

A demain, keep fighting the good fight!
-Cara

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Cara goes to France Day 3 - Science and soils and seeds, Oh My!

12/8/2021

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We’re not in Paris anymore, Toto! Today, I woke up in Montpellier after an exciting high speed train journey last night with my two amazing guides. Following a quick visit to Montpellier's main plaza, we headed off by tram to Agropolis International to meet those responsible for the famous “4 pour 1000” soil initiative launched at COP21 in 2015. I remember the moment at the Paris climate conference when this initiative was brought to the world’s attention. At the time, I was skeptical as to whether “4 pour 1000” was green genius or green washing, so this week, I asked to meet the scientists behind it to find out for myself.

While “4 per 1000” may sound more like a diet yogurt than science, the idea of the initiative is to increase the carbon content in soil globally by 0.4% per year. By doing so, we could offset all the carbon dioxide emissions we currently burn to the atmosphere. Theoretically, this is possible. If you consider climate change as a giant, global math problem, soil carbon could help to balance the equation.

Our soil can hold 2-3 times more carbon than the atmosphere in the form of organic material. Greater carbon content helps soils to not only mitigate against climate change but also to retain water, reduce erosion and adapt to drought and climate change better, thus providing us with more food.

I was impressed with the explanation given to me by Dr. Paul Luu, Executive Secretary of the 4 pour 1000 initiative and Director of Agropolis International (also our incredible host for the day). Dr. Luu did his PhD research in Sri Lanka studying agroforestry and is passionate about agroecology and botany. His teams’ approach was a welcoming blend of science, agriculture, policy and pragmatism with a strong focus on improving soil carbon in the global South, which have many natural “hotspots” for carbon storage potential and biodiversity richness. The initiative has grown to more than 672 signatories based in 50 different since its launch in 2015, demonstrating its success in capturing public and academic attention.

What I liked most about the 4 per 1000 concept is that it is not a one-size-fits-all idea. There are many ways we can increase the carbon content of soil, including many type of farming practices. From conservation and regenerative agriculture to agroforestry, every effort to be less reliant on chemical inputs and use local resources is a win. The United Nations has defined 13 principles for agroecology, but many of them could be applied to our own back gardens or parks too, like using local compost and natural, organic fertilizers.

Ironically, I recently helped Diageo (Guinness) judge the sustainability category for their annual malted barley awards, and I was struck by how many farmers applied with great initiatives to improve the soil carbon on their farms. Unfortunately, only one applicant could win the award and receive recognition for all that hard work, which made me a bit sad as almost all of the applicants deserved to have their stories told. It struck me today how something like a “4 per 1000” label or affiliation could give good farmers kind of endorsement they deserve. There are a lot of different ways such an initiative could help to raise awareness about the importance of soil health and its role in helping with climate change, but with so few staff and such limited budget, it’s difficult to know where “4 pour 1000” should focus their energy to make the most impact.

I have the same dilemma in my own climate work, sending me into panic a few times a week when the climate problem seems so vast that it’s hard to know where best to focus efforts to make a difference. I’m hoping this trip will provide me with some new insights answer that question. Already I can see that by meeting so many exceptionally talented people in a variety of areas, I’m more able to see how my own strengths can compliment others’ and build on existing work. Maybe that’s the point of the whole trip, but I’m still nowhere near finding the answer. Time for a food break...

After lengthy discussions with the several institutional representatives involved in 4 pour 1000, Dr. Luu took us to one of his favorite local restaurants for what was my best traditional French lunch yet. Local, seasonal wine and food is an absolute passion for the French, and I couldn’t help but get caught up in the excitement gushing from my colleagues over every decision about what touched our precious palates.

Fun facts I learned about sparkling water over lunch: Perrier sells a version with smaller bubbles (“fines bulles”) to appeal to those who find the bubbles in their original flavour too big! Even more fun fact - The city of Paris has free sparkling water fountains in parks so that everyone in Paris has the #RightToSparklingWater (plastic free, bien sur)!

Fortunately, we walked off some of that lunch over a tour of CRNI’s Ecotron facility, where Scientific Director Alexandru Milcu explained the centre’s role in simulating real world and future climatic conditions to see how different plant species and soil organisms respond to a variety of conditions. It’s a one of a kind, impressive facility that allows us to see how nature might adapt to climate change or to help us understand more about the environmental conditions in past climates. Alex was particularly excited about the research they hope to undertake soon on basalt waste powder from the mining sector as a possible amendment that could help store much more carbon in soil and help us achieve that “4 pour 1000” goal in some parts of the world.

From there, we headed to the ARCAD platform – a new research facility that stores and studies hundreds of varieties of seeds for cultivated food and energy crops used in the Mediterranean and tropical regions. This research allows us to understand what plant varieties will provide the most nutrition and resilience in a changing climate. It was exciting to be one of the first guests at the facility and see the state-of-the-art technology used to store and analyze seeds.

The surprise seed of the tour for me was Fonio, an ancient grain grown in West Africa that’s high in iron and contains all 20 amino acids (rare for a non-animal based product). It’s something I’ve never heard of but will be looking out for in the future as a healthier substitute for rice.

As I write, I’m back on the train to Paris, traveling at over 300 km per hour, hoping for a good nights’ sleep before more learning (and eating) tomorrow, including meetings with Government officials, lunch at one of Paris’ famous school canteens, and a trip to a dairy farm in case I was missing the sites (and smells) of home. My guide has brought out the whiskey and Christmas lights for our train table again, and it already feels like today was just a dream of “science and soil and seeds, oh my!”.

A demain, keep fighting the good fight!
-Cara

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Cara goes to France Day 2 - Grandeur, peasants, high councils and high speed

12/7/2021

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French Deputy Hubert Julien-Laferrier with Cara Augustenborg

My second day in France started in grandeur with a tour of the French Parliament at the Palais Bourbon and a meeting with Parliamentarian Hubert Julien-Laferrier (member of the Generation Ecologie party).

It was impossible not to be impressed with such a salubrious venue, especially the stunning library, and Deputy Laferrier gave me some interesting insights into climate politics and public awareness of climate change in France.

Another traditional Parisian lunch was enjoyed at the Federation Nationale des Syndicats d’Exploitants Agricoles (FNSEA) – basically the French equivalent of our Irish Farmers Association but with very fancy food! I was surprised how knowledgeable my hosts were about the climate crisis and how their farming members seem to understand agriculture’s essential role in contributing to climate action. Through our conversation, it seemed French farmers consider themselves to be “the victims, the culprits and the solvers” of climate change, and there has been a shift in awareness and acceptance of the need for climate action among the farming community. The last few years of extreme weather events in France (both droughts and flooding) seem to have catalyzed more effort among French farmers to try to adapt their farming practices to climate change. In turn, that’s also helping them to see the need to mitigate against climate change even more. There are definitely lessons to be learned from this experience that can be applied to Ireland’s farming community as they begin to become climate change “solvers” too.

One thing many Irish and French farmers have in common is getting a poor price for their products as “dirtier”, imported foods are cheaper for consumers to buy. In France, on average, the farmer gets EUR 6 of every EUR 100 that a householder spends on food! The rest go to so-called “middle men”. It’s a topic I find myself getting increasingly frustrated about and not understanding why we can’t reduce the profit margins of “middle-men” to give farmers a fair price for food or even slap a sin tax on products that contribute significantly to things like rainforest destruction, climate change, water pollution, etc. That would make “greener” products the cheaper option without encouraging a race to the bottom on price. I am sure trade agreements and food poverty issues make this more complicated than I am stating, but I’d love to see a politician or two prioritize this issue so that farmers had the economic incentive to produce food in a more sustainable way.

After lunch, I headed on to the Confederation Paysanne, which directly translates as “Peasants Confederation” but it’s an older way of describing farmers or “those who work the land” in France. Confederation Paysanne sees farming as a social and ecological profession and has some innovative ideas for how to transform the food system, including looking at national food provision in the same way we view health care as a kind of State managed resource. It’s definitely a concept worth reflecting on as a means of modelling national food security. They also encourage the need for more men and women to become employed in farming as we transition to more sustainable farming practices, which is an interesting way of ensuring a just transition that protects agricultural employment.

I finished the day with the Secretariat of France’s High Climate Council, which is the equivalent of Ireland’s Climate Change Advisory Council. Since they are a relatively new body and I am a relatively new member of Ireland’s Council, we had a lot in common and a great discussion about ways of working and the challenges of setting carbon budgets and conducting annual reviews of Government climate policy. I have a feeling it may be the start of a beautiful friendship as we try to maximize the impact of our respective Councils on climate policy. The French High Climate Council is heavily involved in trying to create an international network of all climate councils so we can learn from each other in developing independent advice on climate policy.

After my final meeting of the day, I jumped on a high speed TGV train from Paris to Montpellier, traveling 750km in just 3.5 hours, reaching speeds of 350km/hr! It would have taken me 8 hours to do the same journey by car. It definitely now ranks as my favorite form of travel, made even better by my guide’s wise decision to bring snacks, whiskey and Christmas lights for our table!

Tomorrow, I get back to my roots with a tour of various agricultural research endeavours around Montpellier in the rain.

Until then, stay dry and keep fighting the good fight!
-Cara

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Cara goes to France - Day 1: Urban farming, Smart food and French climate policy

12/6/2021

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Paris' Deputy Mayor Audrey Pulvar with Cara Augustenborg at Le Paysan Urban.

My first day in France with their Future Leaders Invitation Programme was a whirlwind, beginning with a tour of an urban farm and the Smart Food Paris incubation hub alongside Deputy Mayor Audrey Pulvar – TV journalist turned activist turned politician with a passion for sustainable food systems (and one of my new heroes).

Le Paysan Urbain is one of 238 urban farms supported by the City of Paris, producing a wide array of microgreens using fully sustainable methods, including an impressive greenhouse with sustainably heated water circulated through the seed tables to keep them warm year round.

I couldn’t believe all the flavors bursting from these tiny greens! In addition to providing a community resource for education on nature and farming, the farm also hosts local composting facilities; grows hops for a local microbrewery; and allows nearby residents to access fresh, nutritious food at low/no cost. They also make an effort to employ people who are struggling to enter/re-enter the job market, be it refugees, single parents, etc.

From the farm, Audrey then took me to nearby Smart Food Paris incubation hub where I met three entrepreneurs born out of this initiative:

- Maximillien Ngyuyen of Excellent (plant-based) Burger with no crappy chemicals or imported soya in his burgers like the usual meat alternatives. It had my taste buds completely fooled!

ExcllentBurger.com

- And the two passionate designers behind Somalte -Tasty, nutritious edible bowls perfect for festivals and other events where reusable food containers aren’t practical. The bowls are made from hops residues from local microbreweries so they’re also a great example of putting circular economy and zero waste principals into practice. PS: They’re crowdfunding to upscale their enterprise at the moment, if you’ve got some spare dosh to invest!

It struck me that Ireland could really use an equivalent organisation that puts national, sustainable food security at the heart of its ethos as opposed to our entirely export led focus on food production.

Somalte.com

One common thread across all these initiatives was a need for more sustainable packaging. It’s a major issue for food products that need controlled humidity, protection from damage, and attractive packaging options with no easy solutions yet. (That’s a hint for budding Irish product designers, by the way.) I thought the vegetable based plastic was a good alternative, but today I learned the GM-based ingredients usually travel from the USA to Asia for processing and then back to Europe for sale. I also thought the reusable bamboo and composable containers were a good alternative to plastic but it turns out they are full of sealant chemicals that can end up in our foods. As Kermit said: “It ain’t easy being green”.

After eating my way through Smart Food Paris, I then stuffed myself further with a traditional French lunch and chat with Le Monde’s agricultural journalist, Mathilde Gerard, followed by meetings at France Strategie and the Ministre de la Transition Ecologique – All in an effort to gain further understanding of France’s climate and agricultural policies.

As a country that is truly passionate about food, there is a lot to learn in France that is applicable to Ireland’s journey to a more sustainable food system, but today I’m struck by how much we have in common. Both the people of Ireland and France have come a long way in recent years in understanding the climate and biodiversity challenge, and both countries have made significant leaps in environmental ambition over the last couple of years in particular.

Both have struggled with the challenge of implementing taxes on carbon pollution in the past, but both have improved their approach to citizen participation in policy development via Citizens Assemblies, which have driven much more interesting climate and environmental legislation recently. Both countries now face the challenge of implementing these new policies and laws at a pace that aligns with the urgency of the climate crisis, while also ensuring a just transition for those employed or dependent on high-carbon industries.

Yellow vest protest 2018 (Source: NPR)

In many ways, Ireland could have an easier job of doing this than France, even though France has been better at meeting EU climate targets historically. As a society with many more diverse industrial players, “bringing everyone along” in France may be more difficult, but it’s hopeful and inspirational to see how hard the people I met today are trying to make it happen in many different ways.

I continue my Parisian exploration tomorrow with meetings with representatives from political parties and farmers’ unions along with members of France’s High Climate Council, which I’m expecting to be directly relevant to my work on Ireland’s own Climate Change Advisory Council. At the end of tomorrow, I head off to Montpellier by super fast train to spend day three getting back to my roots with some intensive agricultural research. My brain is already swimming with ideas and my notebook is nearly full. I might possibly explode from either mental inspiration or all the lovely food!

"kill me now" profiterole

Stay tuned for more tasty treats from France and keep fighting the good fight!
-Cara

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Bon voyage: France by ferry

12/4/2021

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This week, I'm heading to France on behalf of the French Ministry for European and Foreign Affairs "Future Leaders Invitation Programme". Each year, the French Ministry invites 75 people from around the world to France to give future leaders from the political world and civil society the opportunity to spend time in France to hold high-level meetings relating to their interests. I'm told I'm one of only 11 Irish people to receive this prestigious trip in the 50 years the French Government have been running this programme. -Minister Paschal Donohoe and Senator Lynn Ruane being two of Ireland's more notable past recipients.

I've asked to spend the week meeting France's most successful climate policy professionals and learning about some of their innovative programmes, particularly in the areas of food and agriculture, which I feel we can learn a lot from in Ireland. I'll be blogging about those (socially distant) meetings throughout the week so more on that later.

In the meantime, I'm writing from Stena Line's Rosslare to Cherbourg ferry in an effort to keep my carbon footprint as low as possible for this trip. For those that doubt the climate benefit of going over land and sea versus flying, I've done the math for this trip (because that's just how nerdy I am), and it turns out that I've saved a considerable about of CO2 compared to flying even with the added distance:

While the greenhouse gas emissions from a relatively short trip like this pale in comparison to a round trip, economy class transatlantic flight (1,700 kg per person return), I've nonetheless more than halved my emissions by choosing to travel by ferry instead of plane. To put this in a financial perspective, generally, when I do have to fly for some reason, I make a donation to my favourite climate charity (Friends of the Earth) based on the social cost of the carbon emissions (approx. EUR 200 per tonne of CO2). In this case, I've saved EUR 50 in carbon by going overland instead of flying. If we actually paid a carbon tax on jet fuel (we don't, bizarrely), it would create greater price parity between flying and traveling overland and sea and create more of a business case for the slower route.

Miraculously, my propensity for sea sickness has stayed at bay thanks to relatively calm seas, and I actually enjoyed the feeling of being rocked to sleep in my cabin and I woke feeling abnormally refreshed. I can't say I am missing airport security and being packed in a plane like cattle at all, and I'm getting a lot more work done (and Netflix binging) without any distractions during my time on the ship.

With many more ferry routes opening up between Ireland and France care of Brexit, I could see "slow travel" being a much more popular way to travel to our closest European neighbour. If Irish Rail could just get the train times to Rosslare aligned to the ferry departures (hint, hint), it would be a winning combination. There's also a need for the ferry companies to provide greater transparency about the emissions from their ships as those vary considerably based on boat design, number of passengers, goods on board, etc., and my calculations were based on relatively crude estimates rather than real numbers from the boat I am currently on. However, all we can do is our best, and I'm happy enough with my best for this particular trip.

By the end of today, I'll be in beautiful Paris and looking forward to a jam packed itinerary for a whole week of precious learning. Stay tuned and keep fighting the good fight!

-Cara

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Cara goes to France Day 5: Occurrence becomes adventure

Cara goes to France Day 4 - From Fork to Farm

Cara goes to France Day 3 - Science and soils and seeds, Oh My!

Cara goes to France Day 2 - Grandeur, peasants, high councils and high speed

Cara goes to France - Day 1: Urban farming, Smart food and French climate policy

Bon voyage: France by ferry

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