The President of the Republic was reacting to the controversial phrase on climate change uttered during his wishes to the French. According to him, it was an “environmental warning message” and not a “message of denial”.
“There was still a lot of bad faith.” In a video published on his YouTube channel this Tuesday evening, Emmanuel Macron explained the controversial phrase that was uttered during his New Year’s greetings on December 31st.
“Who could have foreseen the resulting wave of inflation or the climate crisis spectacular effects again this summer?‘ he then started, arousing the indignation of many French people.
With this sentence, the head of state gave the impression of discovering climate change and its effects. This question has greatly angered elected environmentalists, but also scientists who for some years have been warning of the dramatic climatic events that are underway and will come if behavior does not change.
An “ecological warning”
In his answer video to “Questions on Ecology”, the President announced that he had been “misunderstood”.
He justified himself: “They wanted me to say that I had basically never read a report from the IPCC, the IPBES, from all the experts and that in 2022 I will discover the climatic disturbances.”
According to Emmanuel Macron, the head of state wanted to imply during his speech that “it went even faster than expected”.
So it was an “ecological warning” and not a “message of denial” as many wanted to “caricature” it.
The Federal President also announced on Tuesday that “before the end of January (…) an ecological planning council will be held” in order to “take stock of what we have to do in the coming years and decades”.