“You have to be deaf, blind and unconscious not to be worried about the state of the world, but what do we do with our worry?é
Advisor on the transition to a climate-neutral economy
Philippe Lamberts served 3 mandates as MEP.
Summary compiled by Graham Keen
We must be credible on the way in which the ecological transition goes hand in hand with the construction of the future of our economy and social justice. We need to explain how all this will be done in an economically and socially sustainable way.
Van der Leyen is EPP, I am Green and it will stay that way. But we are capable of working together.”
We will probably miss the objective of keeping global warming below one and a half degrees.
Europe has probably lacked audacity and ambition, and also a totally common vision, particularly in terms of industrial policy. We must successfully articulate economic ambitions, ecological ambitions and I would add social ambitions. Our greatest adversary is the rentier spirit.
The general trend in the European economy has been to distribute profits rather than reinvest them. The Draghi report. We must rediscover an entrepreneurial spirit, that is to say, people who aim for the long term. People ready to invest current profits in order to build solid foundations for tomorrow’s economy.
Trump. This is obviously a colossal challenge for all of us. He is a president hostile to the European Union. In fact, all these people dream of is dividing Europeans.
The citizens of the European Union weigh 5.5% of the world’s population. At some point, size matters. If we want to mean something, if we want to, for example, have an impact outside our borders through our standards, then we have to act together. “
I would like to talk about the general lack of interest in the climate. We can clearly see that people are concerned about other things. We are no longer in this wave where we were concerned about the climate as we were a few years ago. People are worried today about their purchasing power, because war is upon us.
I am concerned about the explosion of precariousness in our societies. But what pleases me is that concern about the climate – and more generally about environmental issues – remains high in people’s concerns. It is not because it is not first at the moment that it has disappeared. In fact, it has not disappeared at all.
That some of our fellow citizens turn a blind eye is human, it exists, but it is not what I encounter the most. On the other hand, there is real concern. It is very deep. It is that, once again, I believe that everyone perceives that the ecological transition, it will require effort, effort.
And there is this underlying fear, which unfortunately is well-founded, that it will be the same thing again, as during the financial crisis…. It will once again be ordinary people who will have to pay the price and make the bulk of the effort, while the wealthiest part of the population will be able to continue as before. That is intolerable.
First of all, the need for effort must be recognized. No one wants to make an effort if the effort required will not solve the problem. The question of justice is rooted in the guts of humanity. And so there is an absolute requirement that efforts be distributed fairly in society.
RTBF. What characterizes you is the economy and ecology. But I want to add the Christian faith. Does it guide you in your work in politics?
It is a compass in fact. It reminds me of the burning need to consider every human being as worthy…
You have to be deaf, blind and unconscious not to be worried about the world we live in. The extinction of humanity is a possibility. What do we do with this worry?
Believe. That is the verb that is operational because it is not a certainty that humanity has the means to face the challenges that are ours today. The only chance to build this future is to choose to believe that it is not too late.
The answer is not in the “I”, it is in the “we”. It is about finding the sense of the collective, the sense of the common. We want to create society, we want to create humanity. And there is no enlightened leader who knows the way. It is we who will produce it together, or not.