When the European Union’s climate objectives are regularly revised upwards; how can we explain that financial mobilization remains so weak? How come no actor or institution has even considered what it would cost the European Union to respect its climate commitments? You don’t think this is normal? Neither do we!
Therefore, we have launched a major study in 2021-2022 to fill this gap, starting with France. It was a good step forward, but not enough. A large part of the public debate and the legislative framework is now being played out in Brussels, at the European level. This is why, at the request of many actors, we are now launching an extension of our work to the whole European Union! Our objectives are twofold:
- End the double talk and demonstrate in a rational and quantified manner how the low-carbon transition is entirely possible and desirable, including from an economic point of view
- Provide the European Parliament, but also private and civil society actors, with a detailed vision, sector by sector, policy measure by policy measure, of what is needed to drive the transition and finance it
We can no longer afford to wait. The skyrocketing energy prices are a painful symptom of the lack of action toward an energy transition. Resources dedicated to it have been, by far, insufficient to alleviate our dependency on fossil fuels, including Russian gas. The current crisis, as a glimpse of the future, if action keeps being postponed, must be seized as an opportunity to take this essential turnaround. To do so, we need a convincing and detailed action plan, including the economic aspects, because finance remains an essential element of the decision-making process of our leaders despite its clear deficiencies. We propose to elaborate such an action plan: each donation will help us to nail down a bit more our analyses and build better proposals. Each donation will contribute to weighing a little more on economic and political decisions and put our leaders in front of their responsibilities.
The Institut Rousseau
The Institut Rousseau is a think tank whose purpose is to bring analyses and policy proposals into the public debate, with the aim of helping our society address the three major challenges of the 21st century: ecological reconstruction, social justice, and revived democracy.
The Institut Rousseau is an association, under the French law of 1901, recognized as being of general interest. It does not receive external financial support other than membership fees, and relies merely on the work of volunteer experts, from both the public and private sectors, who give their time to produce analyses and reports.
The « Road to net zero » project: bridging the green investment gap in Europe!
In the spring of 2022, the Institut Rousseau published a major study entitled « 2% for 2°C! the public and private investment needs to achieve carbon neutrality for France in 2050″.
Many studies describe « how » to transition to a low-carbon society, but none really answered the question of « how much. » Thanks to this study, for the first time we have a comprehensive assessment of the measures, costs, and financing we need to achieve carbon neutrality. The report identifies 33 action levers in all sectors of the economy (Transport, Industry, Construction, Agriculture, Energy, Waste, etc.), broken down into numerous operational measures, each of which has been priced. The report concludes that achieving carbon neutrality requires investments of up to 182 billion euros per year, two-thirds of which are current or planned expenditures that simply need to be redirected. The additional investments needed to reach our climate objectives are only 57 billion euros per year or 2% of France’s 2019 GDP.
This France-specific study has received excellent feedback from different areas of society: academics, politicians, activists, etc. However, it is not enough, and the message must be taken to the European level. European members of Parliament are asking for it and expect such a study to be able to weigh in the debates and increase the means allocated to the transition in all of Europe.
Why support this work of the Institut Rousseau?
There are many reasons:
- To free the European Union from its dependence on fossil fuels (oil, natural gas, coal) and to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions that are warming the climate and threatening society as we know it.
- To put an end to double talk and demonstrate in a rational and quantified manner that the low-carbon transition is entirely possible and desirable, including from an economic point of view
- To weigh together in the democratic debate and convince a maximum of decision makers, through providing the European Parliament, but also private and civil society actors, with a detailed vision, sector by sector, policy measure by policy measure, of what is needed to implement the transition and finance.
You want to participate in the study?
Join the adventure now, we need you!
We are still recruiting volunteers and there is still room for you even if you haven’t been working in the ecological transition for 10 years! If you have at least 5 hours/week ahead of you until next summer, if you have a minimum of experience in research-type tasks (information gathering, critical analysis, synthesis, report writing, etc.), if you can work in English and if you want to contribute, you can send your application to recrutement@institut-rousseau.fr.
How to support this work of the Institut Rousseau?
Another way to help is to contribute to our crowdfuning.
The principle of crowdfunding is that contributors finance the development of a quantified action plan, sector by sector and country by country, allowing the European Union to (really!) reduce its emissions now and reach its climate objectives.
To support our work, simply follow this link and participate as much as you want. Any help will be welcome!
