 Well, I say a few words in English and then we'll switch to French. Let me say, I hope that you're not too much tired, especially those who come from, I don't know, Casablanca or Marrakech, but more those who come from China or Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, et cetera, et cetera. So you are tired, but I'm sure that you will take great pleasure to listening to Laurent Febius. Laurent Febius is our guest of honor for the second time, the first time some of you can remember, was in Monaco, I think it was 2013, and he was at the time Minister of Foreign Affairs and he was back from Africa on his way to Paris. And today, as most of you know, he is President du Conseil constitutionnel, President of the Constitutional Council, but most of you know that he had an exceptional political career. He was the youngest Prime Minister ever in France. He was 36, he was even younger than Mr. Macron when he was elected President of the Republic. And, well, Laurent, you were everything, you were President of the National Assembly, Minister of Defense, and so forth and so on. So thank you very much, I switch to French, merci infiniment d'avoir accepté de venir pour une second fois, ou une deuxième fois, devrais-je dire, parce que j'espère que ce ne sera pas la dernière, et nous n'allons pas parler ce soir de problèmes de politique française ou de problèmes de cours constitutionnels, etc., qui connaît très bien, mais on va parler d'environnement. Monsieur Fabius va parler d'environnement. Chacun sait le rôle qu'il a joué pour la Conférence de Paris, la COP 21, toute l'énergie extraordinaire qu'il a déployée pour cette cause, et cette tâche n'est pas terminée, et on va peut-être parler au-delà d'ailleurs de la question du climat et de la question de l'environnement d'une manière plus générale. Voilà, donc Monsieur le Premier ministre, Monsieur le Président, cher Laurent, j'ai le grand plaisir de vous passer la parole. Monsieur le Président, mesdames et messieurs, je suis à la fois très heureux d'être ici et en même temps désolé d'interrompre votre repas, d'autant que j'aurais aimé vous dire les choses d'un optimisme magnifique. Mais comme le sujet proposé concerne l'environnement, mon propos sera nécessairement plus nuancé. Vous me direz pourquoi l'environnement, puisque actuellement je préside un Conseil fonctionnel français, c'est comme vient de le dire notre président, parce qu'il y a de ça à quelques années, le président de la République de l'époque m'a demandé de préparer la COP 21, ce qui devait devenir l'Accord de Paris. À l'époque, je veux en faire confession, je n'étais pas du tout un spécialiste de l'environnement. Je m'intéressais à ces sujets, mais je les connaissais peu. Mais voilà, en 2013, le président de la République m'a dit, « Monsieur le ministre des Affaires étrangères, vous allez déposer notre candidature pour une conférence qui aura lieu deux ans plus tard en 2015 à Paris, et je vous demande de préparer cette négociation de la menée à bien et de la présider. Je suis donc allé en ministre obéissant à l'époque en Pologne, et la France a été choisie pour abriter la future conférence de Paris. Je dois dire que ce choix a été facilité par le fait que nous étions les seuls candidats. Et j'ai gardé à l'esprit les deux mots identiques que tous les participants à cette conférence d'alors Pologne étaient venus me dire lorsque la France avait été élu, comme on dit par acclamation, Mr Fabius Goodluck. Et je voyais dans l'oreille un certain doute. Et puis, nous sommes mis au travail. Et finalement, comme les dieux nous ont aidés et quelques autres, nous avons réussi ce premier accord mondial sur le climat. Et depuis, j'ai fait d'autres choses, mais du coup, je suis devenu quasiment un spécialiste de ces questions d'environnement. En tout cas, je les connais relativement bien. Et une fois qu'on a pénétré dans ce domaine, ce que certains d'entre vous ont fait, il est difficile de s'en déprendre. Tellement, le sujet est important. Et donc je voudrais vous en dire quelques mots ce soir. Thierry de Montréal m'a recommencé d'être bref. Il faut se méfier car, lorsque vous entendez un orateur commencer son discours en disant je serais bref, c'est mauvais signe. Il y a beaucoup de l'existence. Ou, en tout cas, de ce qui est contenu dans un certain nombre de rapports qui sont incontestés et qui viennent d'être publiés, je prendrai à dessin les rapports de cette année. Vous donnez un rapport publié aux États-Unis qui identifie les dix risques principaux pour le monde dans les dix ans qui viennent. Et cinq premiers risques, quatre portent sur les sujets environnementaux. Le cinquième porte sur le développement des armes nucléaires. Vous avez un autre rapport qui a été publié également cette année, toujours aux États-Unis et qui porte sur la biodiversité. La biodiversité, c'est un mot à mon avis trop compliqué. Beaucoup de gens croient que c'est une maladie. En fait, c'est simplement l'état de la nature. Et ce rapport nous dit, preuve à l'appui, rapport scientifique à contester, que, déjà, des millions et des millions d'espèces ont disparu. Le chiffre de 66 millions est cité dans le rapport. Et que nous sommes, il n'y a quasiment pas de précédent, sauf il y a très, très longtemps au moment où on a connu l'extinction des dinosaures. Il y a un troisième rapport qui va sortir, qui émane de cette institution très importante, qui s'appelle l'Agence internationale de l'énergie, qui montre que, alors qu'en 2015 et 2016, les émissions de gaz carbonique responsables de la détériation du climat s'étaient stabilisées en 2017 et à nouveau en 2018, ça a pris le chemin vers le haut. Et enfin, vous avez un dernier rapport que certains d'entre vous ont peut-être lu dans son résumé qui a été publié au début de ce mois d'octobre par une institution qui s'appelle JEC, en anglais c'est IPCC, qui examine, puisque nous l'avons demandé au moment de la conférence de Paris, quelles sont les conditions de réalisation d'une augmentation de la température de 1°5. Ce rapport a été établi par les scientifiques à partir de la consultation de 6000 études 6000, 6 et 3 zéro, et il nous apprend des choses là aussi désormais incontestées. D'abord, 1°5, nous avons déjà fait 1°. Et donc il reste 05. Beaucoup pensait que 1°5 nous pourrions arriver peut être à la fin du siècle. And the report says that it will be in 2030. Then the report explains that even at a degree and a half, which is not the current report at all, the situation would be extremely difficult in a whole series of sectors. This report also says that there is a big difference between a degree and a half and two degrees, which is the main objective defined by the Paris Conference. And it takes an example that will catch you, and that I was forced to look at several times. It says that between a degree and a half and two degrees, the level of elevation of the seas is not the same, because if it is two degrees, not a degree and a half, the seas will rise by 10 meters more, 10 meters. You see what it gives for a city like Venice, I do not know if some of us are original. So the report describes a whole series of predictions that are very, very negative. And it says at the same time, this is the positive side, that we are not going at all to this, and that if we make strong decisions, we can end this evolution. And it says in good French, unprecedented risks lead to unprecedented steps. So what can these measures be? Being observed that the more we work on the issues of the environment, the more we realize that everything is linked. There are three major subjects in general, the climate issue, the biodiversity issue and the pollution issue. But we realize as soon as we think a little that all this is dialectical and that, for example, an elevation of temperatures has a dramatic effect on biodiversity, and that in turn, the biodiversity, if it decreases, has a dramatic effect on the elevation of temperature. In short, you have to have a vision, as the holistic specialists say, of these subjects. And the report of the GIEC tells us, even if the risks are global, extremely strong, if we want to fight against them, all actors must be convinced and act. So what does that mean, all actors? You can't go through them all by eye. But the first actor is the citizens. The citizens, in their daily lives, must be informed of what they can do to try to protect the environment, and especially to fight against the elevation of the climate. We can do things that appear modest, in the food we take, in the apartment we rent, in the transport we operate, etc. But it counts a lot. And the citizens, in any case, in many countries, must be free, who can go and must go, according to the GIEC, in a certain sense. Being observed, and if you want to keep one thing from me, keep this one, that environmental and climatic threats are not the same as the others. So the decisions or the conferences that have been suggested are not the same. If, in another field, you pursue a goal and fail to achieve it, in a certain way, you can start over 2 years later, 3 years later, 5 years later. While, especially in terms of climate, if decisions are not taken extremely quickly, the carbon dioxide continues to go into the atmosphere, and after a while, it's irreversible, because it doesn't disappear. It stays for years, even for centuries. And so, it's a race of speed between the actions that we can have and the objectives that we must pursue. Citizens, it's the first stakeholder in which we must speak, and we must explain to them what they can do. But citizens, it's not very easy. For example, it is obvious that if we want, for example, the climate to decrease CO2 emissions, we must go more and more towards what we call renewable energies, and therefore penalize fossil energies. To penalize fossil energies, we must make them more expensive. But when we make them more expensive, of course, citizens are often not agree. There are, beyond citizens, economic sectors, all economic sectors. We must have a lot of responsible economic leaders. And I think that each of us must ask ourselves this question, what can I do at my level of responsibility to try to mitigate this environmental deterioration. It's true in agriculture, which we don't talk much about, but which contributes a lot to climate deterioration. It's true in the industry, it's true in the services, it's true everywhere. And each person must ask themselves what can I do to go in the right direction. But there are general measures that can help to go in the right direction. Without entering the technical and then perhaps there will be questions, the most powerful measure seems to me what we call carbon tarification. Today we are in an extremely strange situation where the carbon that we love is in general not sanctioned whereas when we use renewable energies which have no negative effects, we must pay them even if the costs are low at this price. So we all as economic leaders there are things that we can and must do. There is also what cities can do. Cities are responsible in the wide sense, between 70 and 80% of CO2 emissions. It doesn't mean that the decisions are always taken by the mayor or by the governors, but it's in cities that the problem is essential. And then there are governments who have a particular role and there I observe an evolution that worries me is that as much as companies more and more the financial means have understood the importance of all these phenomena and how it adapts in a spectacular way as much as governments and from this point of view the decision of President Trump was extremely damaging are in the way for many of them to retreat. In any case, they don't act Why do I say that the decision of President Trump has been harmful? Of course, in the United States there have been many reactions that were in the opposite direction. We still have the California, New York, a certain university and we must congratulate them. But when the president of the first power in the world says that the climate agreement is a cannular refuses now to cooperate with the necessary financing and at the same time withdraw from the Paris Agreement at the same time it has direct negative effects and at the same time it authorizes other countries who had signed the Paris Agreement but who were Portuguese especially countries oil producers to resume their commitments at the same time we need to accelerate their commitments. Governments don't always act as they should and so you have this strange situation of private initiatives that develop and often remarkably and the government that retracts. The report of the GIEC also indicates that we need to do a lot more for the research and technological development because there is an innovative way to try to reach goals that are inaccessible. I talked earlier about 1.5 or 2 degrees of augmentation but today on the current line we are at 3 degrees or 4 degrees and 3 degrees it doesn't mean that in a cold city we are going to be on the coast of Azure it means an elevation of the seas it means droughts everywhere it means phenomena, typhoons and it means migratory movements compared to those of today and it means at the end of the day the question of conflicts and the war that's it and so to try to go in the right direction there are considerable efforts to find new technologies that don't have inventions called geo-engineering that propose to put a step forward compared to the sun I must say that the report of the GIEC that all of this seems a bit illusory on the other hand there are things in particular what we call in English the CCUS i.e. the storage of the carbon that currently exists in biopathic doses and which could make much better being observed, it's another note that I'm addressing I'm going to go to my conclusion but in the coming years and I'm saying that in the coming years it's going to be between the two or three years because afterwards it's irreversible for the reasons that I'm saying the continents where it's going to be are essentially China India, the general mayor Asia, the South-East and also Africa as long as it's not responsible for the emissions but it's going to continue the development of its population little by little taking the paths and if it takes new paths it can contribute positively to the environmental improvement if in return it takes the same paths that we took in the past it will obviously be an irreversible deterioration so research, yes and I would add the right not because of my current views but because the right is the reflection of a certain situation it can help in a certain situation and that's the reason why with other lawyers I took the initiative which is now linked to the United Nations which made a first vote on this to propose a world pact for the environment Global Pact for the Environment which is in the same text a treaty of international law both ambitious and realistic otherwise it would be impossible which will take all the rights and all the duties in terms of environment both for the particulars for the companies and for the states it's a work that is currently under the instruction of the UN a first vote was made very favorable by 143 votes against 5 the 5 being the United States the United States Russia Syria Turkey and the Philippines 143 votes we can imagine and now we will enter negotiation to try to build a text which of course should be realistic but which would allow to have a solid legal support which has often no value and which are only sectoral with very important holes so the citizens the economic actors the cities the governments the law the research and development a whole series of actors who must advance at the same time if we want to say what is otherwise a wall which is present in front of us and which is not as we sometimes say by ease of language the evolution of the planet the planet will continue to exist but which is the interdiction made to hundreds of millions of people and in particular the most modest to be able to live decently because that's the challenge the projections which are made being when we look at a regional base often apocalyptic so here are a few points at the same time we often wonder are you optimistic or pessimistic I think what I answer is that I am at the same time a very volunteerist what we say now and we are to take an expression which has often been used to know the reality and the last to be able to act because then for the reasons I said it will be too late I am not optimistic or pessimistic I am both worried and volunteerist there are three or four challenges in the next two or three years which can allow us if we manage to operate the assembly necessary to take good decisions which are at the same time effective there are in a few weeks here a COP that's what it's called the conference of parties that took place this time in Poland which must define what the English call a rule book that is to say an element of concrete translation of what we have done in Paris Paris was 29 articles 140 parables of decisions but there is a whole series of technical practices to operate and directly it is the COP 24 task which will take place early December and we will see if it sends a new breath as it is desirable or not then we will have next year this very opportunity initiative a summit of the United Nations at the month of September in New York to ask all countries to provide new contributions, that is, commitments that they take for what they are going to do in the future because the current commitments on the one hand are not respected and on the other hand are not allowed to go to 2 degrees or 1.5 degrees and therefore the United Nations Scatterge has taken the initiative and the reason to ask all countries to reformulate and so we will see in front of this multilateral instance what they do. Then there are two other initiatives always in the summit of 2019-2020 one is a very important conference that will take place in Beijing, China on biodiversity and I told you that everything was linked so we work to try to make this a success and then possibly the international conference which would see a global impact for the environment which would give legal assistance to all efforts. Many other initiatives will be taken and they are excellent in all countries but these four are particularly sensitive and could be able to advance. Here are some elements that I wanted to present to you in full. Do not believe because I speak in a relaxed way not less passionate than others on these subjects but I think it's not because we have the idea of the heart and the body that it is absolutely necessary to move that yet it fails to transform into a tribe. I studied very carefully these questions as I told you I did not take part. I read, I talked with a lot of people, I met all the people in the world who know these subjects and I forged an opinion which as much as possible is an objective opinion I consider that environmental questions and singularly the question of the climate has become one of the two or three major subjects in the world and there is a philosophical evolution behind all this and France has a part of responsibility I explain to me for hundreds of years in the West and our president often talks about the western view for others we considered that to take the philosophy of maps man was master and owner of nature and this is our philosophy of maps that summarized this and the economic development was done on the basis of this besides the word of the environment translates this conception as if man was in the center and then the environment was around and a little bit marginal or lateral what was not true in other civilizations but what was true in France and in Europe and for industrial development and today we realize that of course if man remains a totally privileged and sophisticated element it is one element of nature among others and that it is necessary to define the rights of man in relation to nature and duties in relation to nature it is a considerable task for legal decisions since France will not be there but when we look at the evolution of the tribunals there are now international decisions which agree with the legal personality to rivers, to forests so it is a philosophy so without going so far I think it is necessary to understand that we are entering from this point of view in a new era which is called Tristrompic the great French sociologist Lévi-Strauss says at a time of this book the world has started without man and it is not impossible to continue without him I recognize that it was not a very optimistic vision but I would oppose Lévi-Strauss Old Berlin, it will be my last word great poet said where is the greatest danger there is also what can save it all depends on us thank you very much Laurent Fabius accepts to take 20 questions but we will limit them to one which will be mine in this case if you allow which will be very simple about the environment and here you have mainly talked about the climate which is obviously huge but will this project also include other aspects of the environmental issue I recognize in the long-term decision of our president to ask the only question that will be asked the democratic aspect is necessary to a good organization yes, this global pact for the environment covers all the areas of the environment and it is also the idea of departure I said earlier that when we examine this subject whether it is the subject of the deterioration of the oceans the subject of the climate the subject of biodiversity the subject of water the subject of school in fact we perceive powerful interactions for some of these areas we only have sectoral conventions and for others of these areas we have nothing at all and so the idea is to take back the principles that exist that have been defined for those of you who know these subjects in the Stockholm conferences Rio de Janeiro conferences in 1992 etc but who have no understanding of legal values and so to define the principles about 20 of them which will allow both the citizens to know their rights and duties to companies which is extremely important to have a security vision on their environment and as we say in good french level playing field and to the states to know what they have to engage not of course to put in prison such a state because it would not act as it should and without giving you a course of international law the way in which we incorporate international treaties is very diverse and we have to take all these precautions but from the moment we consider and I think everyone here considers that the environment has become after the economic and social rights after the civil and political rights the third field of the law it is legitimate that at the international level multilateral an effort of the same type which has been done more than 50 years ago by the UN on the matter of political, on the matter of socio-economic, on the matter of the environment and that is what we are working on and there was a work that has been done for a long time by lawyers in this sense who had done an excellent work but they could not have the connection with the states, with the political world or if you want to do an international treaty it must be addressed to the states and so this is where they had strange ideas to come to see me I have a series of meetings on this subject we have elaborate a draft the French president wanted to support this initiative then a lot of countries at the UN and now things are launched and we hope that this initiative which until now has absolutely not reached the borders of the great public will be able to prosper because when there is great change like those who should be operated in this area it is normal to be accompanied and as much as possible stimulated by the law and so it is not just the climate it is the whole of the areas covered by this word environment I am in a terrible situation because I know that a certain number of our friends would like to ask you the risk, dear Nobuo is that if you ask a question you risk being killed by others because the main plan is being served so better you take the risk of being killed so limit the risk then you see who is responsible you identified well there Nobuo Tanaka Nobuo Tanaka is the director of the IEA Monsieur Fabius I asked you the same question at the IEA ministerial meeting three years ago, 2015 you talk about the COP 21 the French strategy and you made a great success I congratulate what you have contributed the climate change mitigation my question to you was the importance did not stress or emphasize the importance of nuclear power in COP 21 and now as you mentioned IPCC 1.5 degrees strategy needs a lot of unprecedented effort do you change your mind of stressing the importance of nuclear power now? this is my question the answer will be short and I will try to switch it to English why we deal with nuclear energy in COP 21 for a simple reason because as you know the rule was to get a universal approval of the agreement what means between that a single state if at the end of my proposal of the final text any government any state would have raised his hand saying I don't agree forget everything and obviously when we come to nuclear energy it is not possible to get together 195 countries that's the reason now if you ask me you know by heart the positions of the IEA on nuclear energy I will not give mine because I don't want to be involved in French politics it's now the past but I must say that in the report and in thoughts of your agency it is said that in the report as well that we need nuclear energy in order to get close to 1.5 and it's said like that but which says too that as far as Europe is concerned nuclear energy will decline and that it will go up up and up and in many countries which are having contracts with Russia now everyone here can have his own viewpoint but thank you for raising the question I understand that to be the only question and there will be no homicide therefore you will be quite right bye-bye