C in the air – Sobriety: how do we do it? streaming – Replay France 5

Energy is more than ever the subject of the new school year. And the key word is sobriety. Before the Medef, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne yesterday advocated energy sobriety, asking companies to establish an energy saving plan from September. “If we were to come to rationing, businesses would be the first to be affected,” she warned.

Invited this morning on France Info, government spokesman Olivier Véran called on the French to “change their habits” to avoid the “rationing” of energy this winter. “We want to avoid cuts (of gas and electricity). Companies would be the first concerned. But everything is possible,” he said. Olivier Véran also made it clear that those “who are already in fuel poverty are not those who will be asked to make efforts, of course”.

However, he warned: “Russia can cut off the gas at any time. This requires us collectively to be careful.” Engie indeed announced this morning that the Russian Gazprom was going to further reduce its gas deliveries to France. Olivier Véran, however, wanted to be reassuring: “We are ahead of the supply compared to other years. We will have achieved our objective of filling our gas stocks 100% by the end of the summer, but that doesn’t mean we’ll have enough.” In the opposition, especially on the left, the government’s tone makes people laugh. In the ranks of the NUPES, which had made the energy transition the backbone of its program during the legislative elections, the finger is pointed at the majority, which seems to have discovered the magnitude of the task in this new school year. Above all, they claim that without a profound change in economic software, the executive will only be able to limit itself to symbolic measures.

Climate change also invites itself into the anxieties of the French, especially among the younger generations. This phenomenon has a name: eco-anxiety. Many psychiatrists confirm that they are seeing “waves of people who find it difficult to project themselves into a future that seems increasingly bleak”. Drought, heat wave, fires… The future seems so threatening to some that they wonder about having children. Others manage to find the strength to mobilize within associations, to try to change things and prevent the worst from happening.

In Pakistan, terrible rains are falling on the population. For the past three months, they have carried away countless houses and destroyed vital agricultural land. Over 33 million people, or one in seven Pakistanis, have been affected by the floods. More than 1,100 deaths are already to be deplored because of this monsoon “unprecedented for thirty years”.

Is the government ready to initiate the country’s energy transition?

Is eco-anxiety, by its magnitude, becoming a public health problem?

What is the situation in Pakistan?