Macron's top-down approach to fighting climate change serves as a cautionary tale

While world leaders gather in Katowice,Poland, for the COP24 climate summit, protesters in the streets of Paris have successfully forced French President Emmanuel Macron's hand, undercutting his efforts to impose a carbon tax on French energy sales. Macron has made climate change and lowering greenhouse gases a central component of both his domestic and foreign policies, only to face dramatic failure at the hands of his"yellow vest" countrymen

Macron's popularity has been low in Francefor months, and has now fallen to just a 23% approval rating. But the riotingacross his country sends a frightening signal to politically powerful advocatesseeking to save the planet from its predicted catastrophic 2 degree Celsiusaverage temperature increase by midcentury.

With the Trump administration having pulledout of the Paris COP21 agreement -- which is the foundation of the currentKatowice talks -- and Macron paying such a significant price for his efforts,leaders of all political stripes must wonder how to effectively tackle climatechange without facing uprisings, dissent and stock market downturns.

The short answer: Do not follow Macron'sexample. In imposing this tax, Macron took a top-down approach, not consultingthe very people who would be most adversely affected by it: his fellowcountrymen. He listened to economists and top French business leaders who,correctly, named taxation as one way to drive down fossil fuel use and decreaseFrance's carbon footprint.

But the tax hit the nation's poor and ruralpopulations hard, forcing many to pit their energy needs against putting foodon the family table. As a result, this protest, unlike other French uprisings,attracted individuals of varying political ideologies and from rural and urbanenvironments alike.

With Angela Merkel announcing plans to stepdown as German Chancellor, Macron is the last forceful voice for globalizationand adherence to multinational solutions to tough problems like climate change.The Financial Times editorial board warned on December 3, "If thisstandard bearer for pro-European and liberal democratic values handles thecurrent situation badly, it could fuel populism in France and across thecontinent."

But a day later Macron backed off from hisso-called "green taxes," and now his government, and its pursuit ofclimate solutions are in crisis. If Macron was serious about combating climatechange, he would have engaged in a more grassroots process, engaging the Frenchpeople in a serious dialogue about concrete steps they could take as a country-- ensemble.

Macron's approach is hardly surprising.From the beginning, he has believed top-down government action and corporatepolicies are most effective in bringing about change by altering demand in themarketplace of greenhouse gas-producing products.

As former political allies have turned awayfrom globalization, and the Trump administration pulled the United States outof the COP21 process, Macron has trumpeted some of his environmental approachesmost loudly in rooms full of CEOs.

Two months before the yellow vest protests,at the One Planet Summit organized by Michael Bloomberg, the French leaderexcitedly spoke off-script about confronting climate change. Macron warned thatthe $100 billion companies there promised for climate action, "could bepure bulls--t." Yet, he said, "there undoubtedly is a change in thephilosophy of finance -- it is a climate finance partnership. ... This initiativemust be at the very core of the global business model."

That model, Macron insisted, should aim atreducing greenhouse gas emissions, saving the world's oceans and haltingbiodiversity loss. With France set to host the 2019 G7 Summit, Macron turned tothe business leaders in New York's posh Plaza Hotel and said, "This OnePlanet Club should be part of the G7. I want to put you at the center of theG7."

Macron's eager absorption of corporatecapitalism into the global governance of climate change now threatens to blowup in his face. It was never about democracy -- how could it be? The world'sworking poor have no seats in the boardrooms or on the stock markets, and noinfluence over Amazon's carbon emissions schemes or the success of Teslaelectric trucks.

The Carbon Disclosure Project, or CDPWorldwide, tracks corporate and financial industry climate commitments, listingthe promises. And Michael Bloomberg and Bank of England Gov. Mark Carneycreated the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, or TCFD, whichalso tracks, according to its website, "more than 275 companies, with acombined market capitalization of more than $6.6 trillion ... and more than 160financial firms — responsible for assets of over $86.2 trillion."

But these carbon reduction promises aren'tgovernment treaties, and their commitments are self-reported. Simply put, the worldcommunity has no means to hold the corporations to account. So, when Walmartvows to remove 1 gigaton of CO2 from its emissions by 2030, or Blackrock CEOLarry Fink tells the summit audience that some of his company's nearly $7trillion in managed assets will be directed to 140 environment projects, orMars Corp. promises to cut greenhouse gases by 27% by 2025, there is no wayangry French farmers can discern the truthful outcome of such loftyaspirations.

On the eve of the Katowice gathering, agroup of CEOS, representing numerous sectors across 150 countries, wrote,"We stand ready to fast-track solutions to help you deliver on an enhancedand more ambitious action plan to tackle climate change and meet the goals setout at the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. We know this is possible."

That said, as 200 nations debate the futureof the planet in Katowice over the coming days, Macron's romance withbillionaire climate investors -- or, at least, promisers -- forms a cautionarytale. There are real limits to the government go-arounds for action. On theirown, corporations cannot impose carbon taxes, build sustainable transportationsystems, balance the needs of rural and urban populations, relocate hundreds ofmillions of soon-to-be-underwater world's citizens or regulate pollution.

Like it or not, corporations needgovernments -- locally, provincially and multinationally. And if thosegovernments refuse to tackle the carbon dioxide crisis in a manner that garnerspopular support, company policies cannot serve as substitutes. The marketplace,locally or globally, cannot replace government action and regulation ofgreenhouse gas emissions.

No matter what their diverse, in some casesreactionary, individual politics may be, the yellow vests have issued a battlecry that every politician -- and all of the Katowice participants -- must heed.The graffiti on the walls of Paris declares Macron is "president of therich," ominously warning, "We cut off heads for less than this."

It would be terrible, beyond all words,were the strategies for confronting climate change to be so ill-conceived andpoorly executed that metaphoric guillotine-hungry mobs ruled the oppositionwith populist, nationalistic rage.

Addressing the opening of COP24 this week,Britain's Sir David Attenborough labeled climate change "our greatestthreat in thousands of years," chastising politicians by adding,"Leaders of the world, you must lead." There are no easy go-arounds,avoiding the pro-fossil fuel interests in the Middle East, Moscow andWashington. Democracy and governance are hard, at times seemingly impossible.

As another Englishman, Winston Churchill,famously lectured the House of Commons in 1947, "No one pretends thatdemocracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy isthe worst form of government, except all those other forms that have been triedfrom time to time."

As exhausting and daunting as it may be,climate leaders must pay heed to the cries of France's yellow vests, and the angrymasses inside their own nations. A corporate boardroom or gathering of CEOs maybe more comfortable. But curing the world's climate catastrophe, pullinghumanity from its existential brink, requires nothing less than solutionsfound, and supported, across whole societies.