We can only welcome the emergence of sobriety in public debate as a solution to the energy crisis. The concept of sobriety is not new, it dates back to ancient Greece. Thailand was the first country to make it the backbone of its development policy, while France is the only country in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development to include sobriety in its energy transition law.
Unfortunately, the French vision of sobriety is limited to its energetic dimension and ignores the other components of sobriety identified in Report III by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In fact, this report defines sobriety policies as “a set of everyday actions and practices that avoid the demand for energy, materials, land and water while ensuring the well-being of all within planetary boundaries.”
Sobriety is not thrift! On the contrary, the sobriety policy preserves access for all to essential services by eliminating the superfluous consumption of the richest. And contrary to popular belief, citizens will only be able to conduct themselves sober if and only if public policies first provide the necessary solutions for activities essential to the well-being of all to take place in accordance with planetary boundaries.
Structural changes needed
Sobriety policies need to consider both the dimensional, collaborative aspects and the use of the goods and services made available to citizens. Dimensional sobriety consists in launching products (cars, homes, household appliances) that meet the needs of citizens. Cooperative sobriety consists in implementing a collective spatial organization in such a way that essential services – such as mobility thanks to public transport – can be significantly bundled. Sobriety of use aims to eliminate the planned obsolescence of equipment and installations and make better use of them. It’s clear that citizens can only respond to usage of the devices they have. Therefore, it would be a fatal error to reduce sobriety to changes in the behavior of individuals, since in reality citizens are bound by the solutions approved by public policy.
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Not surprisingly, the Engie, EDF and TotalEnergies bosses’ vision of sobriety is limited to behavioral changes. The French energy companies are part of the continuation of the well-established disinformation strategy devised by the American oil companies to divert the authorities’ attention from the structural changes needed to eliminate the use of fossil fuels. Sobriety, as advocated by French energy companies, would, if implemented by the authorities, trigger an unprecedented social crisis.
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