The COP22 UN climate change conference purported a significant milestone for France, as the French president Francois Hollande announced that the country looks to eliminate the use of coal-fired power plants as soon as the year 2023. This will be a major step towards the French goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.
The reason France can afford to make such claims is the fact that the country already derives 75 percent of total electric power from nuclear energy, so finding an alternate way to source the rest of 25% should not be a big problem.
This claim puts France at the forefront of achieving the coveted dream of carbon neutrality, ahead of the UK, which aims to stop using fossil fuels for power by 2025. The third country in the race, Germany, is off by a long way, as it confessed that they could only look to cut down the usage of fossil fuels by 2050.
Hollande’s commitment towards a greener plant was also evident when he quipped on Trump’s plan to withdraw the USA from last year’s Paris agreement, saying the treaty was “irreversible.” France’s ex-president, Nicolas Sarkozy, also commented by suggesting that France should look to apply a “carbon import tax” on all the US imports if the Trump administration threatens to renege on the Paris agreement.
France has also been a leader in cutting down on the usage of plastic bags, recently imposing a nationwide ban and announcing another ban on plastic utensils, cups, and dishes by 2020. The country has also started construction on a 28-mile bicycle superhighway which will help the French people commute across Paris in a more planet-friendly way.
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