Jean-Marc Jancovici: portrait and quick biography

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Jean-Marc Jancovici: portrait and quick biography




by Christophe » 25/10/07, 13:48

Jean-Marc Jancovici, pessimistic but not desperate, The World, 24 / 10 / 07 Stephane Foucart

The man has the peculiarity of annoying almost everyone. Radical ecologists, who do not like him, sometimes qualify him as "VRP of the nuclear industry". Alas, Jean-Marc Jancovici is no longer in court with liberal economists: the annoying pleads in favor of a tax and dares to question the dogma of growth.

Scientist and nuclearist for some; dangerous neomalthusian decreasing for others. Nicolas Hulot's energy-climate advisor, polytechnician and father of the carbon footprint, is none of that. The man does not enter any box and assures to have only one ideology: "that of the figures".

This is, without doubt, one of the secrets of its media breakthrough. For almost six years, he skims the television sets. Not for the glory: "for the cause", he said. To preach, tirelessly, against the grain of public opinion and the political world, the virtues of "increasing taxation on fossil fuels". Unique way, according to him, to face the double shock which comes: rarefaction of oil and climate change.

As much to admit, the word carried by "Janco" - as it is sometimes nicknamed in the editorial staff - is quite depressing. Even frankly black. In the very near future - less than thirty years - world oil production will reach its maximum, then decrease inexorably. Energy prices will soar, ever faster. The economies will go into recession. Everywhere, the middle classes will become poorer. Global warming will get involved and will end up weakening the poorest regions of the globe. Faced with the migratory pressure which will increase at the gates of Europe and North America, the great democracies will be tempted by the authoritarian drift ... Here, summarized in broad strokes, the scenario feared by Jean-Marc Jancovici.
But, to understand the substance of his thought, one must read his two bedside books: the report of the Club of Rome publishes in 1972 on the limits of growth, and the famous Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville. Do not be mistaken, Jean-Marc Jancovici is pessimistic, but not completely desperate. He even has two children.

"A little engineer"

Disqualified by force of catastrophism? Voire. Nicolas Hulot's advisor is not reducible to a media Cassandra. Inventor of the carbon footprint - the tool for assessing the contribution to the greenhouse effect and dependence on fossil fuels - he has also just co-founded Carbone 4, the first carbon strategy consulting firm.
Born in Paris in 1962, he did some of his studies in Grenoble where his father, a physicist, was appointed to a teaching position. He returns to the capital to complete the classical course of mathematicians who have some facilities with the figures: special mathematics at the Lycee Louis-le-Grand, then admission to Polytechnique and passage to Telecom Paris.

With such a pedigree, his professional career could have been more flashy, and some of his classmates now have high-sounding titles. He always defines himself, with a little coquetry, as "a little engineer".

It was by chance that he fell "into these stories of energy and climate" at the end of the 1990s, when he was working for France Telecom on the economic models of telemedicine, tele-education, teletravail… "Now to be interested, he says, in the reasons why people would have to do remotely what they usually do by moving around, it is also to ask questions about transport, therefore energy. " And, consequently, on heating. On behalf of the association of former students of l'X, he organizes a series of conferences with climatologists Herve Le Treut and Jean Jouzel.

Through the philosopher Dominique Bourg, he meets Nicolas Hulot. The idea of ​​defending a cause is gaining ground. But to warn about the perils climatic and energetic becomes, too, a trade. In 2000, he went to the French Environment and Energy Management Agency (ADEME) to propose the development of an emission measurement tool.

"It didn't exist," he said. "I, who didn't know much about it then, had the chance to be the one-eyed in the land of the blind and to develop what was to become the carbon footprint." First an environmental management tool, the carbon footprint also becomes, over time, "an instrument of strategic reflection" for companies, which can thus measure "at what distance they are from the problem". And imagine the means to reorganize their activity to face it.

"Schizophrenia"

While the Energy Watch Group has just announced, Monday, October 22, that the peak of world oil production had been reached in 2006, Jean-Marc Jancovici's business consulting activity is doing quite well. According to him, "the level of awareness is very high among some bosses".
Is this beginning of awareness shared by the political world? Is the Grenelle de l'Environnement the start of a victory? “The victory will be when 51% of the French are in favor of a progressive surtax on fossil fuels,” he replies. The more so as the message of the Grenelle is, according to him, scrambled by the work of the commission for the liberation of the growth, directed by Jacques Attali. "One reaches a peak in the schizophrenia", he jokes. In Mr. Attali's mission letter, there is neither the word environment, nor the word climate, nor the word resources. "

Is Jean-Marc Jancovici an ecologist? "It means nothing." Nuclear ? "No choice. We keep the nuclear power and we move on." The growth ? "We have to decrease our consumption of fossil fuels, we have no choice. It's a question of physical constraints."
Yes, but growth with a capital "C"? In the latest issue of the review La Jaune et la Rouge, he argues that the tertiarisation of the economy is insufficient to disconnect the material flows from growth. In conclusion, economic growth is not more sustainable than sustainable.
Descending, "Janco"? He gets by with an accounting artifice - a calculation trick that suits the polytechnician and which he details in his latest book (Le Plein please, Seuil, 2006). In short, it would suffice to integrate the rise in prices into the concept of growth. Economic heresy! Because the growth thus calculated could be positive, he concedes, "even if the householder would see her purchasing power decrease". In short, nothing separates Jean-Marc Jancovici from the decline: barely the politeness of the figures.
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by elephant » 25/10/07, 14:23

Growth - decreasing

Let's stay reasonable: if we manage to reduce our oil consumption by 20 or 30%:
- too bad for emirs: they have no heating problem and anyway, they can earn as much by selling less by increasing their margins.
- but these savings can be a driving force for our economies: jobs in new energy technologies, building insulation, relocated revenues in energy farming, etc ...

rising transportation prices can also help part of our economy to relocate

That said, most serious economists say that an extension of nuclear power is a must.
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by Christine » 25/10/07, 15:19

elephant wrote:rising transportation prices can also help part of our economy to relocate


Toutafè. The cost of transport being ridiculously low compared to that of labor, it is less expensive to increase the transport of goods to have them manufactured in countries where labor is less expensive rather than to employ local labor. (example of the "famous" shrimps caught in northern Europe, skinned in Morocco and then shipped back to be eaten near fishing grounds).

Cf the article on N. Hulot: "In France, a large part of our compulsory levies tends to make us save labor, rather than energy. We should shift the taxation of labor to energy . " https://www.econologie.com/forums/donner-un- ... t4199.html
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by elephant » 25/10/07, 22:39

Cf the article on N. Hulot: "In France, a large part of our compulsory levies tends to make us save labor, rather than energy. We should shift the taxation of labor to energy .


it deserves reflection, but not blind: matter is complex.
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