In the United Nations and then at the G20 in Pittsburgh last week, France asked the states of the world to be "there for the protection of the planet". It is urgent because the time for finite resources has begun. Men are drawing more and more from stocks of raw materials, especially from energy stocks. This always results in producing more CO. The two “energy and climate” problems are about to collide. The meeting between lack of energy and excess carbon promises to be explosive for men.
The transport sector, which is already responsible for 27% of emissions, is still consuming more energy and producing more and more CO. It is the only sector that has seen its emissions increase since 1990, to the point of endangering the “factor 4 in 2050” objective of France and Europe. The Frankfurt Motor Show presented its usual armada of new models. However, he made the electric car his standard bearer. This should not be the tree hiding the forest. The ecological emergency forces us to act quickly, and to act differently.
We cannot immobilize people and goods and petrify society. Mobility is life. We simply need to develop other ways of getting around and transporting, taking into account the constraints that threaten future generations. Public transit is virtuous because it allows these constraints to be shared. The recent past nevertheless shows that it will only play a role if it changes. Radically.
Our generation has decided to return the tram: it is it that is revolutionizing travel in cities today. Thanks to the new TER and Francilien equipment and with new services, the regional councils and we have relaunched local trains. French high speed has revolutionized the geography of travel in France and Europe, as it is preparing to do elsewhere in the world. Between Paris, London, Brussels, Amsterdam, Lyon, Munich, Geneva, Marseille, Bordeaux, there are fewer planes and cars and more trains. The French no longer move as before.
What we have achieved for travelers, we now do for goods. Who can accept that demand for freight transport, still growing rapidly, is absorbed by road and air transport? This is however what was likely to happen in France. If nothing was done, it was asphyxiation on the highways, the famous truck wall, in ports and in large cities. France, the crossroads of Europe, would become a gigantic traffic jam.
For a long time, the SNCF heard this request but it did not take the measure of the opportunities which the new solutions represent. She lacked foresight and determination. It’s over. The government has taken a radical initiative in the extension of the Grenelle of the environment: the national commitment for rail freight, announced on September 16 by Jean-Louis Borloo, Minister of State, changes the situation. For the first time in fifty years, the State is investing massively by injecting 7 billion euros into a network of rail lines intended for goods. This is unprecedented and unparalleled. This forces us. The transport of goods is today an emergency and an absolute priority for SNCF.
To do this, he needs to change scale and pace. The commitment to sustainable transport is part of the SNCF's genes. So I decided that the SNCF would invest 1 billion euros to run this new ecological transport of goods at full capacity: put the semi-trailers on rail motorways; transport containers arriving by boat by rail, double combined maritime, land and river transport; develop high-speed and very high-speed double freight transport; transport goods by rail to the outskirts of cities; creating port rail operators… The challenge is to place SNCF on the flow of goods of the present and the future, to capture the traffic arriving in ports or crossing the country in single file. We're doing it, big, to change everything right now.
I sometimes hear it said that with the reduction in “retail” transport activity, SNCF would free up local freight. It is not so. From this first year 2010, the balance will be positive. In eight years, there will be 1 million fewer trucks on the roads, more fluidity and less CO emissions. Each mode of transport will be able to fully play its role according to its areas of relevance.
Why would these new directions succeed? I know how late we are, and I know why. I learned from it. Today, there are technical innovations which make it possible to do ecological transport of goods on a large scale, there is an investment of 7 billion on a freight network, there is a turning point in the culture and priorities of SNCF. For freight rail workers, it is also a prospect for the future in a sector where efforts have not been lacking. At SNCF, for new freight, we need all the rail workers and everyone's skills.
See far and act quickly. By December, at the time of the Copenhagen summit, the SNCF will have, under the authority of Pierre Blayau, multiplied the frequencies of combined transport, created a port operator in Le Havre and La Rochelle, doubled the Perpignan-Luxembourg rail motorway traffic, formed a consortium to launch high-speed freight. By bringing France from the Corail train to the TGV era in less than three decades, the SNCF has accomplished a historic change which has profoundly improved the daily lives of millions of people. Today we are undertaking a similar transformation for the transport of goods.
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