French President Emmanuel Macron has pledged to hold a referendum on changing the constitution to include a commitment to fight against climate change and protect the environment.

Speaking to members of a Citizen’s Convention on Climate (CCC) on Monday, the French President said that the referendum would propose adding a clause mentioning biodiversity, the environment and tackling climate change to Article 1 of the nation’s constitution.

“Constitutionally, it must first go to the National Assembly and then the Senate and be voted in identical terms,” Macron said, referring to the referendum proposal.

“Should we do more?” Macron asked, also acknowledging that the country was not doing enough to tackle global warming, as it also missed the targets foreseen by the Paris Agreement.

CCC, a committee of 150 randomly chosen French people with the aim to propose ways to cut emissions, was created in response to anti-government “yellow vest” protests of late 2018.

Following June’s “green wave” in local elections, the French President promised an extra €15 billion for measures to combat the climate crisis over the next two years and a referendum on whether to introduce the crime of “ecocide” for harming the environment. Amending the country’s constitution to include environmental goals was first proposed by CCC in June, with the French president coming under fire for failing to do enough to combat global warming, despite pledges to speed up the transition to a greener economy.

Macron’s move came a few days after EU leaders agreed to strengthen climate targets for 2030, by cutting the bloc’s greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by the end of the decade compared with 1990 levels.

This article is reproduced at www.neweurope.eu