Le Conseil Régional de Bourgogne : Energy Climate Plan

The greenhouse gas situation caused by gas emissions and energy losses were diagnosed at the end of 2006.

The results show that if the situation isn’t checked by 2020 the consumption of energy by transport will rise by 40% and residential consumption by 20%.

Burgundy’s Regional Council has therefore taken up the challenge to reduce emissions over the next seven years; the plan is to be name ‘Energy – Climate.’

Central to the plan is to involve the Burgundian people, develop advisedly, performance concentration and make Burgundy itself a model of controlled development. This means becoming a more sparing, more autonomous socially and economically and regionally environmental.

The plan means to mobilize financially 140m€ from the Regional Council over the next seven years, set out as

55% for energy saving
35% for the diversification of new energy sources
10% for information and educating the people of Burgundy in energy saving

Added to the 140m€ from the Regional Council Ademe have added 20m€ and the European Union 30m€, bringing the total for the period 2007 – 2013 to 190m€.

Ademe is the French Environment and Energy Management Agency whose status is industrial and commercial public undertaking, under the joint supervision of France’s ministers of Environment, Energy and Research. Their mission is to encourage, supervise, coordinate and facilitate the undertaking of operations with the goal of protecting the environment and energy.

Their priority is energy, air, noise, transport, waste, polluted sites and soil, and environmental management.

With this amount of financial input it is hoped that Burgundy will better be able to widen its plan even further covering other fields. In particular being able to anticipate, prepare and mitigate the effects of climatic change.

One of the towns in the Auxois region of Burgundy is particularly affected by the threat of pollution.

Semur-en-Auxois is a mediaeval town that straddles the river Armançon and is full of character. Set in an area rich in history it is close to the scene of Caesar’s battle against the Gaul army, led by the revolutionary Vercingetorix.

With its narrow streets, interesting shops and cafés, copious amounts of cobbles, parks, towers, one of which has a large crack that has been there for 500 years, an imposing church, various tourist events and surrounded by luscious Burgundy countryside, dotted by the large, white Charolais cattle it is a typical tourist hotspot.

The préfet de la Cote d’Or has recently given the go ahead, for what the campaigners see as a blot on this beautiful landscape; a landfill site to be situated just outside the town which is to receive both household and industrial waste from as far away as Beaune.

Some of the waste will have been burnt in incinerators, and will as such be called *machefers*, which means they will be the highly toxic concentrated ashes. These will be buried on the site. But as the local stone is to be found only approximately two metres deep, the waste will only be buried shallowly and the project, as such, will be to create a mound, that could be 15 m high or more.

Campaigners have fought a long and hard battle to stop the project but the préfet has given their approval.