Where Should We Look for Ways of Coping with the Greenhouse Effect?

As is clear from reading most of the articles in this special issue, all the scenarios for stabilizing or reducing emissions of greenhouse gases to “acceptable” limits require a real effort to tackle the growth of energy consumption. As Véronique Lamblin emphasizes here, all possible means of increasing energy supplies (especially by improving yields or lowering the costs of production technologies) are to be welcomed; nevertheless, this approach alone will probably not be sufficient, given the current concerns about climate change.
Consequently, after highlighting the crucial importance of dealing with the energy problem, she presents here some possible ways of reducing energy consumption in the industrialized countries: production technologies involving a lower carbon content, cutting back demand for electricity and energy for transport, intelligent devices for detecting and reducing waste, management of energy use in housing, industry and vehicles, substitution between products and services, etc. Unfortunately, despite many possibilities that already exist or are in prospect, tackling energy consumption remains a taboo subject, especially because it is too often wrongly understood as holding back economic growth, and it does not attract the amount of effort (in terms of technological or socio-organizational research, for example) needed to match the stakes involved.
This is one of the major failures of both governments and business, in France, in Europe, and throughout the world. It is obvious that if active measures are not taken soon to improve matters, stabilizing the greenhouse gas emissions and thus limiting global warming will remain merely pious hopes.