According to Jean-Claude Delalonde, my godfather and the president of ANCCLI, some big problems in France are the use of nuclear energy, which makes up 75% of the energy we use. We also give energy to England and Germany. Europe, which includes 28 countries, has some countries that are very nuclear and others, such as England, that use other energy sources in addition to nuclear energy. Countries like Ukraine have nuclear plants that are NOT safe and need to be shut down right away, but they lack the funds to do so and keep using them. As most of you probably know, Germany switched from nuclear energy to coal. First off, coal is not any better than nuclear because it pollutes more. Second, they had to destroy all of their waste, which they sent to France to destroy. Europe itself has tried to establish laws to protect the environment, but many countries cannot afford to follow the laws, so it never really worked out.France switched over to nuclear energy in the 70s because it was cheap, a bit better for the environment, and easy. But what they’ve come to realize is how dangerous it is and that there is no place to stock the energy. When they were built, they were made to last 25 years and were supposed to be able to be destroyed when needed with the budget given. However, we have been using them for over 40 years and all the money to destroy them was spent on other things. We are the most nuclear country in Europe and the second most nuclear country in the world following the US, with 58 working machines in over 20 centrals . Some politicians are also now saying that we can keep using them for 100 years which will be extremely dangerous, so Green Peace has been working on showing the people that the government lied about the budget allowing us to destroy them and is trying to switch us over to renewable energy. One of his quotes “we are not prepared to use different energy sources” is because we do not have enough windmills or solar panels to accommodate for the loss of nuclear energy but if the bigger countries agree to go all out on renewable energy, France will follow. It is, after all, one of the goals of COP21. France’s goals are energy solutions, a better attitude, and the stop of nuclear energy overall.
The government and the mayors in the bigger cities (with a minimum number of inhabitants) are starting to install public transportation. They want to make it free and have shuttles from streets to the actual public transportation sites. Along with great public transportation, some towns have two different garbage bags for recycling, while others have three. My hometown has three: yellow, black, and blue. France has also developed their way of getting back used clothing to give them back to society. When old clothes are no longer wanted, they can be given to a company which will wash the old clothes, giving jobs to those in need, and either sell them back for a dollar or recycle them to get some material back. While it used to be: throw away and pollute, now it’s: recycle, give to others. They have also stopped burning trash and only do so with materials that need to be burned for safety reasons. Lastly, cars have to get a checkup for gas emissions every 3 years if they are new, every year if they are older than 5 years old, and cannot be driven, or have very high taxes, if they are too old and have too much gas emission.