Réflexions sur le calendrier du débat Énergies et climat

The 21st century will have to deal with three big categories of new problems, each of them having its own schedule: (i) the effects of climate change will be felt progressively with more intensity; this will lead to a change in the public opinion, which will accept the necessity to fight against greenhouse warming and which will consequently ask the political world for more adapted and efficient decisions; (ii) various scenarios are being constructed to answer by different means the high energy demand, depending upon the availability of fossil fuels, the more or less rapid coming of new and renewable energies... – all these scenarios are subject to their own schedule and decision calendars; (iii) keeping on with nuclear energy production implies that decisions be taken soon, either for extending the time during which the actual plants can be exploited, or for starting to prototype and build new-technology plants, or finally for deciding how to deal with the fission products. Looking simultaneously at the above calendars shows that the main options will have to be agreed as soon as 2005–2006. It suggests also strongly that the corresponding decisions will depend partly on the availability of new technological solutions, but also, and as importantly, on the society attitude toward the alternative between nuclear energy and climate change.