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Interview with Robert Salais by Christian Bessy regarding his book
Le piège climatique. Entre le temps qui vient et le temps qui reste
(The Climate Trap: Between the Time to Come and the Time Remaining).
Villeneuve-d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion. 2025.
https://www.septentrion.com/fr/book/?GCOI=27574100146100
How did you come to take an interest in environmental issues?
I grew up in the countryside and returned there regularly, so I’ve always felt at home with nature. I’ve always enjoyed being lulled by birdsong and am always amazed when I spot a wild animal. I’m acutely aware of how quickly they’re disappearing. At INSEE, working on the ‘unemployed’ category made me realise how much the pursuit of a ‘real’ history comes up against an obsession with long-term trends, as well as a belief in a linear, singular and macro-level time. This approach doesn’t work for nature or for global warming. We must account for phenomena that follow historical processes across multiple levels, timeframes, phases, bifurcations, contradictions, interactions, regressions and accelerations.
And then today, it’s staggering to see the ever-increasing rise in temperature and the ineffectiveness of the measures that have been put in place. I wanted to try to understand the factors blocking international negotiations on combating global warming.
Did you embark on a historical analysis, as you did with the history of European integration?
How did we end up here after seventy years of international negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations, which have been ongoing since 1970 (the Stockholm Conference)? That is the question running through the first two parts of the book. Yet the early negotiators understood that they had to set a target and, above all, not exceed it. This constraint defines a ‘time remaining’ in which to act. If this is not used to bring about profound economic transformation, the ‘time to come’ will bring disasters that are no longer so ‘natural’ after all, and success will become increasingly difficult. The jaws of the climate trap are closing.
Can you identify different periods in the international negotiation process?
Yes, broadly speaking we can identify four main periods, but it is important to note that this process has unfolded without really drawing on international law.
A series of founding declarations of international law, established under the auspices of the UN, preceded Rio de Janeiro. The Rio climate negotiations should have taken into account: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment (1972), the World Charter for Nature (1982) on the protection of life in all its forms, the Montreal Protocol (1987) on the protection of the ozone layer, and the International Court of Justice, which settles disputes between states in accordance with international law… The work of legal scholars gives a clear impression of a disregard for international law throughout the process, extending as far as misinterpretation and outright rejection.
Could you therefore outline this chronology, starting with the 1970s and the Club of Rome’s initial questions regarding the limits to growth?
First period: From 1970 to 1989, negotiations got underway and culminated in the 1992 Rio Framework Convention on Climate Change. But all too soon, the environment took a back seat in the political strategies of the major powers and emerging nations. The collapse of the Soviet Union left the field open for market forces to penetrate the sector, and it was primarily North-South relations that shaped the agenda. The South was keen to promote development and ensure that environmental protection did not come at the expense of their right to development. The North was seen as responsible for environmental damage, and it was up to them to deal with it.
Is it this clash of agendas that will lead to a change of course?
Yes, in a way, this will trigger the second period: with the Kyoto Protocol (1997–2012), the United States (Clinton between 1993 and 2001; George W. Bush between 2001 and 2009) attempted to take control of the process by imposing the creation of a carbon credit market under the auspices of a central authority, in order to manage emissions reductions. The removal of one tonne of CO2 (with an equivalent for other greenhouse gases) entitles the holder to a carbon credit. These credits are traded on a market that sets a price around which all transactions are possible: sale, purchase, speculation, and use to improve one’s performance in terms of CO2 emissions . The results in terms of emissions are poor due to circumvention of the established rules and the absence of any rigorous oversight. Cheating and scandals are hushed up.
Is this what will lead to the promotion of the principle of ‘carbon neutrality’ and the use of technologies enabling the creation of ‘carbon sinks’?
Yes, this principle had been in the making for quite some time, and it was the 2015 Paris Agreement that promoted the term ‘carbon neutrality’, representing a third period in the regulation of environmental issues. This neutrality is defined as ‘achieving a balance between greenhouse gas emissions and anthropogenic removals by human-managed ecosystems – forests, grasslands, agricultural soils, wetlands – and by certain industrial processes, such as carbon capture and storage. These ecosystems and processes will be referred to as “sinks”. The hope associated with these sinks is that they will single-handedly offset emissions, without affecting human activities. To limit the temperature rise to below 1.5°C, the goal of carbon neutrality was to be achieved by 2050. Within the international negotiation process, carbon neutrality was seen as a way of leveraging two factors simultaneously: reducing emissions and utilizing carbon sinks. And that this approach could be applied at all levels – that of companies, their products, and regions. Indeed, the results could even be added together to achieve a ‘zero’ target. However, practical natural sinks have proved scarce, and technological solutions costly and complex. How can we distinguish between natural and anthropogenic factors linked to land use?
The key to properly understanding carbon neutrality lies in the measurement tool. According to ADEME (and the IPCC), the concept of ‘carbon neutrality’ only makes sense at the global and national levels. It requires the accounting of Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions, thereby applying a principle of responsibility. What is the responsibility of a multinational corporation when measured on a global scale? The calculation of these emissions must go beyond its own and include those of the companies it employs, upstream – its suppliers, subcontractors, etc. – and downstream – those that transport, distribute and sell its products, and those that recover and recycle its waste. Its responsibility is therefore most often on a global scale.
The accountability inherent in carbon neutrality relies on the intervention of a “situated” state that ensures everyone accounts for all emissions within its jurisdiction. The carbon credit market, as it is currently designed, is based on an “absent” state convention, as Lisa Knoll notes (“Sustainable markets and the State,” HSR 44 (2019)). The state removes all obstacles that would prevent market participants from acting as they see fit, without oversight, following a form of self-regulation, as we have seen.
Is the deforestation of tropical forests a good illustration of this?
The systematic clearing of primary forests dates back to the colonial era and continues at a frenetic pace in the three parts of the world that still have such forests, albeit diminished: the Amazon, tropical Africa and South-East Asia. For example, since 2024 the Indonesian government has launched a massive deforestation project across half of the territory of Papua that it controls. This is a still-unspoilt area that is home to the last remaining large forests rich in biodiversity, due to its distance from the capital, Jakarta, and the lack of infrastructure. At the end of 2024, Indonesia withdrew from the commitment it had made at COP26 in 2021.
The goal of zero deforestation by 2030 is the subject of lucrative schemes. Here is one example. A voluntary offset market is being applied to the ‘conservation’ of tropical forests. Each project must demonstrate the CO2 that would have been emitted had the forest not been protected in a baseline scenario. With no legal framework in place, an international alliance of politicians and businesses (including the Davos Economic Forum) has created a Verra certification standard for emissions reductions, which assesses the number of carbon credits to be allocated to each project. An official investigation used satellite imagery. What is the reality? Over 90% of offset credits are ‘ghost credits’. For these projects, the baseline scenarios appeared to be overestimated by 400%. The system creates an incentive to make inaccurate predictions. The more pessimistic the prediction, the more money there is to be made.
Ultimately, with the deterioration of international relations, did we quickly slide into a Fourth Period of Regression from Dubai to Doha and Belém, with the oil and gas majors and oil- and gas-producing nations seizing power?
In 2022, there were 425 ‘carbon bombs’ worldwide, in other words 425 fossil fuel production projects: 195 gas and oil projects and 250 coal mines. These are sites where the potential emissions from known reserves will exceed 1 gigatonne of CO2 if they are exploited and burned until depletion. The sum of their potential emissions exceeds the total permissible emissions required to stay within the 1.5°C threshold by a factor of between 4 and 7. Joe Biden, who was absent from Dubai, had in March 2023 given the green light to a major oil project in north-eastern Alaska. In doing so, he failed to honor his campaign pledges of ‘no drilling on federal lands’ and ‘no permits for the oil industry’. This was a signal not to turn towards renewable energy. John Kerry, sent to Dubai, will defend investment in carbon capture and storage as a substitute for any move away from fossil fuels. The major oil and gas companies and oil-producing nations were in agreement. The text of the agreement will refer to ‘transition fuels’, meaning fossil gas.
These COPs mark the abandonment of any protest by UN leaders against the oil majors’ takeover of operational control. The scene will be repeated in Betel where, in the midst of preparations for the COP, Lula will defend a mega-oil exploration project near the mouth of the Amazon and territories inhabited by indigenous peoples. At the same time, he had handed over vast areas (the Cerrado and the Pantanal) rich in biodiversity to large landowners.
Beyond this somewhat arbitrary periodization, what you highlight is a long-term trend towards the strengthening of the ‘voluntary carbon market’ organized by private actors, even though one gets the impression that political actors are pulling the strings – what are your thoughts on this?
Indeed, following the example of specialist companies, such as Verra, which create carbon neutrality metrics via a Low Carbon Label in order to establish a carbon credit market. The state no longer has control over the certification of these credits. In France, this market remains in its infancy despite public funding designed to encourage participation from agricultural businesses.
And where does Europe fit into this political landscape?
The idea of Europe is an old one, and I shall not revisit here its history and the ideals upon which it was founded (see our book Le Viol d’Europe. Une enquête sur la disparition d’une idée, 2013, PUF).
Although much has been achieved in many areas, we are a long way from those ideals today. It even appears that we are moving further away from them, perhaps irrevocably, if we consider the setbacks and abandonments by the EU over the past several years, particularly in the fight against global warming, the degradation of nature and the rise in human mortality. More worryingly, the obstacles that the major powers – first and foremost the United States, Russia (the successor to the USSR) and China – had raised against the creation of Europe, in opposition to the peoples’ ambitions for autonomy, political community and a model of democracy, have been revived in international relations.
The weakness since the beginning of European integration has been to oscillate between supporting multinational corporations to achieve the status of a global power and a commitment to environmentalism. The EU is torn between two camps: the market-oriented sceptics who hide behind the scenes and refuse any commitment, and the advocates of the fight against global warming who wonder if they are not going too far. The bold Green Deal of 2019, President von der Leyen’s flagship proposal, is being abandoned from 2024 onwards by the same president during her second term. Manfred Weber of Germany, leader of the European People’s Party (EPP), relying where necessary on the far right in the European Parliament, is dismantling the tools of the Green Deal, at the behest of big business backed by the government. The European Commission is following suit. It is abandoning the tools designed to regulate the financial policies of large corporations. It is thus embracing the general deregulation of the global economy, calling into question the survival of the European Union.
We must fear a shift towards a rump Europe compliant with American wishes at the end of the Second World War, prioritizing American economic and financial interests; a Europe serving as a protective buffer against the USSR (now the Russian Empire), the first line of defense.
In Part III, do you explore the realm of possibilities by demonstrating that other tools exist to properly assess the situation and to highlight the inequalities surrounding global warming and those responsible for them?
Fundamentally, we must address the root causes, the very concepts and foundations of actions and choices, in order to steer them in the right direction. We identify these tools throughout the history of the process. These include carbon budgets; scope-based accounting; an assessment for each emitting entity of its responsibility in relation to global emissions; international environmental law; human rights; and financing for green investments based on verifiable emissions reductions.
Our conviction is that most of these were known to IPCC researchers. Yet they have not, or have been unable to, utilize the potential of these tools. Their political implementation today should be championed by researchers and all movements advocating action against global warming; tools upon which, in turn, these movements could rely to raise awareness of their causes, mobilize all sectors of society in consultations and decisions relating to sustainable development.
Are you proposing a new approach to knowledge and action?
We cannot escape the climate crisis by approaching it from above using a general, abstract method that reduces problems and human beings to mere segments. History is not over. It cannot be reduced to this ‘last chance’ scenario that world leaders are trying to convince us of and abandon us to.
All this must be based on solutions tailored to the concrete problems arising in each place and at each moment. The paradox is that these concrete problems stem from the very human practices prevalent in those places and at those times. It is these practices that must be reformed by the very people who carry them out. Moreover, it is they who possess the knowledge—in other words, the shared understanding of local realities; we must go through them.
But are we still living in a democracy? We risk entering political regimes where a sphere of power goes round in circles, cut off from citizens and their needs. On the contrary, we must encourage individual and collective initiative, giving priority to the principles of autonomy of action, deliberation, self-organization, and evaluation based on the situation on the ground. The state provides the appropriate resources and intervenes only as a last resort (a state that is both capable and ‘situated’). The social priority is to empower individuals (as well as groups): the capacity for achievement (the power to act), the capacity for choice (real freedom), the capacity to express one’s ‘voice’ (participation in collective decisions), and capacity as the potential for responsibility, all of which contribute to an individual’s power to act in their work, their life and in society.
Hence the search for the human attitudes that should be taught and the modes of action that should be preferred: a few suggestions made in the book:
– Living the sensory dimension of our relationship with nature, of ‘feeling in one’s very body that we are part of it’ (Ingold)
– To inhabit the world as a poet… To re-enchant nature (Hölderlin)
– Reintroduce, adapted to today’s realities, into the curriculum the ‘lesson of things’ specific to the education of the senses so dear to Rousseau
– To provide financial support for this education through a tax on fossil fuel consumption
– For workers, the right to have a say in the measurement of gas emissions and other forms of pollution, to be involved in economic, financial and organizational decisions, and the right to object and put forward counter-proposals (at company, sector and community level).
So you are advocating a more pragmatic approach that contributes to the formation of ‘publics’ by prioritizing deliberations based on conflicting assessments and establishing new, sensitive relationships with nature that allow conventions of common sense to emerge?
Yes, in a way; it is by fostering dialogue between these common-sense conventions—which are essential for coordinating the identification, classification and conservation of natural resources—that we will be better able to inhabit the world.

Robert Salais
Those wishing to learn more about the author’s work may consult the collective volume edited by Christian Bessy and Claude Didry (2022), L’économie est une science réflexive. Chômage, convention et capacité dans l’œuvre de Robert Salais, also published by Les Presses du Septentrion.
https://www.septentrion.com/fr/book/?GCOI=27574100797150
https://books.openedition.org/septentrion/146586
References
Knoll, Lisa (2019): Sustainable markets and the State: Taxation, Cap-and-Trade, Pay-for-Success, and Nudging. Historical Social Research 44(1): 231-257.
Salais, Robert (2013): Le Viol d’Europe. Enquête sur la disparition d’une idée, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
OpenEdition vous propose de citer ce billet de la manière suivante :
diazbone (29 mars 2026). A pragmatic approach to combating environmental disorders. Économie des conventions. Consulté le 11 juin 2026 à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/15yw7