LThe Minister of Ecological Transition and Territorial Cohesion, Christophe Béchu, announces 1.2 billion euros in additional support for local authorities in the form of a loan to speed up the ecological transition.
Grow parking lots, plant trees in schoolyards or replace street lamp bulbs: elected officials will be able to appeal to the Deposit and Shipping Fund (CDC) to request loans over five years, Mr. Béchu told JDD.
This loan package is intended to complement the “green fund” to speed up the ecological transition in the areas, announced in August by Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and today allocated two billion euros.
“With the additional option to borrow at a lower price, it is the upstream and downstream of the green fund that complement each other”, emphasizes Christophe Béchu.
“If I’m the mayor and I want to plant trees, I need to know where to plant them, what species to choose? Not all cities have the means to answer these questions,” he explains.
The money released by the Caisse des dépôts will finance this need for expertise in the municipalities, a request from local elected officials, according to the minister and director of the public bank, Éric Lombard.
The aim is to encourage and help elected officials to speed up measures and projects by promoting decentralization of funding. And it is urgent, because “the climate is a loan shark: The longer we wait, the more the climate interest rate rises, and the more we need even higher investments?”, believes Mr Béchu.
20/11/2022 12:12:18 – Paris (AFP) – © 2022 AFP
