PARIS – Long a favorite spot for picnicking and sunbathing, the lawns around the Eiffel Tower have recently been the scene of violent protests. First time to a social media campaign. Then a rallyy by dozens of local residents. Not long after, a protester was Bend down on a nearby plane tree to go on a hunger strike.
The source of their anger? The plan is to cut down more than 20 trees, some more than 100 years old, around the tower as part of efforts to build a giant garden and ease tourist congestion.
The controversy is just the latest in a series of incidents that engulf Paris City Hall as it tries to green up the city, a task that seems more urgent as temperatures scorch the French capital, and the rest of Europe.
The local government is redesign the urban landscape of Paris to make it more climate-friendlybut a growing number of residents argue that rampant tree cutting around the capital is paradoxically undermining the city’s environmental ambitions.
Trees are considered to be one of the best means of protection against radiation that contributes to heat waves that are increasing everywhere due to global warming. They provide much-needed cool in crowded cities like Paris, where temperatures were high in the 90s on Monday afternoon and expected to climb higher.
“Without trees, the city is an unbearable furnace,” said Tangui Le Dantec, an urban planner and co-founder of Aux Arbres Citoyens, a group that opposes tree cutting in Paris.
In recent months, small protests have broken out across Paris, with residents and activists rallied around trees condemned by sprawling urban development projects that have at times gone awry. into a giant construction site.
In April, they film The felling of 76 plane trees, most of them decades old, at Porte de Montreuil in the northern suburbs of Paris. City Hall wants to turn the site into a giant square, part of the mayor’s project, Anne Hidalgoto create “a green belt“Around the capital.
“Multiple sclerosis. Hidalgo please stop the massacre,” Thomas Brail, founder of the National Tree Watch Group, said as machines cut trees behind him, in one video he shot in April. Mr Brail then went on an 11-day hunger strike on a plane tree near the Eiffel Tower.
Yves Contassot, former deputy mayor of Paris in charge of the environment and a member of the Green party, said the cutting of trees has become “a very sensitive question that causes a bit of scandal at a time when we talk about anti-government global warming again. in big cities. “
At first, the plan to redevelop the congested area around the Eiffel Tower seemed environmentally sound to Parisians. Most vehicles will be banned and a network of pedestrian paths, bike lanes and parks will be created.
“A new green lung”, City Hall is proud of website.
But residents discovered in May that the plan would also mean cutting down 22 perennials and threatening the root systems of several other trees, including a 200-year-old plane tree planted from long before the Eiffel Tower was built in the late 1880s.
“The poor tree was planted in 1814, and one morning some people wanted to make room for their luggage and it was swept away,” said Mr Brail, a protester who went on a hunger strike on the tree. for visitors.
A series of demonstrations, as well as a online recommendations gathered more than 140,000 signatures, eventually forcing the City Council on May 2 to change its plans and promise not to cut a single tree as part of the greening project.
Emmanuel Grégoire, Deputy Mayor of Paris in charge of urban planning and architecture, said in an interview that the city realized it was “losing a symbolic battle over the project’s green ambitions.” .”
In 2007, Paris adopted a climate plan that reduced the city’s carbon footprint by 20% between 2004 and 2018 and nearly doubled renewable energy consumption, according to a recent report by the regional government. Paris’ new goal is to become a carbon-free city using only renewable energy by 2050.
Mr. Le Dantec, the urban planner, admits that “with regard to pollution reduction, there has certainly been an improvement”. He spoke of Mrs. Hidalgo’s success, though controversial, plan to limit car use in the capital.
But he added that Paris’ urban plans ignored another reality of climate change: rising temperatures, fighting trees is seen as one of the best defenses.
Trees cool cities by providing shade and mitigating the effects of so-called “urban heat islands”,
common in Paris, by absorbing radiation. Météo France, the national weather service, has estimates that temperatures on those heat islands during recent heatwaves were sometimes 40 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than surrounding areas.
In mid-June, as France was sweltering under scorching heat, Mr. Le Dantec was wandering around Paris with a thermometer. At the Place de la République, he Be recorded temperatures reach 140 degrees Fahrenheit on a concrete surface, compared to 82 degrees under a 100-year-old plane tree.
“Our best defense against heatwaves is trees,” says Dominique Dupré-Henry, former architect at the Ministry of the Environment and co-founder of Aux Arbres Citoyens.
But among the 30 major cities studied by Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyParis has the lowest tree cover, with around 9%, compared with 12.7% in London and 28.8% in Oslo.
“This is the exact opposite of climate change adaptation,” Ms. Dupré-Henry said.
Mr. Grégoire said Paris plans to plant 170,000 new trees by 2026. Take the example of Porte de Montreuil, an area north of Paris, he said he would plant more trees than cut them down.
“It is a project with very high environmental standards,” said Grégoire, noting the transformation of what is now a giant asphalt roundabout into a green square. “The results are positive in terms of combating urban heat islands.”
Regional environmental regulators are less confident. In the family evaluate, evaluate, evaluate of the project, they note that new construction and infrastructure “will, on the contrary, add heat.”
Mr. Le Dantec also said that, in the short term, young trees are less effective than older trees in mitigating global warming, because the foliage is smaller and cannot absorb as much radiation. He said: “A 100-year-old tree is worth 125 new trees” in terms of its ability to absorb carbon dioxide and cool the surrounding environment.
In Porte de Montreuil, residents had mixed feelings about the project. Lo Richert Lebon, a 57-year-old designer, praised the “green efforts”, saying they would help improve the quality of life in this long-rotted suburb.
But “lawns are not trees of value,” she added, standing in the shade of plane trees slated to be cut down, as part of a redesign of a flea market in the area. area. “Trees should be integrated in these efforts, rather than becoming a adjusting variable.”
