4. Climate challenge

Today, the world's main energy challenge is no longer the depletion of fossil fuels (oil and gas in particular), as was the case during the oil crises of 1973-1974 and 1979-1980. Technical progress has given us access to new, albeit sometimes more costly, deposits, and energy efficiency policies and the growing use of renewable energies (solar and wind), which are by definition inexhaustible, have reduced fears of a shortage of resources in the short term. The main issue for all policies is the fight against global warming, and therefore the need to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and in particular CO ₂ emissions. In a way, we need to ensure that "carbon from below", that which is trapped in fossil resources, is not transformed into "carbon from above", which is likely to cause devastating effects for life on earth. This was the concern...