Op-ed published in Lyon Mag on 28 July 2026, starting from three decisions taken in the Lyon urban area during the heatwave — and the structural reasons why none of them holds on its own.

Bauer: four ways to undo a policy

Michael Bauer and his colleagues have formalised four forms of policy dismantling: silent abandonment, displacement to another arena, symbolic action, head-on termination. The abandonment of the Rive Droite project — the redevelopment of the Rhône riverbanks into a planted promenade, buried by the new president of the Metropolis three days before work was due to begin — belongs to the fourth. It is the only one that owns its choice in front of voters. It is also the only one that obliges you to propose something else.

Jacobs: self-undermining feedback

The political scientist Alan Jacobs describes a mechanism he calls self-undermining feedback: some policies manufacture the conditions of their own abandonment by imposing immediate, concrete losses on mobilised groups in exchange for distant, diffuse benefits. Rive Droite ticks every box: traffic jams right away on a major north-south artery, shade around 2045. And scheduling the works at the end of the term left the successor the full political cost with none of the benefit.

Kehler: the gap between mandate and authority

Sarah Kehler and her co-authors, in a review of environmental policy analysis, identify a structural gap in local climate adaptation: those with the mandate to plan rarely hold the authority to act. The gap gets filled with visible, reversible measures. The mobile air conditioner is the definition of one — delivered this week, visible on social media, stored in a cupboard in five years.

Förell: blurring to prevent debate

A Swedish team led by Nora Förell has shown, with regard to climate policy dismantling in Sweden, how discursive registers serve less to convince than to make opposition uncomfortable. In Lyon, “without dogmatism” on one side, “sacrificing residents’ health” on the other: the terms are vague enough that no debate on the concrete choices remains possible.

Climate Policy: what the Danes do

A comparison published in Climate Policy between the United Kingdom and Denmark describes two routes to credible long-term commitment: a law entrusting the targets to a body independent of electoral cycles, or multi-year agreements negotiated between parties that survive changes of majority. The Danes have practised the second for some fifteen years. The Lyon urban area does neither. Nothing obliges a majority to honour the long-term commitments of the previous one.

→ Read the op-ed in Lyon Mag