The historicity of low carbon energy transition: comparative analysis of local energy and climate policies in France (Metz) and in Germany (Saarbruecken)

This thesis questions the capacity of cities to seize the energy issue through history, then through a low carbon perspective. It is based on assumptions that the introduction of energy as a local resource, is to become a reason for low carbon transition in cities. The historicity of this transition indicates that its lineaments are sometimes identifiable before the advent of its imperatives. Through a territorial history of energy, the thesis contributes to decoding keys of interest of cities to the low carbon transition as well as 'its atomic elements' at the local scale. The city of Metz has a Local Distribution Company (ELD), rare in France, created under German annexation in 1901: Usine d'Electricite de Metz (UEM). The company produces and distributes electricity and heat. It belongs to the city (85%) and consolidates public finances while developing local and / or renewable resources. Saarbruecken, the capital of a German coal and industrial land, seems reluctant to the low carbon transition. However, in the years 1980-1990, the city and its 'Stadtwerk' (German ELD) challenged nuclear power plants and played the role of laboratory for renewables. The energy transition in Saarbruecken also shows ruptures, coal path dependencies, and illustrates the nonlinearity of the process. Depending on the historical characteristics of cities and the exogenous pressures on urban supply, low-carbon energy transitions interest local actors to different extents and take various forms and rhythms. (author)