Climate: can France achieve its objectives?

Doing more for the climate is good for jobs and purchasing power. We need to revive ecological planning

The year 2024 was the hottest on record globally, with an increase in heat peaks and droughts fueling deadly fires. Serious floods followed one another in Burma, Central and West Africa and Spain. Rising sea levels make the first islands threatened with submersion uninhabitable.

Meanwhile, ecological planning is slipping in France, victim of the political crisis, with greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions starting to rise again in the third quarter of 2024. Our country has still not adopted its new objectives in matters of climate and energy, nor its road map to achieve them. However, the course has been set at European level: reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by 55% in 2030 (compared to 1990).

The war in Ukraine and dependence on Russian gas and oil have reinforced this desire to accelerate the ecological transition. Freeing yourself from fossil fuels means gaining energy sovereignty and preserving purchasing power from the volatility of oil or gas prices. Engaging in an ambitious ecological transition also means creating numerous jobs in renewable energies, building renovation and public transport. Without visibility, these jobs are threatened.

Strengthening the targets for reducing GHG emissions for 2030 is necessary for France to do its part in the fight against climate change. A breakdown of these objectives, sector by sector, is proposed by the general secretariat for Ecological Planning and makes it possible to illustrate the major transformations induced. This involves developing the use of public transport, cycling and teleworking.

We still need to reach 66% of electric vehicles among new cars sold in 2030, double the quantity of pulses consumed compared to 2021, in parallel with the drop in consumption of products of animal origin, massively accelerate the renovation of scale of housing or even replacing 75% of oil boilers by 2030 with another method of heating… All objectives which are achievable, provided that reinforced dialogue is initiated with civil society actors and to implement public policies that are both coherent and fair.

The draft national low carbon strategy (SNBC), which was put out for consultation at the end of 2024, also lists the public policy levers to be activated. Thus, in the field of transport, the SNBC provides, among other things, for an obligation to green company vehicle fleets and the development of cycle paths. However, these measures are not implemented and the 2025 budget could even go in the opposite direction and cut the resources allocated to the ecological and just transition, at the risk of an acceleration… in the ecological crisis.

A notable part of the decline comes from the health crisis. In reality, the carbon footprint of the French has decreased too little

To the question asked – can France achieve its greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction targets? – a response from Normand would be possible. It would be based on the latest known figures published by the Interprofessional Technical Center for Atmospheric Pollution Studies, CITEPA. GHG emissions in France decreased by 5.8% between 2022 and 2023, almost in line with the objectives for 2030. Provisional figures for the first half of 2024 also indicate a decrease.

However, it would be prudent to emphasize that a notable part of the reductions observed over the 2019-2023 period comes from the Covid health crisis and the resulting production and transport shutdowns. Or point out that the 2023 figures are in line with the targets for emissions but not for the natural carbon sink, due to the poor health of our forests. Note that part of the good results for the first half of 2024 come from a very mild climate and the return to form of our nuclear power plants is not in vain.

But this could turn into nitpicking avoiding problem number one. Are the official GHG emissions targets the right ones? With regard to the negotiations within the framework of the UN climate convention, this is the case. But these texts measure the emissions of a country on the basis of its inventory, therefore its emissions carried out on the national territory. However, France is one of the countries whose real emissions – known as “carbon footprint” and taking into account emissions linked to the manufacturing and transport of goods and attributing them to consumers and not to producers – are very far from this inventory.

The inventory says that France emitted 372 million tonnes of CO equivalent₂ in 2023. But its carbon footprint is estimated at 644 million tonnes of CO equivalent₂or 9.4 tonnes per person, including 362 million tonnes imported. So the carbon footprint of the French has decreased too little since 1990, due to the increasing share of imports in its real emissions.

Doing your part in reducing the climate threat requires thinking in terms of carbon footprint and not territorial emissions. By setting a target of around 2 tonnes per person, the only one compatible with the planetary climate objective and access for all humans to a decent life. Current policies are incapable of achieving this. This would require socio-political upheavals, and not just technological ones (electrification, insulation of buildings, etc.), in particular through the eradication of excessively high incomes and assets, the end of commercial advertising and environmental objectives as criteria for managing companies and guidance of public and private financing. A revolution.