Where is France in achieving its climate and energy objectives? THE Climate Action Network (RAC), federation of French NGOs on climate issues, makes the accounts ins its Climate-Energy Observatorywhich he publishes this Thursday.
The exercise is crucial to ensure that we are on the right trajectory to achieve carbon neutrality, a milestone that the country has committed to achieving by 2050. With a milestone at 2030, for which the stated ambition is to reduce our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 40% compared to 1990.
Numbers in the red
To achieve this, the State has allocated since 2015, via National Low Carbon Strategy (SNBC), annual emissions levels not to be exceeded in the highest emitting sectors. From transport to agriculture, including buildings, industry and even energy production. For the latter, the State details the objectives a little more in a second strategic document: Multi-annual energy programming (PPE). For example, it sets objectives for the development of renewable energies.
But setting objectives is not everything, you also have to ensure that they are respected. This is the whole purpose of this observatory, which is in its sixth edition and has scrutinized 2022. This time again, several figures are displayed in red, like so many objectives not respected. However, if we add up the emissions from all sectors, we are on target, with 403.8 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent (MTeqCO2), when the SNBC asked not to go beyond 408 MTeqCO2. But we are “only” talking here about raw emissions, points out Anne Gringault, director of programs at the RAC. To achieve their climate objectives, States also rely on their carbon sinks, mainly natural (forests, meadows, mangroves, etc.), and their capacity to capture and store CO2.
Has France relied too much on its carbon sinks?
The whole (gross emissions – CO2 captured by carbon sinks) gives net emissions. And there, the objective is clearly not respected. France exceeds its carbon budget by almost 16 MTCO2, with 386.9 MTeqCO2 emitted in 2022 when it should not have exceeded 367, points out the observatory. Since the raw emissions have respected the objective, it is therefore the carbon sinks which are stuck. In 2022, they would have sequestered “only” 16.9 MTeqCO2 out of the 41 MT predicted by the SNBC. This is one of the RAC’s recurring criticisms: France “has relied too much on carbon sinks, when we could have suspected that the effects of climate change (fires, droughts, diseases, etc.) would affect their capacities absorption of CO2,” criticizes Anne Bringault.
This is not the only number in red, emitting sectors are also failing. Transport in the lead, again and again. “However, it represents 32.3% of national emissions, which makes it the leading emitting sector, and also the only one to see its emissions increase,” explains Pierre Leflaive, RAC “transport” manager. 2.9 million tonnes of CO2 eq last year. » Unsurprisingly, it is not in the spotlight of the SNBC: it exceeded the objective assigned for 2022 by 4.5 MTeqCO2.
Transport and agriculture not on track
Primary culprit: private vehicles. Not only does traffic continue to increase, “but the positive effects of the electrification of the fleet are largely offset by the increase in vehicle weight,” continues Pierre Leflaive. Almost one in two vehicles sold is now an SUV in France. » Then comes aviation, whose traffic returned to pre-Covid levels last year. “Domestic flights saw their emissions increase by 0.9 MTeqCO2,” indicates the RAC transport manager.
Agriculture is the other lagging sector. “Its emissions are essentially linked to its energy consumption, livestock farming [le méthane rejeté par les vaches]and the use nitrogen fertilizer », Lists Cyrielle Denhartigh, program coordinator at the RAC. Certainly, agriculture has seen its emissions decline in France in recent years. But Cyrielle Denhartigh explains it largely by factors suffered. “In particular the decline in the cattle herd in France, many breeders throwing in the towel,” she explains. But also the war in Ukraine has made access to these fertilizers more complex, the price of which is very dependent on those of energy, because it is produced in particular from gas and is often far away. » In any case, if there is a drop in emissions in agriculture, it is very low, underlines the RAC. Not enough to respect the 2022 carbon budget. The sector has overflowed by 0.5 MTeqCO2.
A fragile balance sheet for industry and buildings
That leaves industry and buildings. The first barely respected its carbon budget in 2022, emitting 73 MTeqCO2. The second is significantly below, with 11 MTeqCO2 less emitted compared to what the SNBC expected. Here they are, the good students? Anne Bringault calls for vigilance: “in these two sectors, part of the reductions in emissions is linked to economic factors”. Firstly: the surge in energy prices, which has pushed manufacturers and households to reduce their gas and electricity consumption. “The government’s calls for sobriety, and a particularly mild winter in 2022, also favored these savings,” adds the RAC program director.
These emissions gains therefore remain fragile, and there is still much to be done to achieve structural reductions in emissions in these two sectors. “In 2022, only 66,000 homes have been efficiently renovated,” illustrates Anne Bringault. The General Secretariat for Ecological Planning aims for 900,000 per year by 2030.”
Is it happening this fall?
For the RAC, no sector can therefore rest on its laurels, especially since the government has promised to revise upwards its 2030 GHG reduction objective to align with the target of -55% that is now set the European Union. It is precisely now that this is happening when the finance bill, the agricultural orientation law and, above all, must be presented and debated in the coming weeks. the very first energy-climate programming law. This must in particular set in stone the new versions of the SNBC and the PPE. With the hope, for NGOs, that the objectives will be revised upwards.
This shows the importance of the political sequence to come. But many unclear areas persist, we complain at the RAC. Wednesday, The world reported that the presentation to parliament of the LPEC might ultimately not be discussed in the fall. Lack of space in Parliament’s agenda. Initially, the bill was supposed to be presented in early summer.