SNBC, EPP, LPEC, PNACC, SFEC…. Pfiou, that’s acronyms… Behind these letters hide key strategies, plans and bills for ecological planning, by which France sets its climate objectives and, in part, the means to achieve them.
And it is in the next few weeks that it will be played out. At least for the National Low Carbon Strategy (SNBC) and the Multiannual Energy Program (PPE), the government of which should publish the first drafts at the end of June-beginning of July. “For the PPE, it’s less certain,” slips Nicolas Nace, the Energy Transition campaign manager at Greenpeace, the first gray area he identifies.
The SNBC and the PPE to start
The two documents are in any case closely linked. The SNBC is France’s roadmap for combating climate change. It sets the targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions up to 2050 but also gives the sectors of activity – building, agriculture, transport – the carbon budgets not to be exceeded to be on the right track. path. “The PPE, a more detailed version of the SNBC, focuses solely on energy production,” says Andrea Rüdinger, “energy transition” coordinator at the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (Iddri).
These two texts are not new, we are in their third revision. “Therefore, it’s not the big night,” confirms Andrea Rüdinger. Especially since the previous versions of the SNBC have already set the 2050 objective of achieving carbon neutrality, the equilibrium point from which France will emit less greenhouse gases than it is able to. remove it via its carbon sinks (forests, grasslands, oceans, etc.). “This course is not going to change,” continues the IDDRI researcher.
We could, says Nicolas Nace. “Last March, Antonio Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations, called on rich countries to achieve carbon neutrality by 2040,” he recalls. Good, but if the 2050 objective should not move, that of 2030 should evolve. This is one of the challenges of this SNBC 3 as reported by Nicolas Nace and Anne Bringault, director of programs at the Climate Action Network (RAC). “The objective, currently in the texts, is a 40% reduction in our greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared to 1990, recalls the latter. But since then, the European Union has revised its own upwards, to minus 55%. »
Play card on table
The plan unveiled by Elisabeth Borne on May 22 was in line with full alignment with the new European objectives. “Here again, one can wonder if it is sufficiently ambitious, in particular for a country which does not cease saying that it wants to be the first great Nation to leave fossil energies”, raises Nicolas Nace.
This is the importance of this moment according to Anne Bringualt. “We already have all the trouble in the world to be on the right path to reach the target of -40% in 2030 and, since the start of the five-year term, very few concrete measures allow this change of gear, she points out. . Even the law on the acceleration of renewable energies, adopted in February, disappointed the actors of these energies. “And on transport, the first emitting sector in France, “the impression is that the government is betting on the increasing conversions of the French to electric, without seeking to profoundly modify our mobility practices”, adds Nicolas Nace.
In this context, the publication of the first drafts of the SNBC and the PPE pushes the government to show the ambitions it really has. With a major novelty, which brings us to the third acronym mentioned at the beginning of the article: the LPEC, or energy-climate programming law. “Until then, the SNBC and the PPE were adopted by decree, therefore without a passage in Parliament, explains Andrea Rüdinger. However, there was the wish of parliamentarians to return to the discussions, to be involved in the adoption of these climate objectives. With the LPEC, they won their case. »
LPEC, an unidentified legislative object
The bill was to be presented at the end of June-beginning of July, before attacking its examination in Parliament. Everything was shifted to this fall. However, the LPEC remains the centerpiece, prevailing over the SNBC and the PPE. “If this fall, parliamentarians wish to be more ambitious on an objective that the government will propose in a few weeks, then the SNBC and the PPE will have to be updated to align”, explains Anne Bringault. “But it also works the other way around,” warns Andreas Rüdinger. This is a first unknown as noted by the IDDRI researcher: “there is no such rule, as for the Paris Climate Agreement for example, which allows stakeholders to modify the initial objectives only the rise “.
Another mystery: “What exactly are we going to put in this LPEC?” asks Andrea Rüdinger. Is it a text of a minimum law that reconsiders the objectives of the SNBC and the PPE, or do we add levers for action to achieve these objectives? Both at RAC and at Greenpeace, we clearly hope for the second option. “Setting goals is no longer enough, you also have to show how you want to achieve them, which means committing to concrete measures, in transport, agriculture, buildings… that really allow you to change gear” , insists Anne Bringault.
A chain of key bills
It is also this sequence of bills directly related to ecological planning that makes the particularity of the moment. “All these texts will have to be aligned with the ambition of the climate objectives that we are going to set ourselves”, hope Anne Brignault and Nicolas Nace. green industry law [qui arrive au Sénat le 19 juin]the Agricultural Orientation Law [annoncée à la rentrée]without forgetting the finance bill [débattue chaque année à l’automne]. We are also talking about a possible new mobility orientation law ”
It is also this sequence of bills directly related to ecological planning that makes the particularity of the moment. “All these texts must in any case be aligned with the ambition of the climate objectives that we are going to set ourselves”, hope Anne Brignault and Nicolas Nace.
Too many chiefs, not enough Indians?
If you have been paying attention, you have noticed that we have not mentioned the last two acronyms mentioned at the beginning of the article. The PNACC is the national plan for adaptation to climate change. Like the SNBC and the PPE, we are also in the third version. This plan made headlines in February, when Christophe Béchu, Minister for Ecological Transition, spoke of the need for France to prepare for a warming scenario of +4°C. The PNACC, on which the Ministry of Ecological Transition is working, precisely addresses these adaptation issues. “We expect more this fall,” says Anne Bringault.
SNBC, PPE PNACC, LPEC… Put together, these four tools form the SFEC, or French energy-climate strategy (SFEC), explains Andreas Rüdinger. It could be finalized at the end of 2023-beginning of 2024.
We could have mentioned other consultations, plans and other strategies launched in parallel these days and which also affect ecological planning. Like the National Biodiversity Strategy, expected in the coming weeks. Are there too many? In a blog post last February, Andreas Rüdinger called for a little more sobriety in the conduct of ecological planning. “On the one hand, it’s positive, it testifies to this desire to seek complexity instead of evacuating it,” he begins. But perhaps today there are too many chiefs and not enough Indians. »