According to the independent body, France’s response to climate change “is progressing but remains insufficient”. Matignon has announced that the country now aimed at a reduction in emissions from 50 % by 2030, against – 40 % before.
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There is better but the account is still not there. In its fourth annual report , published Wednesday, June 29, the High advice for the climate (hcc) believes that France’s response to climate change” is progressing but remains insufficient “, so that” major risks persist not to reach The objectives of reducing greenhouse gas emissions “. Given this threat and the strengthening of European targets, the independent body, set up by Emmanuel Macron in 2018, calls for a “start” of climate action in the country.
In the context of the war in Ukraine and the outbreak of energy prices, such acceleration would “reduce France’s strong dependence on imports of fossil fuels and mineral fertilizers” which make it Vulnerable, add the thirteen HCC members. These climatologists, agronomists, economists or geographers advise the government to give priority to sobriety, the deployment of renewable energies and the evolution of agricultural and food practices (reduction in meat consumption, waste, etc.).
insufficient decline in emissions
As every year, this report, which has become a reference to analyze government climate policy, is highly expected. Published in a context of tensions within the structure, it contains around fifty recommendations in order to guide a new government which has promised to make ecology one of its priorities. Proof of the voluntarism of Matignon, the advisers of the Cabinet of the Prime Minister, responsible for ecological and energy planning, organized a press point upstream of the delivery of the report to Elisabeth Borne, as well as to the ministers of the ecological transition and the energy transition.
First conclusion of the thick document (180 pages), entitled “Overcome the findings, implement the solutions”: greenhouse gas emissions increased by 6.4 % in 2021, compared to 2020 , due to the partial resumption of post-Cavid-19 economic activity, but they remain 3.8 % lower at 2019. “They are decreasing, with a reduction of 23 % Since 1990 “, notes Corinne Le Quéré, climatologist at the British University of East Anglia, who chairs the HCC.
However, this decrease is far from sufficient. First, because the rate of reduction over the period 2019-2021 (- 1.9 % per year), qualified as “modest” by the HCC, is close to that observed over the decade 2010-2019 (- 1, 7 % per year). Then, because if the emissions for 2019-2021 are in the nails, it is mainly due to the effects of the pandemic and the postponement of part of the action until later. The government, failing to have managed to respect its objectives for the period 2015-2018, has indeed noted carbon budgets, that is to say the emission ceilings, for the period 2019-2023. “The resumption of activities still partial in 2021, with the maintenance of restrictions and telework, in particular, complicates the identification of the effects of structural measures”, indicates Corinne Le Quéré.
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