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13/01/2023
Foreword of the week
2023 agenda: there has never been a better time to act
2022 was an eventful year in terms of climate. The year saw the emergence of a new concept, that of the polycrisis: war in Ukraine, the aftereffects of Covid, the return of inflation, the gas crisis, agricultural shortages, persistent droughts and other dramatic climatic events... all of these crises have ultimately pointed to our direct or indirect dependence on fossil fuels; our weaknesses when faced with a changing climate; and the vulnerability of our economies and the middle and lower classes.
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02/12/2022
Foreword of the week
European Carbon Certification must be demanding… and appealing
How can we differentiate between projects that really enable carbon to be stored and those that only claim to do so? This is a complicated question when dealing with projects in agriculture and forestry, where quantifying carbon storage is complex, and where other environmental challenges, like the preservation of biodiversity, must also be taken into account. A complicated question, therefore, but one that needs an answer! Private actors and public authorities want to ensure that the agricultural and forestry projects financed in the name of the climate have a real environmental benefit.
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01/12/2022
Blog post
Carbon certification: the Commission publishes a stringent certification framework that should also be and appealing
Yesterday, 30 november 2022, the European Commission adopted a proposal for a first EU-wide voluntary framework to reliably certify high-quality carbon removals. This proposal provides a framework, broad guiding principles, and the details will be specified in 2023 supported by an expert group on Carbon Removals. “The devil may be in the detail”, but the framing is no less important. Claudine Foucherot of [i4ce] has analysed it and identified four points on which we must be vigilant. Overall, it can be said that the Commission is submitting an ambitious proposal, which nevertheless presents a risk: not being sufficient incentives to ensure a massive deployment of certified projects.
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08/07/2022
Op-ed
Op-ed | Payment for carbon farming: we need an ambitious and pragmatic European certification
The European Commission will propose a `carbon certification’ by the end of the year as a first step towards remunerating farmers and foresters who contribute to carbon farming. This certification project raises debates and concerns. For Adeline FAVREL of I4CE, the EU can respond and develop an ambitious certification by relying on the experience of the Member States in this field.
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17/03/2022
Blog post
French Presidential election: consensus for the new five-year term
For a year, I4CE has been meeting with the campaign teams of the main presidential candidates to encourage them to prepare their climate program in order to reach the French objectives. In particular, we asked them to prepare their "climate budget": the State and more broadly the public authorities now play a decisive role in the necessary investments for the climate, and they must anticipate the considerable increase in these investments for France to achieve its 2030 objective. All the more now the European target has been raised. Preparing a climate budget is a mark of credibility and transparency, a test of consistency.
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17/03/2022
Blog post
French Presidential election: cross-analysis of programs
In France, the investments for the climate that will have to be made between now and 2030 to meet the objective are considerable. And since this target will have to be increased to contribute to the new European objective, the need for investment will also increase. Today, the State and public authorities are actively involved in climate-friendly investments. What will happen in the future? Who will pay, who will go into debt: the State, local authorities, taxpayers, households, companies or future generations?
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27/01/2022
Climate Brief
Design principles of a carbon farming scheme in support of the Farm2Fork & FitFor55 objectives
In order to reach the objectives of the recently approved EU Climate Law, the agricultural sector has to simultaneously reduce significantly its level of emission, increase the amount of carbon it sequesters, and augment the production of biomass in substitution of fossil fuel – which are to be phased out in the short term. In […]
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27/01/2022
Blog post
Remunerating farmers for their stored carbon, Europe’s good idea?
On December 15, 2021, as part of its communication on carbon sinks, the European Commission made public its proposals to strengthen carbon storage in agricultural soils. Its objective: to remunerate farmers to encourage them to store more carbon. To achieve this, it is first necessary to build a European carbon certification framework to guarantee the […]
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09/11/2021
Climate Report
Promoting and reporting on climate action carried out within the framework of the Low-Carbon Standard
In the context of the development of the Low Carbon Label, one of the recurring questions from potential financiers is: "What am I allowed to say and do when financing certified low carbon projects? With this publication, I4CE provides operational and pragmatic answers.
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14/10/2021
Climate Brief
Does more sustainable food increase consumer budgets?
Eating less animal products and wasting less reduces the budget, but increasing consumption of organic products increases it. In total, does adopting a sustainable diet increase or decrease consumer spending?
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14/10/2021
Climate Report
Assessing the sustainability of the French food system: methodological issues and results
To learn more about the methodology used by I4CE to assess the contribution of financing flows to the emergence of a sustainable food system, this technical paper introduces it and identifies its limitations and key methodological challenges for the future.
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19/06/2020
Climate Report
Will the obligation of environmental results green the CAP?
One of the main elements of the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for the 2021-2027 exercise is the shift of part of the funding towards an obligation to achieve environmental results. Is that an expensive development? Environmentally effective? In order to answer these questions, this I4CE study analyses numerous mechanisms, more or less oriented towards performance obligation.
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11/06/2020
Op-ed
Op-ed I CAP and climate: let’s not be afraid of obligations to achieve results
In spite of its "greening" during the previous programming period, the Common Agricultural Policy has had very little impact on greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector, even though they must be halved by 2050. And the CAP's two flagship instruments on environmental issues - green payments under the first pillar, and agri-environmental and climate measures (AECM) under the second - have come in for strong criticism.
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10/01/2020
Blog post
2020: climate should be everybody’s business
For too long climate change has remained confined to the green silos of our public institutions: it was onyl the business of Environment Ministries. The situation seems to have improved over the last ten years, but we are still a long way from “climate mainstreaming”. For Benoit Leguet, Director of I4CE, 2020 will offer multiple opportunities to test commitments, in France and internationally.
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17/07/2018
Blog post
Feedback from the workshop chaired by I4CE during the Climate Plan Anniversary Conference
On 6 July, the Minister for the Ecological and Inclusive Transition, Nicolas Hulot, organized a conference to mark the first anniversary of the Climate Plan. After a morning spent reviewing the progress made by France, the afternoon was dedicated to four workshops. These workshops were chaired by two Secretaries of State from the Ministry, the ADEME President, and Benoit Leguet the Managing Director of I4CE.