Publications

While French local authorities have important levers for adaptation, they will only be able to mobilize them if certain conditions are met at national level: the entire effort cannot rest on their initiative alone. This is what this I4CE's Climate Report shows. There is an urgent need for a discussion on adaptation between the national government and subnational authorities.

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.

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.

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?

The French National Low-Carbon Strategy (SNBC) aims at doubling the volume of CO2 removals thanks to the contribution of the forest-based sector, the agricultural sector and the geological carbon capture and storage technologies. The projections concerning these compartments and the underlying technical assumptions have been explored and compared to the existing literature in an in-depth analysis, with the goal of clarifying the challenges and conditions for this massive increase in carbon removals. The conclusions are that far-reaching changes are required in the different sectors and that some objectives for the forest-based sector may be impossible to achieve.

In this op-ed published in a French economic newspaper, Benoit Leguet, director of I4CE, considers that the French Government must plan over the long term the necessary financing for climate change mitigation and adaptation, by instituting a public finance programming law for climate. France has set itself climate objectives, it must clarify what means it will devote to them.

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.