Publications

Carbon revenues were nearly USD 100 billion in 2021. This represents a more than 80% increase year-on-year (USD 53.1 billion in 2020, USD 97.7 billion in 2021). This increase is largely driven by the rise in allowance prices on the European carbon market, which exceeded the symbolic threshold of EUR 100/tCO2 for the first time in the summer of 2022.

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.

To achieve the climate goals of the UE, The European Commission wants to create a carbon certification framework to encourage carbon storage in the land sector. The challenge is to develop a common and harmonised framework at the European level by better relying on the expertise acquired through existing certification frameworks. With this study, I4CE propose 7 recommendations, inspired by both our concrete experience with the French Label Bas-Carbone to which we have contributed, and by 15 years of research on carbon certification.

The restructuring of the economy towards a low-carbon system will lead to develop activities that are aligned with the needs of a net zero economy, to restructure others in order to make them compatible with these needs and to stop harmful activities. The financial sector needs to anticipate these dynamics to address strategic risks and […]

The transition plans aim to establish a progressive decarbonisation strategy by 2050, in line with the European Union’s objectives. The European Central Bank, through Frank Elderson, as well as several NGOs are calling for transition plans to be made mandatory for banks and to be integrated into prudential regulation. This note first looks at why […]

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 […]

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 […]

Explicit carbon pricing systems - a tax or a carbon market - continue to develop around the world. In the 2021 edition of its Global Carbon Accounts, I4CE presents the main trends and provides an overview of these public policies ...

As the main financier of the French and European economies, banks play a key role in financing the transition. Their current contribution in France is in the order of 8 billion euros per year, but this will need to more than double according to estimates by I4CE. To accelerate this shift for banking institutions and to prevent their increasing exposures to climate risks, the debate has tended to revolve around whether or not there is a need to reform prudential requirements.

Since 2018, and under the initiative of the NGFS, the network of central banks and supervisors for greening the financial system, several central banks and supervisors have begun to conduct their first climate stress test exercises to determine the vulnerability of financial institutions to climate-related risks. In order to help central banks to carry out this type of exercise, the NGFS published in 2020, its first guide to climate scenarios analysis that can be used in climate stress tests.

In recent years, financial regulators have encouraged financial actors to take account of “climate risks” in order to ensure both financial stability and the efficient functioning of markets, the two traditional objectives of regulation. This risk-based approach is an important first step, but will it be enough to deliver on climate objectives?

As part of the EUKI-supported project “Landscape of climate finance: Mainstreaming climate finance in the CEE region”, I4CE supported the Polish think-tank Wise Europa in the elaboration of a Landscape of climate finance in the sector of energy retrofitting of existing buildings in Poland.

Few green budgeting initiatives have led to concrete reforms or revisions of priority investments. How can we move from simple theoretical exercises to concrete action for the environment? This is the question asked by Sébastien Postic of I4CE, Oskar Lecuyer of AFD and Jennifer Doherty-Bigara of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

I4CE‘s Global Carbon Account 2018 presents key trends regarding the implementation of explicit carbon pricing policies throughout the world in 2018.     5 key trends in 2018 (Too) Few jurisdictions have implemented an explicit carbon price : as of April 1, 2018, 46 countries and 26 provinces or cities have adopted carbon pricing policies ; […]