Publications

In addition to debates about the right level of wood harvesting, another issue is equally crucial from a climate point of view: what is the best way to use the harvested wood? France’s long-term strategy, the Stratégie nationale bas-carbone (SNBC), calls for an increasing proportion of wood to be directed towards long-life wood products such as those used in construction, which store carbon for long periods. The aim is to redirect part of the resources currently dedicated to shorter uses, such as paper and energy production, towards these longer-lasting uses. While the objectives are very ambitious, the strategy does not come with the policies needed to achieve them. I4CE has therefore assessed the technical feasibility of redirection of the wood use, and has identified the most promising production chains of long-wood products.

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 […]

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 Basel Committee is finally taking up climate issues! Founded in 1974, this forum which brings together the financial supervisors of the G20 countries and which provides the main guidelines for guaranteeing financial stability has been absent from climate issues since Donald Trump's mandate. It recently published a first consultative document on the principles of climate risk management and supervision. Julie Evain presents the recommendations addressed by I4CE to the Basel Committee.

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 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 […]

Number of climate public policies have social impacts, and conversely. To foster the consideration of these joint climate and social effects in the development of public policies, actors are calling to turn the increasingly popular climate budget tagging exercises into climate AND social budget tagging exercises. Is it a good idea? Chloé Boutron and Solène Metayer, who attempted the exercise, are sharing their insights.

A steep rise in investment in low-carbon vehicles and sustained climate investment in other sectors, a fall in the financing of fossil fuels, a climate funding deficit of over 13 billion that recovery measures are unlikely to offset...

COP26 in Glasgow did not disappoint in terms of the volume of announcements from the financial sector. But what is behind the hype? While buried in an avalanche of ‘pretty words’, there was notable progress by financial institutions. They now look at the ‘alignment’ not just of what – but also of who – is financed.

In order to understand what public financial institutions can do, I4CE and Ramboll have analyzed 5 territorial projects, from the Vosges to the Dordogne, which are trying to meet the challenge of adaptation. Beyond their differences, each of the cases studied shows that adaptation requires, above all, dedicating time and resources to change the way projects are designed and carried out.

In this study, I4CE reviews the characteristics and areas of intervention of public financial institutions, which make them essential actors for adaptation. The study also reviews all of the Public Financial Institutions' business lines to determine their levers for action.

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.

The French government has just published the environmental budget assessment, or ‘Green Budget’ of its 2022 draft budget. Morgane Nicol of I4CE and Michel Colombier of IDDRI offer insights into these exercises, which are becoming more popular in many countries and local authorities. They highlight that the environmental budget assessment does not dispense with an Ecological Transition Strategy. Instead, […]

Expectations ahead of COP 26 in Glasgow regarding the contributions of the finance sector are high. Anuschka Hilke from [i4ce] explains that our expectations, however, may not currently be high enough. An impactful contribution to achieving climate goals will require the financial community to go beyond reducing their exposure to climate-related risks.

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 ...

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?

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.