Unfortunately, this is not yet the case, although some initial progress has been made. For example, the Commission is now recommending that Member States draw up and publish their financing plans for the transition, as part of their national energy and climate plans. It has also launched a programme to help Member States with green budgeting, with I4CE and Expertise France, in which we have trained over 300 officials from the finance and environment ministries.

This is just a modest start for the EU. The negotiation of the EU's multiannual budget framework and the European elections will provide further opportunities to ensure that Europe is not only the best leader on climate regulation and carbon pricing, but also becomes the best leader on financing the transition. I4CE will publish new data on the need for climate investment in the EU soon.

While it's still too early to assess the results of this strategy, one issue has made good progress: the requirement for banks to draw up climate transition plans. We at I4CE are delighted with this development, as we have been working for several years to put this issue on the agenda and explore the conditions for its impact on financing the global environmental transition. Over the past twelve months, it has made its way into the European regulatory debate, whether in the CSRD directive on corporate sustainability reporting, the CRD on prudential requirements for banks, or the CSDDD Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive.

Together, all these directives can make a real difference. As always, the devil is in the details. Effective tool or waste of time? The future of environmental transition plans will be decided in the coming months.

I4CE works closely with these financial institutions, acting as a scientific secretariat for the Mainstreaming Climate in Financial Institutions initiative, which brings together some fifty financial institutions. We are convinced that the current reform must not only increase the financing capacity of international public banks, but also the impact of every dollar spent. We need to put international public money where it has the most structural and transformational impact. These banks can do many things to achieve this, and in particular they can start from the needs of developing countries by supporting the development of their long-term climate strategies. This is one of the conclusions of the Paris Summit for a New Global Financing Pact, held in June 2023 and for which I4CE was strongly mobilised. There are still many steps to be taken to complete the reform, from the World Bank Annual Meetings to COP28, and we invite you to follow them with us.

Ideally, each country would draw up a plan for financing the transition, clarifying expected public spending, the resources that can be mobilised and the role of the various economic players. A financing plan developed by each country and based on its own long-term decarbonisation strategy, its long term strategy (LTS), to reconcile climate and development. This was the message brought by I4CE to the last COP, where the team organised numerous events. And to move towards this ideal and enable countries to to develop and to discuss the financing of their transition, I4CE is contributing to the development and dissemination of tools for steering the financing of the transition. This toolbox has recently been expanded, with the launch of a dashboard for finance ministers to assess, act on and monitor the economic implications of environmental transition.

So, what to do? First, properly invest in forests to make them more resilient. I4CE has assessed the financial and human resources required to adapt French forests. Governments also need to promote the forestry practices that store the most carbon, hence the importance of the qualification framework being built on a European level, an endeavour that I4CE has been a part of after doing the same in France with the French Label Bas-Carbone.

The French carbon sink also depends on what is done with the wood harvested in French forests. Long-lasting products have a significant advantage: they store carbon over time. I4CE helped put this topic on the agenda of public policy makers, but although the awareness is there, policy makers remain unsure over which directions to take in order to develop the most promising sectors. Some European countries have succeeded, and I4CE is currently analysing their efforts in order to inspire similar environmental planning in France.

Needs must, because as I4CE shows, the current dynamic is a lose-lose situation. A loss for farmers, because livestock numbers are already on the decline, a decline that is not planned, but suffered, and not without consequences: many farmers’ assets are losing worth, and their retirements are at stake. A loss, too, for the climate, since meat consumption is not on the decline, and France is importing more and more meat.

This laissez-faire approach to the meat industry is a detrimental. It should incite serene and long-awaited discussions about the future of rearing to find win-win scenarios instead. I4CE and other think tanks have already undertaken this endeavour, and engaged with players in the sector. This must be accompanied by a reform in politics of consumption and public financing to help farmers through the transition. The transition of the meat industry and more widely agriculture in general must be publicly financed if it is to be credible.

This equation is, as of yet, unsolved, and it will need to be solved soon: the French government is launching a phase of “territorialisation” of environmental planning, and wants to adopt a law on programming public finances in September. I4CE will publish different scenarios on financing local authorities’ climate investments come autumn.

On that note, we salute the government and local authorities’ initiative in generalising “green budgets” on a local scale, using a methodology developed by I4CE and several communities. This methodology is free to use and accessible to all, and helps local elected representatives identify what parts of their budgets contribute to, or delay, the environmental transition.

The first is the energy-climate planning law, in which I4CE recommends the inclusion of the Trajectoire de réchauffement de référence pour l'adaptation au changement climatique (TRACC), or the Reference warming trajectory for adaptation to climate change. Giving this course, announced by Minister Béchu during the major conference on adaptation organised by I4CE and France Stratégie, a normative value is the best way to ensure that we stop investing without knowing whether climate change has been taken into account. I4CE has shown that this is the case, every year, for over €50 billion of public investment.

The second opportunity is next year's finance bill. I4CE's initial assessment of public funding requirements- 2.3 billion euros per year-is now the benchmark. But this is only the first step in the adaptation process. I4CE is currently carrying out a more exhaustive assessment of financing requirements, to enable public policy-makers to anticipate these needs and thus lend credibility to French adaptation policy.

We are pleased to have contributed to this momentum. And we will continue to do so, because although the increase in the budget for the transition is unprecedented, as the French government states, it will probably not be enough after 2024. That's why the government needs to plan its climate funding over the long term. The idea of a multi-year trajectory, which I4CE has been advocating for several years, now enjoys a broad consensus. It has also been announced by the Prime Minister, without, however, any further details on its implementation.

All these announcements will have to be reflected, after the summer, in the French public finance programming law and the 2024 finance bill. During this budgetary marathon, we will also need to be vigilant about the effectiveness of public aid and its ability to help the middle and lower classes through the green energy transition. With an extra €7 billion for the climate, the government is making a commitment to efficiency and solidarity.

I4CE has also begun to bring qualified individuals onto its Board of Directors. Stephane Hallegatte, Senior Advisor on Climate Change at the World Bank, and Morgan Després, Executive Director in charge of International Climate Finance and Economics at the European Climate Foundation, have joined our board. Their experience will enable the Institute to pursue its development abroad and continue to push the boundaries of economic expertise on the environmental transition.

What is this money used for? Primarily, these funds are used to employ the experts that work for I4CE and the support staff that assist them on a daily basis: administration, communication and management. Unlike other comparable institutes or think tanks, I4CE has chosen to produce its studies with experts who are employed directly by the Institute and are developing their skills within the organisation. This approach eliminates the need to outsource experts who are volunteers, paid on a per-assignment basis or having working groups that bring together experts from other organisations.

However, our emissions are considerable and we must seek to understand the Institute’s footprint beyond the growth of the team, and strengthen our action plan. I4CE now has an international reach, and it is air travel that primarily explains the significant increase in the 2022 footprint. I4CE staff always endeavour to travel by train when the journey is under six hours. However, it is clear that this is insufficient following I4CE’s internationalization, and means that this area requires rethinking.

I4CE identifies and implements ways to limit its footprint: for example, 90% of the team’s daily meals are in line with a flexitarian diet, and all meals provided at internal events are 100% vegetarian, thus limiting the impact of employee meals in our footprint. In addition, a thermostat set at 19°C limits heating-related emissions.