After having already seriously marked the plunge in 2024, the drop in greenhouse gas emissions from France should slow again in 2025. The decline is estimated at only 0.8 % over the whole year, the CITEPA announced on Friday, the organization mandated to draw up the national carbon footprint, which makes for the first time a “provisional assessment” for the current year.
This slowdown intervenes in a political context marked by several declines in recent weeks on the artificialization of soils, the restriction of the most polluting vehicles in large cities, or the questioning of state aid for the energy renovation of housing, with Maprimerénov ‘. “It is breathtaking that the year of the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement, and while the impacts of climate change gets worse, France, by the incessant declines of its government on the ecological transition, that is to stop the drop in its emissions. It is not inevitable, but a political choice that goes against the will of the French and French ”reacted Anne Bringault, Programs Director at Network Action Climate (RAC).
Our neighbors also slow down
For the first quarter of 2025, the CIPETA notes that the emissions even left slightly up (+ 0.2 %). This is explained in particular by the end of record reductions in energy production and particularly high emissions for residential and tertiary buildings, due to a high consumption of gas and heating linked to a cooler winter. For the year, CITEPA anticipates that the second quarter should see its emissions drop by 1.8 %, before -0.9 % and -0.8 % for the third and fourth quarters.
This low decrease in emissions “Would confirm the slowdown in the dynamics observed in recent years”underlines the report. In 2024, the drop in French emissions was 1.8 %, after 6.8 % in 2023. France, long presented as one of the good students of decarbonation, seems to lose its momentum, like Germany (-3 % in 2024 after -10 % in 2023) or the United Kingdom (-3.6 % after -5.1 %), at the time when we are going into the tough of the
Review our ambitions
This slowdown, faced with which the high advice for the climate called for a “Collective start” To revive climate action, intervenes while developed countries must now attack the difficult or expensive sectors to decarboner. The ambitions must be revised upwards to hope to limit the disastrous effects (heat waves, floods, drought, fires, etc.) of global warming.
The current French objective by 2030 is to reduce gross emissions by at least 40 % compared to 1990. The third low carbon national strategy, being developed, will enhance this objective at -50 %, which supposes a reduction of the order of 5 % per year between 2022 and 2030. According to INSEE, since 1900, French emissions have been reduced by 31 %.
