France

France’s ecological transition started in the 1980s and 1990s, focusing on the protection of the environment (limitation of air pollution, waste and wastewater management, soil remediation, protection of biodiversity and noise abatement). As a result of the related public policies, today, expenditure on environmental protection services represents 2% of France’s GDP, slightly less than the EU average of 2.1%. However, climate change has progressively imposed an overarching issue: over the last decade, French people have listed global warming as their top environmental concern. Today, the full cost of climate-mitigation-related investment has reached 4% of France’s GDP; however, this is still less than the amount necessary to comply with the national low-carbon strategy, by almost 2.5 percentage points. Employment in the environmental goods and services sector already represents 2.6% of total employment in France, a share that is slightly higher than the 2.5% EU average.

Despite its large share of decarbonised nuclear electricity, France’s energy final consumption is still mostly dependent on fossil fuels (63%, including indirect use for electricity and heat), which are mostly used for transport. Also, although the average carbon footprint of people living in France has been decreasing since the second half of the 2000s, it is still considerably higher (9.4 t CO₂eq) than the world average (6.5 t CO₂eq), and even further from the level that is to be reached in 2050 in order to limit global warming by 2100 to less than 2°C warmer than the pre-industrial era (2 t CO₂eq). France’s economy is internationally entangled, meaning that more than half of its carbon footprint is related to its imports, for both intermediate and final consumption. Moreover, even in a relatively egalitarian Member State such as France (the Gini coefficient has been at 30 for years, not too far from the world’s lowest level, 23), the carbon footprint per capita is not evenly distributed across French people or households, and depends especially on their income and living environment (urban versus semi-rural or rural). For example, in rural areas, car-related GHG emissions are higher, since distances to cover are longer and there are fewer options for public transport than in urban areas. A just climate public policy will need to account for the differences in different people’s and communities’ capacity for action and pay specific attention to energy poverty.

The food system

After 10 years of decline followed by 10 years of stagnation between 2001 and 2022, meat consumption per capita in France fell in 2023 (to 83.5 kg in carcass weight equivalent per capita), mainly because of high inflation. Beef consumption has fallen further, but poultry consumption has risen (– 21.3 kg and + 23.3 kg, respectively). Also linked to inflation, the consumption of organically farmed products fell for the first time in 2021–2022, and stabilised in 2023 (5.6% of households’ food consumption in 2023), after a decade of double-digit growth.

Public policies in France provide structural support for the shift in food consumption towards greater sustainability, nutritional quality and health concerns. The national strategy for food, nutrition and climate summarises these challenges and proposes common measures. An anti-food-waste label is also being rolled out to the retail sector, soon to be extended to mass and commercial catering, and later to food processing.

The Egalim Law and the Climate and Resilience Law provide a framework for securing the quality of products purchased in mass catering: from 2022 in the public sector and 2024 in the private sector, meals must include at least 50% quality and sustainable products, including at least 20% from organic farming or from farming in transition to organic processes. The rate of compliance with these obligations has increased, but it is still far from universal.

Contract catering must also include one vegetarian meal a week and an initiative to combat food waste. Implementing these measures together helps avoid the unit cost of the meals served increasing.

These supply-side policies are essential for steering agricultural production towards sustainable practices, which is imperative given the agricultural sector’s contribution to France’s GHG emissions (19%), the erosion of biodiversity, the pollution of water and air, and the need to adapt to climate change. The fall in the consumption of organic products in 2021–2022 resulted in a halt in the growth of certified organic farming areas for the first time in 2023, and even a slight decline to 10.4% of usable agricultural area (the target is 18% in 2027).

Meanwhile, public support for farms tends to be more conditional on environmental requirements, a positive but slow and non-linear trend. Incentive schemes are on the increase, with eco-schemes, agri-environmental and climate measures, support for the conversion to organic farming and payments for environmental services being trialled in France. Each scheme needs to be evaluated, and the way in which the criteria for granting the scheme are set can influence the environmental benefit (e.g. the conversion to organic farming eco-scheme has been subscribed to by almost all French farms and is therefore not very demanding).

A study by the Institute for Climate Economics (I4CE) shows that, of the EUR 50 billion of public funding for the French food system spent in 2024, only 3% to 10% was used for measures favourable to the environment (and essentially focused on agricultural production).

The energy system

In France, growing environmental concerns have had a major impact on energy supply policy. In 2023, primary energy production accounted for 56% of primary energy consumption. Renewable thermal and electrical energy sources accounted for 26% of primary energy production. Fossil fuels accounted for 57% of final energy consumption. Energy use is responsible for about 80% of GHG emissions. CO₂ emissions per capita from energy combustion have been declining since the early 2000s (– 2.7% per year on average between 2005 and 2023).

Faced with the challenge of climate change, the French authorities have drawn up a French strategy for energy and climate. It aims to address the issues of decarbonisation, mitigation and adaptation to climate change in a coordinated way, based on three planning documents: the national low-carbon strategy, the pluriannual energy programme (PEP) and the national adaptation plan for climate change. The PEP sets targets for reducing energy consumption and accelerating the production of low-carbon energy for 2025–2035.

As part of the 2019 Energy and Climate Act, France has committed to achieving 33% of renewable energies in gross final energy consumption by 2030 (compared with 22.3% in 2023), to reducing GHG emissions by 40% between 1990 and 2030 (compared with – 31% in 2023), to increasing the share of renewable energy per use (at least 38% of heat consumption, 15% of fuel consumption and 40% of electricity production) and to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.

This acceleration requires a profound transformation of the economy. Regional and local authorities are acting in the fields of urban planning, construction, transport, forest renewal and waste treatment, among others. Planning work is under way with the Conferences of Regional Parties, with objectives tailored for each region to be reached by 2030. Local authorities play a key role in controlling energy consumption, promoting renewable energies and improving air quality. These skills can be exercised through various tools dedicated to climate, air and energy issues (e.g. the regional plans for spatial planning, sustainable development and territorial equality, and regional energy and climate plans), or other sectoral themes (e.g. territorial coherence plans, intercommunal local urban planning plans).

France is committed to acting against energy poverty. As of 1 January 2023, it is estimated that 16% of the 30 million primary residences are ‘thermal wastes’. There are aids for energy renovation, mainly energy saving certificates and ‘MaPrimeRenov’ grants. In 2021, the energy savings from these renovations were estimated at 11 TWh per year (+ 44% compared with 2020).

The French government has made decarbonising the economy one of the main goals of the France 2030 investment plan. This plan provides EUR 4.5 billion to decarbonise industry, divided into two sections: ‘steel, chemicals, green cement’, which focuses on the demand for the deployment of decarbonisation solutions for industrial sites, and the ‘acceleration strategy for decarbonising industry’, which focuses on funding innovation and developing green technologies for low-carbon industry.

The mobility system

In line with the Paris Agreement, France is committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. This commitment is underpinned by two national strategies: the PEP, which sets out the balance between energy supply and demand, and the national low-carbon strategy, which defines sectoral carbon budgets. The transport sector receives particular attention, as its GHG emissions have remained stable since 1995. With its mature and efficient infrastructure networks at the heart of European traffic flows, France is supporting changes in people’s travel habits and the needs of economic players to decarbonise the transport sector and reduce the associated pollution.

With its energy mix largely decarbonised, France is strongly committed to the electrification of its transport modes. As the source of more than 90% of the transport sector’s GHG emissions in 2023, road transport is a priority, as the increase in traffic since 1990 has offset the reduction in unit emissions linked to technical progress (– 20%). Several levers are being mobilised, such as the development of electric vehicle charging stations (in the forthcoming infrastructure master plan). This objective applies to other modes of transit: dockside buildings are on track to be electrified to reduce fossil fuel consumption and local pollution.

Decarbonising transport also means pooling travel, whether through car-sharing and car-pooling schemes or by developing a modal shift in favour of mass modes of transport, which are less GHG intensive, following the model of the Île-de-France region.

This policy will be based on the development of Metropolitan Regional Express Services (MRES) in several municipalities. For instance, in Strasbourg, an MRES project is actively supported by the Grand Est region and the Eurometropolis of Strasbourg. Strengthening and modernising existing public transport services and encouraging individuals to transit between multimodal transfer hubs will improve access to services and jobs as well as opening up rural territories.

For the freight transport sector, the aim will be to improve quality and make better use of the rail and river networks (increasing coverage and safety). The national strategy for rail freight plans to double the share of rail freight by 2030 (to 18%) and will strengthen interoperability between rail, river and road modes.

The gradual expansion and electrification of transport will reduce the associated problems like air and sensory pollution. In addition, land consumption will be curbed, in accordance with the Zero Net Artificialisation Law.

An ambitious policy to develop active mobility (the cycling and walking plan), particularly in urban areas, complements this strategy and offers seminal co-benefits for health (e.g. reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, obesity or stress). In 2022, the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety estimated that 95% of the French population did not engage in a healthy level of physical activity. The government intends to increase the modal share of active means of transport from 5% to 12% by 2030.