Why a low-carbon transition approach?
Context, objectives and stakes of the low-carbon transition.
Context:
2023 was thehottest year ever recorded. Before it, the period 2015-2022 contained the 8 hottest years ever recorded. The threshold of an average warming of more than 2° was symbolically crossed in one day in 2023 (for an estimated current average warming of +1.2°). Year after year and record after record, global warming and its consequences become increasingly intense: unprecedented wildfires in Canada, record heatwave in Brazil with a felt temperature exceeding 55°C, floods in Bangladesh affecting several million people. These consequences do not occur only abroad but are manifesting more strongly year after year in France. The CGDD, in a 2020 publication, highlighted that 6 out of 10 French people are affected by climate risk and that the annual frequency of so-called "very severe" accidents (at least 10 deaths and/or more than 30 million euros (M€) in damages) has nearly quadrupled over the last two decades compared to the previous four.
The 6th Assessment Report (AR6) of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), approved by the 195 UN member states, is the reference on the state of scientific knowledge on the climate. It confirms the conclusions of previous reports: human influence on the climate is unequivocal. The hottest years we have experienced so far will be among the coolest within a generation. Past greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have caused profound changes in all components of the climate system. Continued emissions worsen the impacts of climate change. Many changes are irreversible on centennial to millennial time scales. The choices and actions implemented during the current decade will therefore have repercussions today and for thousands of years. In the absence of rapid, effective and equitable mitigation and adaptation measures, climate change increasingly threatens ecosystems, biodiversity, livelihoods, health and the well-being of current and future generations. Technical, political and societal solutions already exist in all sectors and are well identified.
Framework objectives
At the international level
In order to meet this challenge, theParis Agreement, drafted at the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21 – UNFCCC), aims to keep "the increase in the global average temperature well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels" and to pursue efforts "to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels."
At the European level
The European Green Deal aims for carbon neutrality across Europe by 2050. To make this objective legally binding, the European Climate Law sets a net greenhouse gas emissions reduction target of at least -55% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels.
At the French level
Finally, these framework objectives are translated at the national level in France through the Low Carbon National Strategy (SNBC), which also aims for carbon neutrality by 2050 (which implies in France a sixfold reduction of greenhouse gas emissions on its territory compared to 1990). It also sets targets by period (carbon budgets), by sector of activity, as well as targets for reducing the carbon footprint of the French population and increasing territorial carbon sinks. It is occasionally updated depending on the degree of achievement of the initial carbon budgets.
Issues
"We have already reached 1.2 degrees and this trend is accelerating," says the UN Secretary-General in his statement. "Warming has accelerated over recent decades. Every fraction of a degree matters. Greenhouse gas concentrations are reaching record levels. Extreme weather and climate disasters are becoming more frequent and intense."
António Guterres, 2021, Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Nearly 10 years after the Paris Agreement, international action is still awaited. Global GHG emissions have still not started to decline (and are even continuing to increase, albeit at a slower pace) while limiting warming to +2° would require a reduction of global GHG emissions by 64% by 2050 and 84% to limit warming to +1.5°. Current public policies worldwide are therefore insufficient and would, without strengthening, lead to a global warming estimated at +3.2° by 2100. In other words, a catastrophic scenario.
France's emission reduction targets, although ambitious in their projections (i.e. carbon neutrality target by 2050 in inventory approach), have however been slow to produce their first effects. Nevertheless, more recently, France's gross emissions have indeed decreased. Thus, in 2023 a decrease of 4.8% compared to 2022 was observed, with a reduction of GHG emissions in all main sectors thus allowing, on average, the SNBC2 objectives to be met over the 2019-2023 period (2nd carbon budget), excluding carbon sinks. These recent dynamics of emission reductions are therefore encouraging (France's carbon footprint has also been gradually decreasing since the 2010s) but as indicated by the High Council for the Climate the decline in gross emissions must still demonstrate its structural nature.
✅ The urgency of action to reduce our GHG emissions is therefore more relevant than ever and the need to low-carbon transition approaches (that is, toward a less emissions-intensive societal model) now takes on a vital character.
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