France is falling way short of its self-set climate targets as carbon emissions from transport and buildings are not dropping as planned, and the government will have to triple its efforts to get back on track, the nation’s new climate council said.
In its first report, France’s newly appointed independent climate advisory council, the Haut Conseil pour le Climat (HCC), said that in 2015 to last year emissions fell by just 1.1 percent, just over half the 1.9 percent that was prescribed.
France was the driver behind the 2016 Paris Agreement to limit global warming and the French parliament is now debating an energy bill that targets net zero emissions by 2050, but environmentalists say that apart from setting bold, but faraway targets, French President Emmanuel Macron is doing little to change consumers’ behavior and is leaving hard decisions to his successors.
The head of the HCC — set up by Macron’s government — seemed to echo that critique, saying that while France’s commitments are ambitious, they are unlikely to be met with current policies.
“As long as action on climate change remains on the periphery of public policies, France will not achieve carbon neutrality by 2050,” said HCC president Corinne Le Quere, a climatologist.
“It’s not enough to talk about climate emergency, Emmanuel Macron and his government need to seriously start tackling the problem,” Greenpeace France head Jean-Francois Julliard said.
The HCC report said France’s failure to reach climate targets is mainly due to transport emissions, which have not decreased in the past 10 years, and emissions from buildings, which have decreased three times more slowly than anticipated.
Efforts to curb transport emissions through taxation have repeatedly run up against protests.
Late last year, Macron dropped a planned increase in vehicle fuel taxes after “yellow vest” protests against it morphed into a sometimes violent movement challenging his wider reform plans.
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