Climate: the decline in greenhouse gas emissions is still weakening in France

After having already marked a serious slowdown in 2024, the decline in France's greenhouse gas emissions is expected to slow again in 2025, with an estimated decrease of only 0.8% over the whole year, announced Citepa, the organization mandated to draw up the national carbon footprint, on Friday, July 4.

By 2025, gross French emissions (excluding carbon sinks) are expected to reach 366 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent (MtCO2e), a decrease of "only 3 MtCO2e" compared to 2024, notes Citepa, which is making a "forecast" for the current year for the first time.

This slight decrease in emissions "would confirm the slowdown in the dynamics observed in recent years," he emphasizes. In 2024, the decrease in French emissions was 1.8% , after -6.8% in 2023.

France, long presented as one of the good students of decarbonization, thus seems to be losing its momentum , like Germany (-3% in 2024 after -10% in 2023) or the United Kingdom (-3.6% after 5.1%), at a time when we are entering the hard part of the efforts to be made.

This slowdown comes in a political context marked by several setbacks in recent weeks on land artificialization (ZAN), the restriction of the most polluting vehicles in large cities (ZFE), and the questioning of state aid for the energy renovation of housing (MaPrimeRénov').

"It is astonishing that in the 10th anniversary year of the Paris Agreement, and while the impacts of climate change are worsening, France, through its government's constant backtracking on the ecological transition, is in the process of halting the reduction of its emissions (...). This is not inevitable, but a political choice that goes against the will of the French people," reacted Anne Bringault, Director of Programs at Réseau Action Climat (RAC).

For the first quarter, Cipeta notes that emissions even rose slightly again (+0.2%) due in particular to the end of record drops in energy production and particularly high emissions for residential and tertiary buildings (+5.2%) due to high gas and heating consumption linked to a cooler winter.

For the year, Citepa anticipates that the second quarter should see its emissions decrease by 1.8%, before -0.9% and -0.8% for the third and fourth quarters. The organization predicts that the sectors experiencing the greatest decline will be manufacturing and construction (-2.4%) and agriculture and forestry (-1.3%). Transport will remain stable, while the significant declines observed in recent years in the energy production sector (-7% in 2023 and -4% in 2024) are expected to slow significantly in 2025 (-0.9%).

"The use of nuclear power is expected to stabilize in the second half of 2025, remaining at a historically high level. Moreover, since the use of fossil fuels is already very low, it is expected to stabilize without allowing the gain observed in the past," he explains. The industrial sector is expected to see its emissions fall by 2.4%, but according to INSEE, this decrease will be "essentially" linked to the decline in industrial production rather than to decarbonization.

This slowdown, in response to which the High Council for Climate has called for a "collective surge" to relaunch climate action, comes as developed countries must now tackle sectors that are difficult or costly to decarbonize. And ambitions must be revised upwards if we hope to limit the disastrous effects (heatwaves, floods, droughts, fires, etc.) of global warming.

EU emissions fell by 8.3% by 2023, and are now 37% below 1990 levels, according to the European Commission. But there is still a long way to go to meet climate targets: on Wednesday, the Commission proposed reducing net emissions by 90% compared to 1990.

Other countries, such as the United States, the largest historical emitter, are stagnating in reducing their emissions (-0.2% in 2024), in a context of questioning climate policies.

The current French objective for 2030 is to reduce gross emissions by at least 40% compared to 1990. The third national low-carbon strategy, currently being developed, will raise this objective to -50%, which implies a reduction of around 5% per year between 2022 and 2030. According to INSEE, since 1900, French emissions have been reduced by 31%.