Greenpeace calls on the government “to drastically increase its ambition” to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

How to engage France on the trajectory of global warming limited to +1.5°C? This is the question posed by the NGO Greenpeace before the presentation by the government of a new plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The association has made its own calculations and publishes, Monday, July 3, its recommendations for the country to respect the Paris agreement.

“Greenpeace calls on the government to increase drastically its climate ambition”, sums up Nicolas Nace, Energy Transition campaign manager. In detail, France would have to halve (-49.4%) its current gross emissions – not counting the absorption of carbon sinks therefore – by 2030. If we take emissions in 1990, this would correspond to a drop of 62.2%.

Carbon neutrality before 2047

Another threshold put forward by Greenpeace, which followed the methodology of the NGO Climate analytics: “PMore than 80% of the emission reductions to be achieved to be on a +1.5°C trajectory must be achieved by 2035, i.e. in the next 12 years. The association also advises to achieve carbon neutrality between 2040 and 2047, and not in 2050, the current objective.

“This is a drastic change of course to be initiated now. Any delay in reducing emissions during this period should be compensated for by an even greater effort afterwards.”

Greenpeace France

in a note published on July 3

A few days after the publication of the annual report of the High Council for the Climate (HCC), the Greenpeace note dwells on carbon sinks. The HCC has indeed warned of the drop in CO2 absorption by these ecosystems in France, in particular because of fires and droughts. Before “the collapse of the forest carbon sink in France”Greenpeace calls for “not to make the uncertain evolution of carbon sinks the adjustment variable of an insufficiently ambitious climate policy”.