Monday September 25, Emmanuel Macron must present the roadmap for ecological planning. This global program should enable France to achieve its greenhouse gas reduction objectives.
Among the measures announced on the evening of Sunday September 24 by Emmanuel Macron, there is the crucial measure of phasing out coal by 2027. There are still two coal-fired power stations in France, one in Cordemais in Loire-Atlantique, the other in Saint-Avold in Moselle.
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Cordemais should have closed in 2022, but it is still in operation and the reconversion project was validated only a few months ago. Saint-Avold, for its part, restarted last winter to avoid electricity shortages. The two other power plants in France are those of Le Havre and Gardanne, and they are already in the reconversion or dismantling phase.
Coal is extremely harmful to the climate and power plants account for 30% of greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity sector. In By closing the two remaining coal power plants, we can hope for a reduction of nearly 10 million tonnes of CO2 per year, the equivalent of the emissions of 4 million individual cars.
At European level, most coal power plants must also close, but some experience a reprieve. Others have even restarted, in Germany in particular, to avoid electricity shortages caused by the war in Ukraine and to circumvent tensions on the gas market.
Carbon neutrality by 2050
On a European scale, coal-fired power plants are a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. They still represent 11% of energy production. For the moment, only Portugal, Sweden and Belgium have respected their commitments and have not reopened any coal-fired power stations.
More generally, the objectives for reducing greenhouse gas emissions are staggered. For 2030, France will try not to exceed the ceiling of 270 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent – CO2 equivalent to understand all greenhouse gas emissions. It wants to achieve the more distant objective of carbon neutrality in 2050. To understand the scale of the challenge, you need to know where you are starting from: lFrance last year emitted 403 million tonnes of greenhouse gases from all sectors combined. By 2030, we will therefore have to reduce our emissions by more than 130 million tonnes.