Three years. Humanity has three years left to reverse the curve of progression of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and thus manage to contain the warming of the planet below the bar symbolic of 1.5 degrees Celsius. This observation, as made by the latest assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is irrevocable. Since the signing of the historic Paris Agreement, European Union (EU) member countries have been committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. In France, the National Low-Carbon Strategy (SNBC), adopted in 2015 and revised every five years, serves as a detailed roadmap to achieve this ambitious goal. However, the national trajectory remains largely insufficient today.
France is lagging far behind in terms of energy transition. While the country has reduced its GHG emissions since 1990, the rate of this decline was lower than in Germany or the United Kingdom. Over the period 2015-2018, France even exceeded its "carbon budget" of 62 million tons of CO2, leading to a condemnation of the State for "air conditioning inaction" by the administrative justice in October 2021. To meet the commitments made at the 2015 Paris Climate Change Conference, it will be necessary to almost double the annual rate of ghg emission reductions, reaching 3.3% between 2024 and 2028.
As part of a Europe-wide project entitled Fair Energy Transition for All (FETA), Institut Montaigne advocates for supporting the most vulnerable households in the energy transition. This note proposes to align with citizens' expectations and to focus support action for vulnerable households on the themes of housing, transport, and food. More generally, transition support schemes need to be redesigned to refocus them on vulnerable households. To these ends, this note contains an agenda of eleven solutions which should make it possible to initiate a just energy transition for all, the only way to reconcile the challenges of achieving carbon neutrality and those of strengthening social cohesion, reducing inequalities, and creating credible alternatives for assets including employment is threatened.