The government wants to see it as a positive sign, the opposition accuses it of playing with the numbers. Greenhouse gas emissions in France fell by 1.7% in 2019, more than initially estimated, announced Sunday the Minister of Ecological Transition Barbara Pompili, seeing in it the mark that “our efforts are paying”.
“In 2019, France kept its climate commitments and this is excellent news”, continues the Minister. in the Sunday Journal, four days after the administrative justice condemned the State for “failure” in non-compliance with the commitments of its first National Low Carbon Strategy (SNBC) for the period 2015-2018.
“The measures we have taken are working”
The SNBC is France’s roadmap to fight climate change, which sets a trajectory aimed at carbon neutrality in 2050 and “carbon budgets” (emission ceilings) to achieve it. The first was adopted in 2015, the second in 2020.
The ministry specified, in a press release, that “according to an updated estimate from the Technical Center for Atmospheric Pollution Studies (Citepa, responsible for this calculation), France’s greenhouse gas emissions for the year 2019 are 437 Mt / CO2 (million tonnes of CO2 equivalent), a decrease of 1.7% compared to 2018 ”.
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“This means that the measures we have taken – replacing oil-fired boilers, for example – are working. We still have a long way to go, but we are on track to meet our commitments. Our efforts are paying off, ”the Minister welcomes again.
“Great anger” and “lies”
In a first estimate published in June, Citepa assessed the drop in emissions for 2019 at 1% (441 Mt / CO2). This is already below the annual target set by the new SNBC for 2019 (443 Mt). The end result should therefore be better, according to the ministry, in particular due to the consolidation of the figures over a larger scope. The main reductions would come from a lower use of heating oil and fluorinated gases in industry.
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The deputy (ex-LREM, ex-Ecologie Démocratie Solidarité) Matthieu Orphelin immediately said his “great anger” in front of the “lies” and the “exercise of pure communication” of Barbara Pompili. “The government lowers the 2019 target (from -2.3% to -1.5% in the SNBC revision) then is pleased to be at -1.7%”, he said on Twitter, while that MEP Manon Aubry accused the minister of “lying about the climate objectives”.
For the period 2019-23, the new SNBC adopted in 2020 sets an annual average emission reduction target of 422 Mt / CO2. Objective which had been raised compared to that envisaged for this same period in the first SNBC, arousing criticism from activists and environmental NGOs. In 2018, emissions had fallen by 4% and the trend should continue in 2020 given the Covid-19 crisis, which has severely affected many emitting sectors.
Original article by : www.leparisien.fr
