National Low Carbon Strategy Project The ecological and inclusive transition towards carbon neutrality Project version – December 2018 Table of Contents Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 4 Chapter 1: Context and challenge ................................................................................................ 5 1.1. France aims to make an ambitious and fair contribution to combating climate change ........ 5 1.2. Looking back: progress made so far ..................................................................................... 6 1.3. Presentation of the main levers to be pulled and the lessons to be drawn from earlier and foreign foresight exercises. ........................................................................................................ 11 Chapter 2: France's project ......................................................................................................... 15 2.1. Strategic Themes ................................................................................................................ 15 2.2. The baseline scenario ......................................................................................................... 17 2.3. Limits to the scenario, potential shocks, areas of concern .................................................. 31 2.4. A strategy built through collaboration .................................................................................. 32 Chapter 3: The carbon budgets .................................................................................................. 33 3.1. What is a carbon budget? What is it for? ............................................................................ 33 3.2. Technical adjustment of the first three carbon budgets ....................................................... 33 3.3. Balance of the 2015-2018 carbon budget ........................................................................... 34 3.4. The next carbon budgets .................................................................................................... 34 Chapter 4: Public policy guidelines ............................................................................................ 41 4.1. Cross-sectoral guidelines .................................................................................................... 41 i. Carbon footprint .................................................................................................................. 41 ii. Economic policy ................................................................................................................. 46 iii. Research and innovation policy ........................................................................................ 53 iv. Urban planning, development and regional dynamics ....................................................... 55 v. Citizens’ education, awareness, and assimilation of issues and solutions ......................... 57 vi. Employment, skills, qualifications and occupational training ............................................. 59 4.2 Guidelines for sectors .......................................................................................................... 61 i. Transport ............................................................................................................................ 61 ii. Building sector ................................................................................................................... 67 iii. Agriculture ......................................................................................................................... 74 iv. Forest/wood ...................................................................................................................... 80 v. Industry .............................................................................................................................. 84 vi. Energy production ............................................................................................................ 89 vii. Waste ............................................................................................................................... 94 Chapter 5: Strategy revision and monitoring ............................................................................. 98 5.1. Strategy monitoring ............................................................................................................. 98 5.2. Strategy evaluation ............................................................................................................. 98 5.3. Strategy revision ................................................................................................................. 99 Appendix 1: Legislative and regulatory context ...................................................................... 101 1. Content of the National Low Carbon Strategy ...................................................................... 101 2. Scope of the National Low Carbon Strategy ........................................................................ 101 3. Carbon Budgets ................................................................................................................... 105 4. Revision of the National Low Carbon Strategy and enacting future carbon budgets ........... 106 5. Opinions and consultations prior to publication .................................................................... 106 6. Presentation to Parliament upon publication ........................................................................ 107 Project version – December 2018 Appendix 2: Strategy indicators ............................................................................................... 108 1. Indicators for the inclusion of guidelines in public policies ................................................... 108 2. Results indicators, main indicators and contextual indicators .............................................. 108 3. Environmental indicators ...................................................................................................... 116 Appendix 3: A strategy resulting from collective work, Addendum to chapter 2.4 ............... 117 1. Consultation with stakeholders ............................................................................................. 117 2. Prior public consultation ....................................................................................................... 117 3. The Opinion of the Expert Committee on Energy Transition ................................................ 119 4. Draft strategy consultation at the end of the process ........................................................... 119 Appendix 4: Addendum to chapter 4.1.i Carbon footprint ...................................................... 120 Appendix 5: CO2 utilization, capture and storage technologies. ............................................ 123 1. CCS and carbon neutrality ................................................................................................... 123 2. CCS in the energy sector ..................................................................................................... 123 3. CCS in the industrial sector ................................................................................................. 124 4. The storage challenge ......................................................................................................... 124 Appendix 6: Addendum to chapter 4.2.iv. Forest-wood .......................................................... 125 Appendix 7: Offsetting greenhouse gas emissions ................................................................ 130 1. The Paris Agreement and Kyoto Protocol ............................................................................ 130 2. Sharing the effort between Member States of the European Union ..................................... 131 3. Voluntary emissions offsetting ............................................................................................. 131 4. The CORSIA mechanism for international aviation .............................................................. 131 Appendix 8: Abbreviations ........................................................................................................ 133 Appendix 9: Glossary ................................................................................................................ 137 Project version – December 2018 INTRODUCTION The National Low Carbon Strategy (SNBC for Stratégie Nationale Bas-Carbone) describes a road map for France on how to steer its climate change mitigation policy. It provides guidelines to enable the transition to a low carbon economy in all sectors of activity. It sets greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets on a national scale in the short/medium term - the carbon budgets1 - and aims to attain carbon neutrality, meaning zero net emissions, at the 2050 horizon (target introduced in the climate plan of July 2017). The National Low Carbon Strategy is one of two components of French climate policy, it works alongside the National Climate Change Adaptation Plan that focuses on French adaptation policy2. The strategy and carbon budgets are legally binding for the public sector, mainly through a requirement to take them into account3. Thus although the strategic objectives of the present document are binding for all companies and citizens, they are nevertheless addressed