Dear President Macron,
My name is Liana Mehring. I am the Country Manager for France for Climate Scorecard, a non-profit organization that monitors the climate policies and programs of leading greenhouse gas-emitting countries.
Based on a review of French policies, we believe that much can be done to increase your country’s climate ambition, achieve the global goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030, and become carbon neutral by 2050. Therefore, we suggest you adopt the following goals and announce them at COP28.
# 1 France Announces It Will Strengthen Its Paris Agreement Pledge: Climate Scorecard acknowledges the latest plan by the French government, unveiled in May 2022, targeting a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030 compared with 1990 levels to align with the EU’s target. France has cut its emissions by 25% compared with 1990 levels, requiring major fresh efforts to hit the new 50% target. We suggest that you announce a revision of this and related targets at COP 28. We suggest that you announce that by 2030, France will reduce its emissions by 75% and become carbon neutral by 2040. This goal can be achieved by speeding the transition to electric cars and switching freight from roads to rivers. This goal can be achieved by asking for a bit from the smallest polluters and a lot from the biggest, with around half of France’s policy efforts aimed at companies, a quarter at households and a quarter at local administrations.
# 2 France Announces It Will End the Production of Fossil Fuels:
Climate Scorecard acknowledges that France has limited fossil energy resources and imports most of its oil, natural gas, and coal. We encourage France to end what little production remains of fossil fuels by the end of 2024. In addition, we encourage France to end all fossil fuel subsidies by 2024. According to the OECD, in 2021, the French government paid EUR 8.41 billion in support of fossil fuels. 93% of total support was given out in tax expenditures, notably Overseas Excise Tax Exemption for Fuels. A much smaller percentage was made as direct transfers in the form of the Energy Solidarity Cheque, Exceptional Winter Energy Solidarity Cheque, and petroleum RD&D funding.
I hope you will incorporate these suggestions in your presentation at COP28, and I look forward to hearing back from you.
Sincerely,
Liana Mehring
Climate Scorecard —- Country Manager