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France Affirms Climate Targets Even as Political Challenges Grow

The Flamanville nuclear plant, operated by Electricite de France SA (EDF), in Flamanville, France, on Thursday, April 25, 2024. The Flamanville 3 European pressurized water reactor (EPR) has been approved of its first fuel loading and is ready to begin operation. (Nathan Laine/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- France’s new government reaffirmed its plan to reduce carbon emissions and promote clean energy, even as it faced greater fiscal constraints and political challenges after the summer’s snap elections. 

“We’re in a difficult budgetary situation,” Energy and Climate Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher said in Paris on Monday as she launched a six-week public consultation over France’s 10-year energy plan and national strategy to fight global warming. Reducing emissions from cars, trucks and airlines “is probably one of the issues where the step is the steepest.”

France will continue to focus on renewables, nuclear power and energy-efficiency investments as it switches from fossil fuels to clean power, Pannier-Runacher said. That plan remains broadly unchanged from what was presented by the previous government a year ago. 

However, these targets may eventually have to be amended after legislative elections in June and July left France with a minority government that could easily be toppled by parliament. The Senate is pressing ahead with its own energy law, which has yet to be discussed in the National Assembly. 

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The Lower House is more divided than before on the role of nuclear and renewables, and some lawmakers in France and other European countries say the European Union should revise its plan to effectively ban new combustion engine cars from 2035. Meanwhile, the new French government has proposed curbing incentives for the purchase of electric vehicles and the construction of cleaner district heating networks in a bid to reduce a ballooning budget deficit.

Investing in the energy transition “is sometimes the best wall against future budget spending,” Pannier Runacher said, citing the cost of floods that recently hit France. “The idea is to accelerate what we started,” she said, while acknowledging that the pace of the country’s emissions reductions “slightly slowed” in recent months.   

The new government maintained a target for a gross reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 50% in 2030 compared with 1990, in line with EU targets. Consumption of fossils should represent 42% of energy consumption in 2030, down from 60% in 2022, partly thanks to efficiency savings.

To achieve that, the government aims to renovate 600,000 houses a year, and has set a target for electric cars to represent 15% of vehicles on roads by the end of the decade, according to a policy document published on Monday. Consumption of biofuels should rise by 40% from 2019 to 2030, and the use of renewable heat should double by 2035.        

The government reiterated plans to start the construction of at least six large nuclear reactors, and to consider building a further eight plants while also developing small and advanced nuclear reactors. It plans to deploy 8 gigawatts of electrolyzers to produce clean hydrogen by 2035. 

It also outlined the following targets: 

 

 

     

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