France Urged To Act As Climate Goals Slip Away

France's highest climate advisory body has issued a dire message: the nation is falling behind in the battle against climate change. In its seventh annual report, published on 3 July, 2025, the High Council for the Climate (HCC) highlighted growing fears of procrastination, coordination failures, and fragmented political will. The report comes after a scorching heatwave that has caused some to close, the highest point of the Eiffel Tower being among them, and put Paris at its highest heat warning.

The HCC condemned France for reneging on its climate pledges as heatwaves, global warming, and climate disruptions intensify. More than 3,700 individuals lost their lives due to heatstroke alone in 2024, with cereal production plummeting to an all-time 40-year record low and floods inflicting damages worth €615 million. With such evident markers of an escalating crisis, decarbonisation progress was far behind schedule.

The advisory committee explained that although France did reach its second carbon budget for 2019–2023, emission cuts have since plateaued. Emissions fell 6.7 percent in 2022–2023 but then only 1.8 percent from 2023–2024. For 2025, forecasts suggest a further slowing to only 1.3 percent. France needs to double its rate of cuts if it's going to meet its 2030 goals. The construction industry, which accounts for 15 percent of French greenhouse gas emissions, is cutting back too slowly — at one-ninth of the rate they need to. While heat pump sales plummet by 40 percent, sales of gas boilers, a dirtier alternative, have risen by 15 percent.

The waste industry is also lagging and emissions are increasing instead of decreasing. It must decrease its emissions by 29 times if it is to meet national targets. Appalling as it sounds, the reduction of just a third of this year's emissions reduction was because of policy measures actually doing something. The remainder of the reductions were due to one-off short-term factors such as a mild winter, additional hydropower from well-timed rain, additional nuclear production, and fewer cows.

France is also heating faster than the global average. Over the past decade, mainland France has warmed by 2.2°C. According to the HCC, if global temperatures rise by 1.5°C, France would likely experience a 2°C increase. A global rise of 3°C could push France to a dangerous 4°C increase. The council also released a warning that heatwaves may treble in frequency within the next five years and quintuple by 2050 relative to the late 20th century.

Against these warning signs, policy rollbacks and political upheaval have derailed climate progress. The report blames France's government for suspending social leasing of electric cars, reducing subsidies on housing insulation, diluting soil protection rules, and abolishing low-emission zones. For agriculture, the government response to early-2024 farmer protests derailed green policies. The HCC cautioned that it is locking the sector into high-emitting, traditional practices, rather than triggering a green, agro-ecological transformation.

Insufficiency of central strategic documents is also playing its part. France's third National Adaptation Plan didn't appear until March, and the new Low Carbon Strategy isn't due to be published until the end of the year, with a new energy plan only being due late summer. Without them, France will very likely not meet its 2030 and 2050 climate targets, the HCC cautioned. This added to the uncertainty, as head of the nation's central climate planning body SGPE Antoine Pellion stepped down in February following reductions in green policy and a lack of political support.

The political environment has become increasingly adverse to climate action. Climate Action Network, an alliance of 40 environmental organizations, counted more than 43 rollbacks of green measures in a period of six months. The count had reached 44 when President Emmanuel Macron spoke out against the EU target of reducing emissions by 90 percent by 2040.

Public trust in climate policy is also under threat. HCC chairman Jean-François Soussana cautioned that increasing social polarisation over benefits of climate policy risked undermining them in the future. He highlighted that some citizens are left behind, yet climate change is the concern for all. "There is a temptation to polarise the debate on climate and ecology," he said. "Some people believe policies haven't benefited everybody equally, so there is some support for pulling them down.". But everyone in France is affected by heatwaves, so we must have policies to benefit everyone.

The HCC discovered that there is a need for renewed political commitment, sufficient financing, and improved cross-ministerial coordination in order to reignite France's climate momentum. Lacking this, France risks missing its emission reduction targets and eroding public confidence in the ability of institutions to safeguard citizens and the planet from the accelerating impacts of climate change.