Publications

Ecological transition of the food system raises numerous and complex questions regarding funding: How much does it cost? Who should pay? Do existing public spending contribute to it? This report aims to provide answers to the latter question. In this report, we conduct as comprehensive a study as possible of public support for the French food system in 2018, 2021, and 2024. We analyse the theoretical contribution of this funding in relation to the national framework of ecological planning set by French public authorities.

Every year, the start of the budget debate in France is an opportunity to ask a number of questions: How much is public spending on climate? What is this money spent on? Which actors, both public and private, are on the receiving end? And above all: how should this spending develop in the future? Many numbers have been produced in France over the last few years and it is easy to get lost in the shuffle. This is why we wrote this handbook. We have gathered the information that we consider most important and tried to highlight what we know, what we do not yet know, and the key debates in France that politicians will have to hold and where they will have to quickly find compromises.  

France is facing a climate investment deficit relative to its climate objectives. Today, these investment are already putting a strain on public finances, whether in terms of investing in public facilities or co-financing projects by households and business. Increasing climate investments is therefore a challenge for public finances. But the scale of the challenge varies, depending on future policies. So what room for manoeuvre is there in terms of climate-related public spending needs?

While French local authorities have important levers for adaptation, they will only be able to mobilize them if certain conditions are met at national level: the entire effort cannot rest on their initiative alone. This is what this I4CE's Climate Report shows. There is an urgent need for a discussion on adaptation between the national government and subnational authorities.

The French National Low-Carbon Strategy (SNBC) aims at doubling the volume of CO2 removals thanks to the contribution of the forest-based sector, the agricultural sector and the geological carbon capture and storage technologies. The projections concerning these compartments and the underlying technical assumptions have been explored and compared to the existing literature in an in-depth analysis, with the goal of clarifying the challenges and conditions for this massive increase in carbon removals. The conclusions are that far-reaching changes are required in the different sectors and that some objectives for the forest-based sector may be impossible to achieve.