French Energy Transition Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher outlines in an interview the government’s vision of the trajectory that would enable France to gradually reduce its dependence on fossil fuels. Perrine Mouterde and Adrien Pécout undertake the interview in an article on the Le Monde website.
French energy minister: Necessary transition ‘is on a scale comparable to the first industrial revolution’
Agnès Pannier-Runacher, France’s energy transition minister, has released France’s energy and climate strategy for consultation. This 85-page document, which was presented on Wednesday, November 22, is due to lead to legislation in 2024 setting a trajectory for France’s energy use. This major law will provide the structure for the third editions of the country’s multi-annual energy plan (PPE) and the national low-carbon strategy (SNBC).
The government has promised to make France the first industrial nation to overcome its dependence on fossil fuels. What is meant by this?
Today, our country consumes around 60% of its energy mix in fossil fuels [oil, gas and some residual coal use]. We need to bring this percentage down to around 40% in 2030 and 30% in 2035. This is a very strong rate of reduction, backed up by actual usage. From 2035, the sale of new combustion-powered cars will be banned in Europe, and fuel consumption will fall drastically. Similarly, there will be virtually no more oil-fired boilers.
On a broader level, the transformation to be undertaken over the next three decades is on a scale comparable to that of the first industrial revolution. The energy system must be rebuilt and its philosophy changed: Until now, it has been highly centralized, centered around a few hundred production sites and a few large companies that control it. In the future, tens of thousands of sites will be both producers and consumers.
By 2050, France has also planned to reduce its energy consumption by at least 40%. Again, what is meant by this?
As a whole, the country has managed to reduce its gas and electricity consumption by 12% this year, and this hasn’t fundamentally changed our lives or the way businesses operate. It’s a first step. More broadly, I want to focus the political message about reducing [energy] consumption on the benefits that the French [public] will be able to derive from it, rather than on the planet.
Switching from a car with a combustion engine to an electric car means massive fuel savings. It also drastically reduces air pollution, with an effect on childhood bronchiolitis or asthma, and even on premature deaths of people’s parents. These are things that people understand very well. It’s up to the government to make sure that environmentalism is not a luxury product.
We’ve also asked the big players and large companies to do their share. For example, only 6% of buildings are equipped with a building management system, which provides significant energy gains. I’m talking about ministries, warehouses and towers in La Défense [Paris’ major business district].
The stated ambition is also to massively increase low-carbon energy production. Is this realistic, given that some of the previous targets have not been met?
Yes, because in the trajectories proposed, we have left a little leeway with regard to the potential announced by renewable energy developers. For example, the photovoltaic industry swears to me that it is capable of tripling the current rate of deployment. In our projections, we are banking on a doubling, which is already very good. We haven’t always reached our deployment targets; that’s a fact, and I don’t want to tempt fate.
As far as biomass is concerned, there is still some debate about volumes. Why is that?
First, we need to be able to produce the organic matter that is later transformed into energy. And this production comes from forests and agriculture. Our priority is to protect our carbon sink through sustainable forest management. We are also making our food sovereignty a priority because we want to avoid moving from being dependent on energy to being dependent on something else.
As opposed to offshore wind power or photovoltaics, the sector for which you have no intention of raising the target is onshore wind power. Why is this?
We’re capable of maintaining the rate of deployment of onshore wind power deployment observed in 2022, but wanting to go faster doesn’t correspond to the reality of the situation. I want to redistribute the presence of wind turbines across the country. Some departments have more than 1,100 towers, whereas others explain that they have made considerable efforts with 30 towers. This breeds resentment, although we need wind power.
In addition to the six future nuclear reactors, the government has planned to make a decision in 2026 on whether or not to build eight more. Which criteria would this ruling be based on?
By the end of 2026, we will have connected the Flamanville EPR [a northwestern French nuclear power plant, which is scheduled for commissioning in 2024 – 12 years late] and we will have made progress on our program of new reactors in the UK and in France. After that, we’ll have a clearer picture of the pace of deployment of each energy source. We won’t decide to build reactors just for the sake of it, but on the basis of our estimates of costs and benefits.
Will all these changes enable France to meet its 2030 climate targets?
First of all, France has no reason to be ashamed of its record. It is probably the G20 country that has made the biggest drop in greenhouse gas emissions over the last 18 months. We are on track to reduce our gross emissions by 2030. Yet the initial hypotheses concerning the carbon sink, which contributes to reducing net emissions [the goal being to cut them by at least 55% in 2030 as compared with 1990 levels], were deemed a little too optimistic, given that forests are deteriorating as a result of climate disruption.
Can we expect a commitment to withdraw from fossil fuels at the 28th World Climate Conference in Dubai?
What matters to us is going further than what was adopted at Glasgow’s COP26 on coal reduction. We need to make the departure from this fuel rapid and irreversible. We then need a final decision that addresses other fossil fuels and moves towards their reduction and eventual disappearance. After that, there could be different proposals to ensure that this is supported by the other countries.
What would you say to the head of TotalEnergies, Patrick Pouyanné, who has planned to produce more hydrocarbons by 2030?
It’s a fact, and I regret it: Oil and gas companies want to continue their exploration and production activities. The first issue is to obtain industry-wide decisions on production-related emissions [scope 1 and 2 emissions]. And in order to act on emissions linked to the use of hydrocarbons [scope 3] we need policies to reduce the use of fossil fuels. That’s what we’re doing: At some point, oil will have automatically become absent from the French energy mix, and the same will be true for the whole of continental Europe. So why develop new assets? I’ll put it bluntly: An oil and gas company that can’t invent its own decarbonized business model has no future.
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Energy in Demand - Sustainable Energy - Rod Janssen 