Ihe France is failing to meet its climate commitments and is struggling to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions at a sufficient rate in view of its 2030 objectives. And if, to act beyond individual behavior and complementary to national and European strategies, we explored a new level, that of the territories? These offer a field of action that is currently untapped: the reduction of imported emissions.
This is revealed by the carbon footprint, a metric which, despite recent scientific work, remains largely absent from the climate roadmaps of the territories. France’s carbon footprint is in fact 42% greater than the quantity of greenhouse gases emitted on its own territory. With the wave of deindustrialization experienced by the country since the 1970s, the share of imported emissions in France’s carbon footprint fell from 39% in 1995 to 49% in 2019, before falling very slightly.
Economic and climate policies, by only considering domestic emissions, are only interested in half the problem. And thus deprive themselves of at least half of the solutions.
The reduction of the carbon footprint will therefore depend on the ability of the territory to meet its needs locally., as a substitute for high-impact imports. However, in relation to the number of inhabitants, this footprint varies greatly from one region to another, oscillating between 8.1 and 9.6 tonnes per inhabitant and per year – far, in any case, from the 2 tonnes commonly considered as the threshold of sustainability by 2050.
Ile-de-France is the region where it is highest. Heavily dependent on imports to meet its food and daily products, it reached 9.63 t CO2 per capita, of which 78% “imported” (35% from other regions, 43% from abroad). The Grand-Est, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté and Centre-Val de Loire regions, which are also highly dependent on imports, have a carbon footprint higher than the national average.
Limit imports
Conversely, the Pays de la Loire and Brittany regions show a better performance. Occitania has risen to first place in the ranking of the least emitting regions, since it combines lower territorial emissions and imported emissions of average importance. For example, a resident of the Occitanie region will emit half as many imported emissions as a Parisian to satisfy his food consumption, and 30% less for his daily consumption (medicines, textiles).
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