The word will surely be on everyone’s lips and in all the stands. The Global Industry show, the sixth edition of which welcomes more than 2,000 companies north of Paris from Monday March 25, will inevitably highlight the decarbonization of French industry, a long-term project launched by the State nearly of three years.
The national low-carbon strategy drawn up by the government aims, in fact, to reduce total greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030 to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. In this calculation, the The industry must take its share, with a target of − 35% of its greenhouse gas emissions in 2030.
The provisional results, published Thursday March 21 by the Interprofessional Technical Center for Atmospheric Pollution Studies, are encouraging: greenhouse gas emissions decreased by 8% in industry in France in 2023 compared to 2022. Except that this drop is explained more by the decline in industrial production than by its decarbonization. The economic slowdown in recent months has hit the cement, chemicals and steel sectors, three of the industries emitting the most greenhouse gases.
“A structural obstacle”
Other indicators raise fears of a future slowdown in the dynamic of industrial decarbonization. Like the fall in the price of a ton of CO2 in the European Union – which went from 95 euros in February 2023 to 52 euros a year later. “If this price level were to last, some companies could say that at this price, it is better to pay a right to pollute rather than invest in a decarbonization project”alerts Anaïs Voy-Gillis, academic specialist in the industry and responsible for strategy within the French chemical group Humens.
Another element to take into account is the price of nuclear electricity in France, which several manufacturers do not find stable and competitive enough, despite the agreement signed between the State and EDF in November 2023. “Uncertainty over the cost of electricity is a structural obstacle to the decarbonization of industry”explains Eric Bergé, industry expert at think tank The Shift Project. “The industry must see things more clearly in the coming months, otherwise we risk not collectively meeting the 2030 timetable”warns Guillaume de Goÿs, CEO of Aluminum Dunkerque, one of the 50 French industrial sites that emit the most greenhouse gases.
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