The comparison relegates France to the rank of bad students. The country is the only one, among the twenty-seven members of the European Union (EU), to have missed its target for 2020. Renewable energies represented 19.1% of its gross final energy consumption. Well below the 23% they should have reached, according to a 2009 European directive. therefore in the fight against climate change.
Conversely, a majority of countries, Sweden, Croatia and Bulgaria in particular, exceeded their objectives by several points, calculated on the basis of heterogeneous characteristics. Others have barely achieved them, thanks to an authorized mechanism. Belgium, the Netherlands and Slovenia have resorted to a transfer of statistical data from a state with a surplus. Overall, the EU shows a provisional result of 22%. That is two points more than the minimum hoped for, according to preliminary data from Eurostat, its statistics office, on January 19.
The regulations of the Council of the European Union – of which France has just taken over the presidency – provide for “additional measures”, when a State fails to achieve its “reference share”. Among other things, the adoption of new “national measures” or the payment of“a voluntary financial contribution” in favor of the energy transition.
The nuclear issue
The country is lagging behind in its heat production, 23% of which is from renewable sources (wood and waste), as well as in electricity (nearly 25%), where hydropower still exceeds wind and solar power. reunited. On the other hand, to within one point, the share of 9% in transport fuels (biodiesel) is close to forecasts. The margins still seem considerable, given the objectives for 2030, set this time within the framework of French legislation: respectively 38%, 40% and 15%.
Contacted, the Ministry of Ecological Transition claims a “catching up” already at work, the gap having first widened during the previous five-year term. He recalls that “the public authorities invest billions of euros per year in the renewable energy sector, mainly for guaranteed feed-in tariffs”.
In a report published in 2018, the Court of Auditors however regretted a “clear imbalance” : most of these subsidies have so far been concentrated in the electricity sector, in particular to reduce the use of nuclear power, rather than in thermal power. However, if nuclear has the disadvantage of its waste, this non-renewable energy has a considerable advantage in the fight against global warming: it already allows France to have very largely low-carbon electricity.
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