The green budget, which measures expenditure and budgetary credits favorable to the environment, is increasing in the 2024 finance bill (PLF), according to figures presented by the Ministry of the Economy, Finance and industrial and digital sovereignty, Thursday October 12. This increase reflects the announcements made by the government on financing the ecological transition, i.e. an increase of seven billion euros in credits and ten billion euros in commitments. “It is the realization of the historic effort we are making in terms of greening our spending. (…) The State’s green budget is an essential compass to verify that France is on the right trajectory of the ecological transition”declared Thomas Cazenave, the Minister for Public Accounts, October 12 at The gallery. This is the fourth edition of this green budget, since September 2020, an environmental rating work that the ministry presents as a “decision support tool within the framework of the budgetary procedure”.
On the retained scope of nearly 570 billion euros of budgetary and tax expenditure, all expenditure favorable to the environment on at least one “axis” (mitigation of global warming, adaptation, pollution, waste production, etc.) increases by seven billion euros between the 2023 finance law and the 2024 PLF. They represent 39.7 billion euros, or 7% of the total. “Mixed” expenses represent 3.2 billion euros. These are expenditures which cannot be considered to be entirely favorable, such as, for example, the construction of railway infrastructure whose impact is positive in terms of reducing CO emissions.2but which also contribute to the artificialization of soils and the loss of biodiversity.
Unfavorable expenditure is estimated at 13.1 billion euros, 2% of the total, a sum stabilized between 2023 and 2024. These figures are established “excluding recovery measures and exceptional measures taken to deal with the rise in energy prices, such as price shields”, we specify in Mr. Cazenave’s office. The sectors of transport (a third of these brown expenditures, with 4.6 billion euros), waste, industry, natural resources (agriculture and forests) and even energy are affected by this unfavorable expenditure. .
Getting out of brown expenses
The bulk of the state budget, 446.7 billion euros, falls into the category of “neutral” expenditure. or “unlisted”, relating to government missions, police, defense, justice, retirement pensions, school education, social transfers and employment policies… So many expenses which have no environmental vocation direct or indirect, positive or negative. “We must go even further in greening spending. We cannot be satisfied with these figures”supports Minister Thomas Cazenave.
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