CITEPA, the organisation mandated to draw up the French greenhouse gas (GHG) emission inventory, has announced that France’s GHG emissions excluding LULUCF fell by 5.8% in 2023 to reach 373 MtCO2eq (-22.8 MtCO2eq compared to 2022). CITEPA has updated its previous preliminary results released in March 2024 that indicated that France’s GHG emissions fell by 4.8% in 2023.
Emissions fell in all sectors: -7.7 MtCO2eq for the energy sector (-18%), -6.1 MtCO2eq for manufacturng industry (-8.7%), -4.4 MtCO2eq for transport (-3.4%), -3.4 MtCO2eq for buildings (-5.5%) and -1.2 MtCO2eq for agriculture (-1.6%). However, including LULUCF, France’s 2019-2023 carbon budget was not respected, as CITEPA observed an average of 380 Mt against an objective of 379 Mt, i.e. an excess of 1.4 Mt.
According to CITEPA, the improvement in the emissions from the energy sector is due to a sharp increase in nuclear power generation (+41.5 TWh) and in renewable power generation (+9 TWh for hydro, +12 TWh for wind, +3 TWh for solar). Production by thermal power plants has therefore been reduced (-14 TWh for gas-fired power plants).