ORGANISING CLIMATE ACTION

This six-month project (January to June 2022), led by Valerie Arnhold and funded by the Haut Conseil pour le Climat, looks at the process of elaboration of France’s plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the Stratégie Nationale Bas Carbone (SNBC). Climate action poses major challenges for the French government: reducing emissions to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 implies far-reaching transformations in the various sectors (Energy, Agriculture, Forestry, Waste, Industry, Transport). This raises the question of the policy instruments and organization put in place to achieve these drastic reduction targets. Net-zero policies also require a coordination between various public (ministries, local authorities) and private actors (agricultural, industrial and energy sectors) around an objective that often calls into question previous practices and requires structural change. This project examines the organizational conditions under which climate mitigation planning takes place: which forms of cross-sectoral cooperation exist between different public actors, especially Ministries participating in the elaboration of the Strategy? How can we organize a massive mobilization around climate action? The study relies on a qualitative approach, based on interviews with the participants of the Net-Zero Strategy and various stakeholders, as well as direct observation of coordination and consultation meetings. It focuses on the power relations that are forged around the elaboration of the National Strategy and on the State’s levers for action in the climate field.

A first overview of the results of this project, in the form of an institutional report for public authorities is available here: https://www.hautconseilclimat.fr/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Etude-SNBC-2022.pdf