Greenhouse gases emissions (GHGs) are the emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O) and fluorinated gases (PFCs, HFCs, NF3 and SF6) linked to the activities of households and productive industries, which lead to the retention of part of the heat received from the sun in the atmosphere. The various types of GHGs are aggregated to obtain a “CO2 equivalent” mass, using so-called “global warming power” (GWP) coefficients over a certain time horizon, usually 100 years.

Air emissions accounts record France's GHG emissions according to the same principle of residence as the National accounts. In the transportation sector, this means that all emissions from companies considered as “French residents” in National accounts are accounted for, even if they take place abroad. Conversely, emissions in France by non-resident companies are not accounted for. Overall, emissions based on the residency principle (403 Mt CO2 eq in 2023) are slightly higher than those recorded in conventional emissions inventories (UNFCCC and so-called “SECTEN” formats), which account for emissions taking place on French territory (373 Mt CO2 eq).

Air emissions accounts allocate direct emissions to industries, i.e. those directly generated by the combustion of fossil fuels or by industrial processes during the industry's activity. For example, emissions from fossil-fired power plants are assigned to the “electricity generation” industry and not to the final consumer.

For consistency with National accounts, “direct households emissions” are isolated in a specific category. These emissions are produced by households, for example for transport (fuel burned in a private car) or heating (oil or gas boilers). These activities are “outside the production boundary” of National accounts, and are therefore not covered by conventional monetary aggregates for industries (output and value added).

French domestic final demand is made up of final consumption by households, general government, non-profit institutions serving households (NPISHs) and gross capital formation (investments and changes in inventories).

France's carbon footprint represents the greenhouse gas emissions induced by French domestic final demand, whether the goods or services consumed are produced domestically or imported. Conversely, French emissions associated with exports do not contribute to the carbon footprint. One can therefore go from the emissions of French resident units to the carbon footprint by adding the GHG content of imports and subtracting that of exports.

The GHG intensity of French GDP is the ratio between emissions from economic activities (excluding direct households emissions) and gross domestic product (GDP). In a similar way, one can calculate the GHG intensity of domestic final demand (= footprint / final demand), imports or exports.

Estimating the carbon footprint is based on macro-economic modeling, which aims to assign annual global GHG emissions to the goods and services for which there is final demand in each country. In the data disseminated by SDES and Insee, the economic information comes from the “FIGARO” multi-regional input-output table (MRIO) developed by Eurostat, and from the French national accounts. The MRIO describes the origin of production, the relationships between industries and the nationality of consumers of each good and service. The carbon footprint is estimated by combining the MRIO (previously harmonized with the results of the French national accounts) and the Air emissions accounts of all the countries in the world. In the absence of complete detailed data, results prior to 2010 are backcast, and those for years N-2 and N-1 are provisional estimates. In these provisional estimates, French data on GHG emissions and final monetary demand are known, but the GHG content per euro of imported goods is forecast, taking into account past trends and price variations.

The methodology used by SDES and Insee to estimate the carbon footprint is available here (in French): https://insee.fr/fr/statistiques/fichier/8071406/Note_methodo_empreinte_2024_FR.pdf