Every year, Citepa draws up an inventory of France’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on behalf of the Ministry of Ecological Transition, covering territorial emissions which fell by 1.8% in 2024 compared with 2023, according to the estimate published on 16 June 2025. In addition, the Statistical Data and Studies Deparment (SDES) and INSEE publish Air Emissions Accounts (AEA), which account for emissions from resident units whose classification of activity is modelled on that of the national accounts. For 2024, these emissions are expected to stand at around 400 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent (MtCO₂e), down 0.9% on 2023. This rate of decline is below the level compatible with France’s climate commitments – around -5% per year on average – and with the carbon budget for the new draft National Low-Carbon Strategy (SNBC-3).

The link between greenhouse gas emissions and economic activity is clearly established. Although a clear trend towards decoupling (i.e. a reduction in emissions for a given level of economic activity) has been observed in France and in all the advanced economies over the last 20 years, variations in emissions remain partly linked to economic fluctuations. By working at a detailed sectoral level, changes in emissions can be linked even more closely to changes in demand or production in certain sectors. For example, the drop in emissions from manufacturing industry in 2024 is mainly explained by the decline in industrial output in energy-intensive sectors, and does not reflect a reduction in carbon intensity. Conversely, the decline in emissions in the energy sector is not due to a drop in electricity production, but to greater decarbonisation of the electricity mix, made possible by a higher nuclear power plant operation rate.

The economic activity scenario in the Economic Outlook covers a large number of indicators at a relatively detailed sectoral level, which can be used to produce a forecast of France’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2025 that is consistent with the economic activity forecast scenario in this Economic Outlook, by using past data to model the links between economic activity and emissions.

According to this forecast, France’s GHG emissions in AEA format are set to decrease by 5.3 MtCO₂e in 2025, corresponding to a reduction of 1.3%. This drop is mainly due to the economic downturn in GHG-emitting industries (chemicals, metallurgy, cement manufacturing, etc.), with manufacturing industry likely to contribute 0.8 points to the drop in emissions in 2025. However, the energy sector’s contribution to the reduction should be smaller than in previous years. After two consecutive years of particularly sharp declines in fossil fuel power generation, due to the restarting of nuclear power stations and the upward trend in renewable power generation, the scope for further reductions is now limited. Direct household emissions, meanwhile, are expected to remain stable, with emissions linked to heating likely to fall as a result of the downward trend in the use of heating oil, although fuel consumption looks set to increase.

These trends remain forecasts, and are fragile for two reasons. Firstly, they are based on a macroeconomic scenario that is, by definition, uncertain, and secondly, they rely on assumptions used as the basis for estimating GHG emissions for a given economic activity, which are also sources of uncertainty. In addition, the forecast is conventionally based on the assumption that the end of the year will be in line with seasonal temperature norms. Autumn weather conditions are, by their very nature, a source of uncertainty for the forecasting of emissions linked to electricity production and heating, as well as for the activity of these same industries...