The UNFCCC Secretariat has published France’s and Switzerland’s long-term low-emission development strategies (LEDS), in which the two countries outline pathways to net zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050.
France’s LEDS titled, ‘National Low Carbon Strategy,’ or Stratégie Nationale Bas-Carbone (SNBC), describes the country’s “ecological and inclusive transition towards carbon neutrality.” Along with the National Adaptation to Climate Change Plan, this mitigation strategy forms France’s two-pronged climate policy.
To reach carbon neutrality by 2050 and to reduce the country’s carbon footprint, the SNBC provides guidelines for the transition to a low-carbon economy in the following sectors: buildings, transport, agriculture, forestry and soils, energy production, industry, and waste. In so doing, it sets five-year carbon budgets until 2033.
To achieve carbon neutrality, France’s strategy aims to make energy production fully carbon-free by 2050; halve energy consumption through energy efficiency of installations and “more moderate” lifestyles; drastically reduce non-energy emissions, including by 38% compared to 2015 in the farming sector and by 60% compared to 2015 in industrial processes; and increase and safeguard carbon sinks such as soils and forests, and promote carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies and products from the bio-economy.
To reduce France’s carbon footprint, the strategy promotes measures to combat carbon leakage, which may include the introduction of carbon pricing at EU borders under the EU’s Green New deal and improved mainstreaming of sustainable development issues in trade agreements by, inter alia, making the ratification of and compliance with the Paris Agreement on climate change an essential clause in future trade agreements. The SNBC identifies cross-disciplinary consideration of sustainable development issues in trade agreements as an “area of concern.”
Switzerland’s LEDS titled, ‘Switzerland’s Long-Term Climate Strategy,’ “outlines the path to the net zero goal” by 2050. It covers the buildings, industry, transport, food and agriculture, financial market, waste, synthetic gases, and international aviation sectors, and sets out strategic goals for each.
The strategy is guided by ten strategic principles.
The strategy states that by pursuing the goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2050. France, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, the Republic of Korea South Africa, the United Kingdom, China and Brazil aim to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.
France communicated the second edition of the SNBC on 8 February 2021. Switzerland communicated its strategy on 28 January 2021. Thirty parties to the UNFCCC have now submitted their LEDS to the Secretariat.
