On September 26, 2019, the French Parliament adopted the "Energy-Climate" law, which sets the framework, ambitions, and target of French climate policy for the next 30 years. In particular, it aims to reduce France's dependence on fossil fuels and to develop renewable energies.

Following the British Parliament's declaration on "environment and climate emergency" in May 2019, the new French Energy-Climate law pronounces addressing "ecological and climate emergency" as the main objective of French energy policy, adding for that purpose an amendment to the French energy code. While the impact of such a declaration remains to be determined, it can be considered as an answer to recent climate change claims targeting the French government.

The adoption of the Energy-Climate law constitutes a major step toward achieving the French government's ambition to combat climate change by becoming carbon neutral by 2050. This ambitious objective represents a reduction of France's greenhouse gas emissions by a factor of more than six compared to 1990 emissions levels.

In order to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, the Energy-Climate law provides for the reduction of fossil fuels consumption by 40% by 2030—instead of the previous 30% target adopted by France—and for the termination of coal-based electricity generation by 2022. The law provides that nuclear power's share of electricity production in France should be reduced by 50% by 2035.

In addition to these reduction targets, the law contains various measures to support the development of renewable energies and various measures to improve the energy efficiency of housing in order to reduce energy consumption by reducing heat loss.

With new ambitious objectives, the implementation of the new Energy-Climate law provides incentives for the development of renewable energies, as well as a wide scope of energy efficient solutions, such as low/positive energy buildings, electric vehicles, and energy storage options.

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