Leaning on Uncertainty

The French government's strategy for climate neutrality relies on a combination of vulnerable land sinks and industrial carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies. While France has binding gross-emission-reduction targets, its land sink has declined by more than 20 Mt CO2eq over the last decade due to a forestry crisis. To compensate, the Draft Third National Low Carbon Strategy (SNBC3) increases reliance on industrial removals, including Direct Air Capture and Carbon Storage (DACCS) and Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS). However, the report finds that projections for these technologies are inconsistent and lack foundational assessments regarding energy demand, land-use impacts, and domestic CO2 storage capacity. Furthermore, France plans to increase wood harvesting to 60 million m3 by 2030, which may further erode the forest carbon sink.

• France's land carbon sink is deteriorating rapidly, with forest mortality emissions increasing from 14 Mt CO2eq in 2010 to 41 Mt CO2eq in 2023. The government's Draft SNBC3 indicates that the LULUCF sink will likely be nonexistent by mid-century, shifting the burden of climate neutrality onto technological removals.
• The French government's projections for industrial carbon dioxide removal (CDR) are inconsistent and ambiguous. The Draft SNBC3 conflates BECCS with Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU), and provides conflicting 2030 projections for BECCS removals, citing both 0.4 Mt and 3.4 Mt in the same document.
• There is a critical risk that biomass demand will exceed domestic supply by 2030. Increased harvesting for construction and bioenergy, projected to reach 60 million m3 by 2030, could reduce the projected 2050 forest sink by up to 6 Mt CO2eq.
• France lacks essential feasibility assessments for its industrial CDR goals. Specifically, there are no quantified assessments of the energy demand for DACCS, no evaluation of the land-use effects of BECCS deployment, and domestic geological storage capacity remains highly uncertain and theoretical.
• The French strategy relies on temporary and reversible carbon storage in harvested wood products, projecting an additional annual removal capacity of -7 Mt CO2eq from 2023 to 2050. The report notes that the negative long-term effects of this strategy likely exceed the positive effects.
• France has revised its land sink accounting methodology to include deadwood, which has resulted in a higher reported net sink. This change makes comparisons with prior data difficult and may increase pressure to meet the 2024-2028 LULUCF carbon budget.

APA

Orth, D. (2026). Leaning on Uncertainty. Carbon Market Watch. https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Leaning-on-uncertainty-France.pdf

Chicago

Orth, Daniel. Leaning on Uncertainty. Carbon Market Watch, 2026. https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Leaning-on-uncertainty-France.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Orth |first1=Daniel |title=Leaning on Uncertainty |publisher=Carbon Market Watch |date=April 2026 |url=https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Leaning-on-uncertainty-France.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{orth2026leaning, author = {Orth, Daniel}, title = {{Leaning on Uncertainty}}, institution = {Carbon Market Watch}, year = {2026}, month = apr, url = {https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Leaning-on-uncertainty-France.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }