French climate policies remain “insufficient”, both in terms of decarbonization and adaptation, warned the High Council for the Climate (HCC) on Thursday July 9, which considers it “urgent” to “change scale” to deal with the “dangerous” impacts of global warming.
As recent repeated heat waves show, “the impacts of climate change are becoming more and more dangerous” and France “is not ready”, indicates the HCC in its 8th annual report. To deal with it, “it is imperative” that France “changes scale in the scale, scope and speed of implementation of adaptation actions”, estimates the independent body created in 2018 to evaluate the government’s climate action and formulate recommendations.
“We are entering a dangerous range. (…) Our infrastructure, our land use planning, our ecosystems” and the management of “our economic activities and socio-cultural practices developed or were scaled in a climate that no longer exists,” underlined Valérie Masson-Delmotte, one of the HCC’s independent experts.
“Insufficient”
Ten years after the 2015 Paris agreement, aiming to contain global warming below 2°C and if possible below 1.5°C, “first progress” has been made in France with a “return” in greenhouse gas emissions, “but this is completely insufficient,” said Jean-François Soussana, president of the HCC. “The probability of containing warming below 2°C remains low.” It remains “possible (…) but very rapid and major efforts are required,” he added.
In 2025, French greenhouse gas emissions fell by 2.1%. “The pace must pick up. It will have to at least double in the coming years, therefore reaching on average more than 4% per year in 2026, 2027 and 2028,” judged Diane Strauss, member of the HCC. In the 1st quarter of 2026, emissions fell by 4.8%.
“France must take its responsibilities (…) by getting out of fossil fuels and no longer contributing to global warming by 2050.” However, “the sole pursuit of current climate policies will not make it possible to respond to these challenges,” believes Jean-François Soussana. Since 2025, France has had an energy climate strategy (SFEC), structured around the third National Plan for adaptation to climate change (PNACC-3), the Multi-year Energy Program (PPE) and the draft National Low Carbon Strategy (SNBC).
But these plans “are not backed by funding commensurate with needs”, estimates the HCC, which deplores “a weakening of climate policies”, particularly on water with the agricultural emergency bill or the artificialization of soils. “These weakenings and setbacks are serious warnings,” judges Sophie Dubuisson-Quellier, member of the HCC and research director at the CNRS.
Mal adaptation
Valérie Masson-Delmotte, climatologist, former editor of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, created in 1988 by the UN), also underlined the “discrepancy between adaptation efforts implemented concretely and the sharp increase in adaptation needs in a rapidly changing climate”, illustrated by recent heatwaves.
“Current adaptation favors incremental, technological responses, which address certain impacts while aggravating or transferring risks to other actors, which presents a recurring, systemic risk of maladaptation,” she explained, citing the examples of water reservoirs and air conditioning.
Among the 82 recommendations of the HCC – to which the government must respond within six months – the organization recommends, in addition to structural prevention, also financing short-term responses, such as “the installation of shutters, shading, ceiling fans, but also the role of cold networks and fixed air conditioning devices, favoring reversible heat pumps” or the strengthening of the “regulatory framework for occupational health”.
The HCC also recommends better “guaranteeing the investments necessary for the transition”, in particular by doubling those for decarbonization and “resizing” the Green Fund to help communities, and “bringing sectoral policies into line with climate objectives”, by advocating “sobriety” in transport – moratorium on increasing the capacity of French airports – or in agriculture.
The organization also calls for a “just transition” so as not to increase inequalities and “climate vulnerabilities”, judging that certain aid such as MaPrimeRénov or social leasing “are currently undersized compared to needs”, according to Diane Strauss.
