New Aquitaine - Bringing stakeholders together and structuring supply chains
Territorial assessment of climate action
2018
Association Climate Chance (Climate Chance)
Since 2015, the Climate Chance Association has been involved in the mobilization in the fight against climate change. It is the only international association that proposes to bring together on an equal footing all non-state actors recognized by the UN. In order to strengthen their action and to give credibility to the climate stabilization scenarios, the Climate Chance Association launched in 2018 a Global Observatory of Non-State Climate Action, which aims to explain the evolution of greenhouse gas emissions, by crossing national public policies, with sectoral dynamics, private actors’ strategies, local public policies and actions undertaken by local actors. In order to analyse the coherence of local public policies, Climat Chance proposes an assessment of « territorial mobilisations » through selected examples of cities and regions. Here, the case of New Aquitaine.
GHG emissions are 49.5 MtCO2eq in 2016, a 7% decrease since 2010, mainly attributable to the residential and tertiary sectors (-20% and -18%), industry (-14%), waste (-10%), and personal travel (-3.6%). For its action, the Region created in 2016 the Permanent Council for Energy Transition and Climate (COPTEC), an operational governance tool that internally allows the integration of energy objectives into all regional policies, and externally brings together a regional committee of 530 public and private organisations. It supports the pooling of practices and the co-construction of regional policies. The idea is to structure operational sectors in various sectors : ecomaterials, sustainable mobility, energy and storage clusters, etc.
CUTTING OUR GHG EMISSIONS THROUGH SUSTAINABLE MOBILITY AND ORGANIC FARMING
The transportation sector is the largest emitter with 38% of GHGs, of which 21% are from passenger travel and 17% from freight travel. The region favours the modal shift from goods to rail, and from people to goods via mutualisation (car-sharing), the multiplication of third places of work, and soft transport (cycling and walking). In September 2018, for example, the region proposed a 50% reduction in regional train subscriptions and announced 1,000 reduced price tickets (between €5 and €20) on regional journeys. It is also centralizing mobility policies with the creation of SMINA (syndicat mixte intermodal de Nouvelle Aquitaine) and the deployment of infrastructures for the distribution of alternative energies to fossil fuels (electricity, NGV, hydrogen) for the generalization of « clean » vehicles by 2050. The agricultural sector, the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases, benefits from the Ambition Bio regional pact launched in 2017, a unique plan in France that brings together the players in organic farming on a shared objective aiming for 10% of agricultural land to be organic by 2020 and 20% by 2027. The 2017 results are very encouraging with more than 5,000 organic farms representing 200,000 ha and 4 departments close to the 10% target.
PRIORITY TO ENERGY SOBRIETY
The building sector is the third largest GHG emitting sector, accounting for 38% of energy consumption, particularly heating, which is the largest emitter in this sector (73% in the residential sector and 63% in the tertiary sector), due to the majority use of natural gas and petroleum products. In order to achieve its objective of reducing final energy consumption by 60% by 2050, the region is supporting private individuals with 10,000 ongoing renovations (auditing, third-party financing) representing 84,000 tCO2eq avoided. In this way, it seeks to stimulate the energy renovation market by providing a model for building professionals and banks. The region is also spearheading the structuring of the eco-materials sector with the call for projects « Building of the future » in order to provide technical and financial support for the most exemplary renovation and construction projects. In addition, the region is helping companies of all sizes to improve the energy efficiency of industrial processes by at least 10% in 3 years.renewable energies already accounted for 23.2% of final energy consumption in 2016, and New Aquitaine is now the leading region in terms of photovoltaic electricity production, with 26% of the national solar park. A call for « participatory and citizen projects » in 2017 and 2018 also accompanies citizen energy efficiency and renewable energy projects.