France targets fossil fuels phase-out by 2050
As France outlines energy transition goals, a think tank finds fossil fuel power is ‘in permanent retreat’ for OECD nations.
France has announced its intentions at the 'First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels', hosted in Santa Marta, Colombia, and co-chaired by Colombia and the Netherlands.
Its roadmap to phasing out fossil fuels includes a National Low Carbon Strategy (SNBC) and Multiannual Energy Planning (PPE).
The SNBC sets out plans for a 50% reduction in gross greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2030 compared to 1990 levels, which it says implies an average of 5% emissions reduction per year.
Its goal is to end consumption of coal by 2030, oil by 2045 and natural gas by 2050, with milestones for various sectors, including transport and heating.
Meanwhile, the PPE ‘defines priorities for energy policy actions’, setting out quantified targets for energy consumption and production in the next ten years.
The goal is reportedly to transition from ~60% fossil fuels in final energy consumption in 2023 to 40% in 2030 and 30% in 2035.
The ultimate target is for the country to reach ‘carbon neutrality (all GHGs) by 2050’.
Meanwhile, a report by Ember, From OECD to emerging markets: fossil power’s global decline has begun, shares that France, along with Spain and Ireland, is ‘nearing a total phase-out’ of coal, ‘with coal-fired power accounting for less than 1% of their total electricity generation in 2025’.
According to the report, fossil generation is ‘falling in major emerging economies for the first time this century outside the COVID-affected year of 2020’.
It identifies that OECD fossil generation has peaked due to a combination of rapid solar and wind scale-up to displace thermal energy generation, coal phase-out targets, as well as a shift towards energy sovereignty and prioritisation of domestic renewables.
Ember’s Global Electricity Review 2026 found that clean power sources grew fast enough to meet all new electricity demand in 2025, resulting in a 0.2% decrease in fossil generation.
In 2025, overall fossil generation for the 38 OECD nations fell 19% below its peak in 2007, and was also the first year every country fell below its fossil generation peak, with 36 out of the 38 reaching their peak in 2019 or earlier.
Non-OECD fossil generation also reportedly fell for the first time in 2025, with declines in both China (-0.9%) and India (-3.3%).
These figures are attributed to expansion of solar generation in China and India to avoid reliance on coal for industrialisation.
