France unveils plan to ditch all fossil fuels by 2050

A flare stack lights the sky from the Imperial Oil refinery in Edmonton Alta, on Friday December 28, 2018.

France on Tuesday announced a “first of its kind” plan to phase out coal by 2030, oil by 2045 and gas by 2050 during a global conference aimed at breaking reliance on fossil fuels.

The “roadmap” was published as dozens of nations gather in Santa Marta, Colombia for the first-ever international talks on how to transition away from planet-heating fossil fuels.

France’s roadmap does not present new pledges but brings existing climate and energy policies and targets under one umbrella with an explicit goal.

Analysts said no other country had published such a clear and comprehensive plan and it sent an important signal at a moment when countries are reassessing their reliance on fossil fuels.

France’s envoy at the conference, Benoit Faraco, said the roadmap set deadlines for the end of fossil fuel use across the economy, the second-largest in Europe.

Coal would be phased out by 2030, oil by 2045 and gas by 2050 for energy purposes, the roadmap said.

“That’s quite original, because we are probably one of the rarest countries who have a clear deadline for all fossil fuel energy,” he told reporters in Santa Marta.

France only generates a fraction of its electricity from hydrocarbons, thanks to its extensive nuclear power generation.

But Faraco said the roadmap also committed to phasing out fossil fuel production, electrifying sectors like heating and transport, and helping finance the transition in other countries.

It formalizes France’s existing targets for reducing greenhouse gas pollution -- namely to reduce emissions by five percent a year over the 2024-2028 period with the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.

France’s cuts to greenhouse gas emissions slowed for a second straight year in 2025 and remain well below what is needed to meet its climate goals.

First mover

Fossil fuel roadmaps differ to national pledges to reduce emissions or “net zero” plans because they have an explicit end goal, said Leo Roberts, an energy analyst at the E3G think tank.

The French roadmap “self describes itself as a document that sets out of a pathway for a country to transition the whole economy away from fossil fuels,” Roberts told AFP in Santa Marta.

“In that sense, it is the first of its kind.”

Faraco said France decided to push ahead on its own after a proposal for a global fossil fuel roadmap was blocked at the COP30 climate summit in November.

Brazil, which was steering the climate negotiations, agreed to pursue a voluntary roadmap process instead and has asked willing countries to make submissions.

Frustration at COP30 led to the creation of the Santa Marta conference, which is taking place outside the UN process and is being co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands.

Nearly 60 nations are attending, from the European Union and major fossil fuel producers Canada and Norway, to developing oil giants Angola and Nigeria and small island developing states like Tuvalu.

Nations are not expected to produce any binding commitments but a set of proposals for countries wanting to move their own economies away from fossil fuel reliance.

The conference takes place against a backdrop of soaring fuel prices and a global supply crunch stemming from the Iran war, and energy security has been a prominent theme.