At the end of April, the first conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels was held in Santa Marta, Colombia. Fifty-seven countries attended and used the meeting to debate practical ways to move away from coal, oil and gas. But France went one step further and announced that the nation has produced a new road-map for transitioning away from fossil fuels. That road-map can be found here.
France is already a standout economy in terms of fossil fuel use, having one of the lowest levels globally as a percentage of total primary energy. This is because of the development of nuclear power throughout the 1970s and 1980s. More recently, France has added enough wind and solar to meet 20% of their electricity demand, such that generation is 90% non-fossil.
However, outside of electricity generation, fossil fuel use rises to 86% for all other energy services, with half being transport and half being for industry and residential services. Bioenergy makes up the other 14% of this use. In total, molecular fuels amount to just over 4 EJ per year of final energy demand, versus 6 EJ of final energy demand in total.
The French plan involves the progressive use of electricity for energy services, with electrification of vehicles, the use of heat pumps for home heating, and industrial technologies such as electric arc furnaces replacing existing blast furnaces for steel production. The report sets end-of-consumption targets for coal by 2030, oil by 2045 and fossil gas by 2050 for energy purposes. To this end, this strategy is broken down by sectors, and targets different milestones:
- A target of 66% of new cars sales being electric by 2030.
- A 25% increase in public transport use (bus, rail etc.) by 2030.
- The decarbonization of industry through an approach involving the 50 largest French industrial sites in France.
- An 85% reduction in oil-fired boilers in tertiary buildings, and a 60% reduction in the residential sector with the objective to phase out fossil oil for heating by 2035.
- In the energy sector, France is setting out its objectives to phase out fossil fuels and increase decarbonized production, including renewable energy, nuclear power, hydrogen, biogas and alternative fuels.
The hydrogen goal is built around the deployment of up to 8 GW of electrolyzers by 2035. As of end 2025, global operational hydrogen electrolyzer capacity is approximately 2.5 GW, with total installed capacity (including projects under construction or having reached a final investment decision) ranging between 4.0 GW and 6.3 GW. Much of the current capacity is in China.
At the detailed level for domestic action, the plan discusses the transition away from fossil fuels in the context of two main areas;
- Shifting to EVs in the passenger car fleet.
- Shifting to heat pumps for domestic heating.
The above two categories make up the bulk of the discussion within the document, and the government sets out some ambitious plans to achieve this. They want two thirds of vehicle sales to be electric by 2030 and to help that the government will encourage the domestic car companies to mostly build electric cars by 2030. Current total car production in the country is over 1 million per year, and the government wants at least 1 million EVs per year produced locally by 2030.
The government also wants to install 1 million heat pumps per year by 2030. They are doing quite well so far with over 600,000 installed in 2022, so presumably that is even higher today. Unlike many other countries, heat pump installation appears to be progressing well in France.
The plan also includes industrial natural gas use and commercial vehicles, but the attention to both these categories is lacking in detail. For trucks it simply says ‘. . . . but also the electrification of heavy goods vehicles and buses.’ For industry it says ‘. . . The decarbonization of industry through an approach involving the 50 largest French industrial sites in France’, but no detail is offered, although electrification appears to play a key role as it is mentioned later in the document. While the route to electrification of buses is now available, that is not yet the case for heavy goods vehicles. Similarly, widespread use of electricity in industry is not yet a simple story, but progress is being made.
While there is an important caveat in the document which restricts the discussion to energy, the document makes little to no mention of key areas of fossil fuel use for energy where abatement is challenging, notably;
- Aviation (this may be indirectly covered by the call for more biofuel production)
- Shipping
- Heavy industry (vs. industry and light industry which are mentioned)
Domestic aviation is quite modest in France due to the high-speed rail network and river or coastal shipping in French waters is unlikely to be a major activity. As such, with the bulk of aviation and shipping coming under international agreements, they are often excluded from national emissions goals.
Outside of the energy sector fossil fuels are used extensively in areas such as;
- Bitumen and asphalt
- Lubricants
- Petrochemicals
But in keeping with the caveat no mention is made of these uses.
A look at The 2026 Energy Security Scenarios released by Shell in January of this year provides some useful context for the French goals. Starting with the Horizon scenario, which lays out a pathway for net-zero emissions globally in 2050, France has not fully transitioned away from fossil fuels by that date, but it is making good progress. Horizon recognizes that in 2050 the world has reduced fossil use use considerably, but certainly hasn’t eliminated it. As such, the scenario includes an important dependence on industrial carbon removals, carbon capture and storage and management and restoration of land carbon sinks. The report acknowledges the use of such credits but doesn’t elaborate and further.
However, in a scenario that better reflects the real-world pressures for change, the picture is quite different. For example, the Surge scenario is a world of rapid technological change and robust economic growth, which leads to a faster transition but also rising short-term fossil fuel demand to meet growing energy needs. Although France makes progress transitioning away from fossil fuels, trucks, home heating and rapidly growing aviation demand all prove more problematic than imagined. By 2050 the truck fleet is well on its way to full electrification, but growing demand for road freight cuts into the pace of the transition.
The Surge scenario highlights both the inevitability of change to the energy system, but also that the pathway is not straightforward. While Horizon illustrates what needs to be done, in a similar vein to the French transition document, Surge helps to decipher the world as it is.
In Archipelagos an even slower transition plays out, with other national priorities interfering with progress.
In the case of France, the power system is almost certain to have transitioned from any dependency on fossil fuels by 2050. The passenger car system should be mostly electric by then and heat pumps will likely dominate in homes. But there could still be a way to go for a full transition, with aviation, road freight and various industrial uses proving stubborn to dislodge.
Note: Shell Scenarios are not predictions or expectations of what will happen, or what will probably happen. They are not expressions of Shell’s strategy, and they are not Shell’s business plan; they are one of the many inputs used by Shell to stretch thinking whilst making decisions. Read more in the Definitions and Cautionary note. Scenarios are informed by data, constructed using models and contain insights from leading experts in the relevant fields. Ultimately, for all readers, scenarios are intended as an aid to making better decisions. They stretch minds, broaden horizons and explore assumptions.