INFRA – SolC
- Green outbuildings, a carbon sink to preserv and enhance
Green outbuildings, a carbon sink to preserv and enhance
The exploratory projects aim to produce analyses of a prospective nature or related to innovative or little-explored topics. In response to this challenge, and within the framework of the INFRA-SOL C exploratory project, we propose to characterize prospective scenarios for tomorrow's linear transport infrastructures, i.e. under what conditions improved management of the soils of green dependencies would allow more carbon to be sequestered while promoting territorial development, in accordance with the national low-carbon strategy.
In order to limit the effects of climate change, several objectives of the 21st century lie in carbon neutrality. Several policies have been adopted with this idea in mind, with not only the will to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but also to increase the development of environmental projects that allow for the sustainable storage of carbon in the soil.
According to the evaluation report of the Association of French Motorway Companies (ASFA), greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the motorway sector will represent 31 million tons in 2022. Linear Transport Infrastructures (LTI) are thus responsible for a significant volume of GHG emissions, but also represent a potential for sequestration in green areas. An estimate of the surface of these dependencies was proposed in this study, i.e. 70,700 ha or 707 km2.
The INFRA-SOL C exploratory project aims to study what areas with high carbon sequestration potential in LTIs (including roads, freeways, railways and urban transport rail networks) could represent, to propose a methodological framework to assess the carbon sequestration potential in green dependencies and to identify the obstacles, difficulties and research needs.
If we compile the three scenarios modeled at the scale of the metropolitan area (scenario 2, 3 and 4), we obtain a carbon sequestration potential of about 12M tCO2eq sequestered over 20 years, i.e. more than 600,000 tCO2eq per year. This first result is significant because if we compare it to the objectives of the National Low Carbon Strategy (SNBC), this potential would represent respectively :
- 15% of the national carbon sink objectives (80 M T CO2eq),
- 8% of the emissions from the transport sector (139 Mt CO2eq)
- and nearly 30% of the reduction objectives of the transport sector.
However, these results need to be confirmed by a more accurate and robust analysis taking into account all technical and operational parameters of green dependencies.
Preamble
This exploratory report focuses on the study area of metropolitan France. Some of the studies mentioned and data listed do not specifically target the national metropolitan territory, however, it seemed interesting to the authors of this report to mention them in order to broaden the perspective. The methods, input data, and results are always specific to metropolitan France, unless specifically stated otherwise.