They highlight that the environmental budget assessment does not dispense with an Ecological Transition Strategy. Instead, it must be used to draw up a financing plan for this transition.
Environmental Budget Assessments have become increasingly popular. France , Ireland, Nepal and Ecuador and some more 45 countries have all conducted a climate assessment of their budgets. Local authorities in France have already published the results of their respective exercises.
As a result of these assessments of public budgets, it will be possible to see the resources allocated to ecological transition, as well as those still working against it. Apart from the goal of transparency in public action, these exercises contribute to building a shared language on these issues beyond the circle of environmental experts and are therefore essential to making the ecological transition a reality for everyone.
The publication of an environmental budget assessment however should not be viewed as an end in itself, but as part of a public decision-makers toolkit. Environmental budget assessments alone, int their current design, cannot indicate whether a budget aligns with environmental objectives, or whether the means available to achieve those objectives are adequate and well-allocated. Two conditions need to be met for progress to be made: the environmental budget assessment must be based on a strategy compatible with long-term environmental objectives and it must lead to the definition and management of a financing plan for the ecological transition.
Having an environmental budget assessment does not negate the need to define a strategy and have an action plan for the ecological transition of the territory. It allows for better identification of the ecological measures included in the budget, however on its own it does not provide any insight into the aims to be achieved and the means to achieve them. Defining a strategy means identifying the transformations necessary to achieve the long-term objectives, in particular the objective of carbon neutrality by In the short term, 5 to 10 years, operational action plans must be constructed specifying the responsibilities and means of the various departments at the territorial level and ministries at the national level to achieve the objectives set.
