L'effet net sur l'emploi de la transition énergétique en France : Une analyse input-output du scénario négaWatt

We study the impact on employment in France of the implementation of the energy transition scenario built by négaWatt (2011), which provides a massive development of energy savings (through measures of sufficiency and energy efficiency) and renewable energy between 2012 and 2050. Compared to 2010, this scenario results in a halving of CO2 emissions from energy sources in France in 2030 and a division by 16 in 2050, without capture and storage of CO2, without implementation of new nuclear power plant and closing existing plants after 40 years of operation at maximum. We calculate the effect on employment of the implementation of this scenario compared to a baseline scenario that extends recent developments and considers the policies already decided. The method used to calculate the effect on employment of each scenario is to calculate the cost of the main technical and organizational options used, to allocate these costs among the 118 branches of the French economy and multiply these costs by the employment content of each branch. The latter is estimated by input-output analysis, which enables the recording of jobs generated by the production of all inputs. One of two scenarios being more expensive than the other, one must take into account the negative effect on employment of funding such costs. For this, it is assumed that this additional cost is borne by households and that they decrease their consumption accordingly by the same amount. This avoids biasing the results in favour of the most expensive scenario. The implementation of négaWatt scenario leads to a positive effect on employment, on the order of 240 000 full-time equivalent jobs in 2020 and 630,000 in 2030. We study the sensitivity of results to assumptions on prices of imported energy, the evolution of labour productivity, the distribution of costs between households and governments, and finally the consumption-savings decision. The effect on employment is largely positive in all cases.