National Chapter: Climate Obstruction France

In a context marked by the rise of climate scepticism, continuing climate delay and even the dismantling of policies that had (modestly) contributed to a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, our initiative aims to address the growing urgency of better understanding climate obstruction in France. Increasing attacks against scientific institutions and climate scientists also require more research. Building on the international Climate Social Science Network (CSSN), which has, since 2020, played a key role in organising and coordinating research on strategies of denial, obstruction, and delay, our ambition is to convene a French research community capable of analysing the actors, arenas, strategies and processes that hinder public policy action to reduce GHG emissions (national emissions as well as carbon footprint in imports). Our initiative builds on existing international research and aims at inserting French scholars into this growing research field. Understanding the mechanisms of obstruction —media framings, impression management strategies, false promises mongering, lobbying/capturing/undermining public policies, instrumentalization of controversies (to amplify some of them while silencing others), production of ignorance, selective and strategic sponsoring of (certain) forms of scientific research, instrumental use of law, etc.—contributes to making them visible, delegitimizing them, and strengthening collective capacities to support effective, just, and democratic climate and socio-environmental policies.

Scientific relevance & Political significance

The key intuition behind our initiative is that social science studies on obstruction strategies would benefit from greater granularity. Since the reelection of Donald Trump, the driving forces of the global backlash against climate public policies are, of course, mostly surging from the United States. Yet more research is needed in order to understand how these North American shockwaves are leveraged by business interests and political formations in Europe as an excuse for accelerating a drastic “simplification” of social-environmental regulations. Even though Brussels- and Strasbourg-based EU-institutions (Commission, Parliament, etc.) are key sites of political power, lower-level, national dynamics should also be considered. Among European countries, French-based transnational corporations continue to hold leading positions in a number of high-emission sectors (oil and gas, nuclear, aerospace, cement, agriculture, banking, etc.), and some of them show a significant track-record in obstruction (Bonneuil, Choquet, Franta, 2021). Up to the present day, these firms benefit from dense public/private networks, reaching the higher levels of the state apparatus (Presidency, Ministries, Parliament, etc.)—a political capital that is, of course, highly convertible in EU arenas. Since the beginning of Donald Trump’s second mandate, various communities of scientists have warned that attacks on science are already a reality in the EU; yet, they remain covert, insidious, and do not loudly signal themselves with the “epic fury” overtones that have now become usual in the US. Hence our initiative seeks to get a fine-grained understanding of:

• The strategies employed by industrial groups operating in the aforementioned high-emission sectors in order to better intervene in the public sphere and shape shared imaginaries of climate change – that will, in turn influence regulatory and legislative processes;
• The role of organisations representing sectoral interests, umbrella organisations bringing together businesses at the French and European levels, as well as that of intermediaries (public relations firms, consultancies, etc.);
• The forms of engagement in political arenas, both at the national level (National Assembly and Senate, Ministries, etc.), the European level (Parliament, Commission, etc.) and the international level (UNEP, COP, IPCC, etc.) in the context of an ecological ‘backlash’;
• The responses of high-emitting companies and public authorities to legal action initiated by civil society actors; and, conversely, the way in which litigation (or threats of litigation) by these companies influence the development of climate regulation and policies on phasing out fossil fuels;
• The historical turning points that have, for some industries, led to lock-ins within highly carbon-intensive socio-technical pathways – and the nature of the socio-technical, legal frameworks (permits, contracts and concessions, taxation/subsidies, technical standards, public procurement) that reinforce these lock-ins;

Our initiative thus aims to explore a wide range of lobbying / corporate capture strategies that industrial firms, interest groups and think-tanks are now currently pushing, both in France and across the European Union. What are these strategies? How did they emerge? How are they evolving? How can we document them? Could establishing them as a recognised subject of research in the social sciences lead to new collaborations and dialogues across disciplines and throughout society? What legal challenges do these strategies raise or transform (legal certainty, proportionality, freedom of enterprise, ‘technological neutrality’, judicial competence), and what legal counter-frameworks could respond to them (prevention, non- regression, duty of care, fundamental rights)? While addressing this research agenda, CSSN-Fr will serve as a platform of exchange and collaboration for researchers who monitor and study the trajectories, networks and behaviour of key French officials and key business actors in wider international arenas (such as IPIECA, ICC, UNFCCC, etc.) The establishment of a French CSSN chapter will also foster interdisciplinary and cross-constituency exchanges between social science and humanities researchers, legal scholars, climate and Earth System scientists, journalists, and civil society actors. In particular, it will provide a platform to document the strategies of influence deployed by various economic and political actors, as well as the sectors and arenas in which these strategies are deployed and unfold.

Key projects before the end of the 2025/26 academic year

Since its first initiative in June 2025—a shared panel at a scientific conference, which prefigurated the launch of the working group—the French CSSN national WG has been structured around a first major initiative: the organization of a research workshop entitled “Climate and Social Sciences: 50 Shades of Climate Obstruction” (June 2-3, 2026, Campus Condorcet, near Paris). This event will bring together contributions addressing the diversity of actors and obstruction practices, locked-in socio-technical trajectories, controversies relating to decarbonization, and the legal and litigation-related challenges associated with climate regulation. It will serve as a starting point for building long-term collaborations and further developing methodological and epistemological frameworks.

Three other projects are currently envisaged:

• The writing of a report on the recent history and current state of climate obstruction in France. Mobilizing 2-4 coordinating lead authors (+ up to 10-12 review editors), it aims to result in a 30,000 words-text that will be submitted for book publication at CNRS Editions, a major scientific publishing house. A more synthetic 12,000 words English article is also scheduled: it could be an addendum to the book Climate Obstruction across Europe (OUP 2024). A first draft of the first text will be discussed at the June 2026 conference.
• During the research workshop, a specific meeting will be organized in order to set up a list of “need to know” research topics related to climate obstruction in France and/or by French actors and firms. This list would benefit from the perspectives and insights of all participants, and will allow to refine the research agenda of the French CSSN national WG going forwards.
• In collaboration with climate scientists Valérie Masson-Delmotte and Gonéri Le Cozannet, who requested our help, this group will elaborate a survey questionnaire to gather data on how and when climate scientists were confronted with and experienced scientific denial or industry influence in their career. The results of this survey could form the basis for a future research project.

More generally, and looking ahead to 2026 and 2027, our ambitions are:

• To strengthen the climate obstruction research community by fostering multidisciplinary research collaborations and joint investigations with journalists and civil society actors;
• To disseminate French climate obstruction research to a wide audience;
• To equip key stakeholders, including journalists, activists and politicians, with climate obstruction knowledge.