The Shift Project is a French nonprofit[1] created in January 2010 in Paris by energy-climate experts such as Jean-Marc Jancovici, Geneviève Férone-Creuzet and Michel Lepetit.

This group of experts (in economics, finance, climate, physics, history...) includes Alain Grandjean, Gaël Giraud, Hervé Le Treut, Jean-Pascal van Ypersele and Jacques Treiner.

[15] The Shift mostly works in task forces: for a couple of months or years, a group of experts (from higher education and academic research, NGOs, public sector, companies...) is set up on a well-defined question.

[28] In 2016, at The Shift Project request, the engineer Francisco Luciano gathered a team of experts including the SNCF, Vinci Autoroutes, EDF, the CVTC, start-ups in car sharing, the senior official Olivier Paul-Dubois-Taine and researchers.

The report, which is aimed to be well-argued and quantitative, concludes that it is possible to strongly decarbonize mobility in suburban areas thanks to cycling, car sharing and fast public transports.

[33] It begins with: "We, the signatories of this Manifesto to decarbonize Europe, call upon all European States to immediately implement policies aiming to achieve a level of greenhouse gas emissions close to zero by 2050!

[36] The think tank then called candidates running for president for a commitment in favor of a European plan to fight climate change that would abide by the Paris Agreement[37] Company directors who signed the Manifesto include[38] Elisabeth Borne (RATP), Martin Bouygues (Bouygues), Patricia Barbizet (Artémis-Kering), Guillaume Pepy (SNCF), Christophe Cuvillier (Unibail Rodamco), Nicolas Dufourq (BPI France), Pierre Blayau (Caise centrale de réassurance), Stéphane Richard (Orange), Alain Montarant (MACIF), Nicolas Théry (Crédit mutuel), Denis Kessler (SCOR), Xavier Huillard (Vinci), Jean-Dominique Senard (Michelin) and Agniès Ogier (Thalys).

Scientists who signed the Manifesto include climatologists like Jean Jouzel, Hervé Le Treut and Jean-Pascal van Ypersele; the biologist and senior official Dominique Dron; the mathematician Ivar Ekeland; physicists like Sébastien Balibar, Roger Balian and Yves Bréchet; economists like Gaël Giraud, Roger Guesnerie, Philippe Aghion, Christian de Perthuis, Jean-Marie Chevalier and Jean-Charles Hourcade; directors of grandes écoles like Meriem Fournier (AgroParis-Tech Nancy), Olivier Oger (EDHEC) and Vincent Laflèche (Mines ParisTech).

Other people who signed it include former ministers like Arnaud Montebourg, Serge Lepeltier, the Belgian Philippe Maystadt and the president of the union CFE-CGC François Hommeril.