The housing stock in France is “overwhelmingly unsuitable” for the risks linked to climate change, such as the rapid spread of heat peaks, noted Tuesday the Court of Auditors, which recommends making adaptation a “public priority” by developing encrypted scenarios.
The residential stock is faced with three major risks : heat peaks, the shrinkage-swelling of clay soils which weakens the foundations of housing, and flooding, recalls the Court in its annual report.
Since 2010, France has been “strongly committed to the transformation of its residential stock through the policy of energy and thermal renovation of housing”. But this policy is above all “mitigation”, insofar as the desired objective “expressly concerns the reduction of the final energy consumption of housing and greenhouse gas emissions”. She was like this focused on changing the heating mode and on improving winter comfort.
Conversely, global renovations, which make it possible to treat the entire home (…) only represented 3% of the surfaces renovated in 2022 as part of the “MaPrimeRénov’” aid system.
While the risks are expected to increase in duration and frequency, and the swelling shrinkage of clays now affects “the entire metropolitan territory”, measures to adapt housing therefore remain “rare” and public aid unsuitable.
In the new stock, the town planning and construction rules “have certainly multiplied and clarified”, but these housing units only represent “a contribution limited to 1% per year of the stock”. Certain risks are not taken into account “due to lack of knowledge of the areas concerned and the responses to be provided”, such as flooding due to rising water tables.
Furthermore, “no prospective study has been carried out on the overall cost of adapting housing” nor “on the distribution of related costs” between the State, communities, businesses and households.
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