The Institute of Economics for Climate (I4CE), an NGO responsible for studying the cost of adaptation to climate change, unveiled its first report on Thursday devoted entirely to France. According to its conclusions, at least 2.3 billion euros of additional funding is needed per year to adapt France to climate change.
Buildings, water, energy or transport networks, preparation of coastal or mountain areas, studies on health impacts… The I4CE formulates 18 major quantified measures towards which expenditure is directed. to better prepare for the natural disasters and extreme climatic events that will hit the country in the years to come.
With Magali Reghezza, geographer and member of the High Council for Climate, we come back to the sectors and regions most threatened by the extreme climatic events that will hit the country in the years to come and the adaptations necessary to deal with them.
You felt that France was content to manage crises and not to prepare for them. What do you mean ?
Adaptation covers all the actions that make it possible to respond to the changing climate and limit the impacts on territories, households, businesses and networks. We can limit ourselves to reacting piecemeal, being in the repair.
But given the increasing impacts of global warming, crises, whether short or long, are bound to multiply. Either we anticipate, we prepare and we attack the roots of our fragility, or we suffer and we repair again and again.
What consequences would the delay of adaptation by public and political authorities have?
The consequences are manifold. We are already seeing an increase in damage resulting jointly from past planning and development choices and from global warming and its chain consequences. Our fellow citizens are beginning to perceive it: cracks in the houses, appearance of fires in areas hitherto spared, pressure on water resources, postponed examinations, etc.
Farmers are on the front line. Compensation systems are directly weakened. We see impacts on purchasing power, health, tourism… All of this will get worse, with in addition the displacement of people and activities within the national territory.
Can we say that certain French territories will be spared by global warming, and therefore by the need to adapt? Or will they all be affected in one way or another?
All territories will be affected, with an aggravation of existing risks and the appearance of new risks. Above all, the demographic profile of the territory, the socio-economic profile of the inhabitants, the heritage of urban planning, the specializations of the productive sectors, the indebtedness, are all factors that will aggravate or reduce the risks. And of course, territories do not have the same resources, including in terms of biodiversity, whereas solutions based on the services provided by nature are essential in adaptation.
What are the most urgent adaptation needs today to prepare for the disasters of the years to come?
There is an urgent need to strengthen crisis management. In particular, the fire and emergency systems must be resized. Need also to quickly reform the systems of compensation and insurance, to preserve the guarantees of national solidarity, to compensate well in the event of disaster, but also, to support the relocations.
The water problem must also be quickly addressed. Renovation work on public buildings is essential, particularly to ensure summer comfort. It is also necessary to accelerate for agriculture, technical networks, adaptation of law and taxation. One of the levers that is still too little exploited is planning and territorial development.
Have concrete efforts to prepare for or adapt to the consequences of climate change already been initiated, particularly in the mountains or on the coast?
The Climate Resilience Law has, for example, just led to the identification of the first coastal municipalities, which need specific actions to respond to the retreat of the coastline aggravated by the rise in sea level. In the mountains, the adaptation of tourist resorts is already necessary with the drop in snow cover.
There are many instruments, local initiatives. But we lack a global strategy, human, financial, legal, engineering and evaluation resources.
Can we say that all French economic sectors will have to change course to adapt to global warming?
Yes. Knowing that we have to adapt to global warming, but also to the sometimes negative effects of greenhouse gas reduction policies, what we call transition costs. Knowing that if we do not contain the warming within the limits of the Paris agreement, it will be more and more difficult and more and more expensive to face.