FIGARO TOMORROW – As COP27 opened in Sharm-el-Sheikh (Egypt), France must take global warming more into account in its policies and infrastructure projects.
Between the hottest October ever recorded in France, the cases of dengue fever exploding in France – including in the Côtes-d’Armor in recent weeks – and the record floods in Pakistan this summer, the French in have become well aware: climate change is now.
While it is essential to continue to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – and above all to step up the pace – we no longer have a choice: we must also adapt to the consequences of climate change.
Read alsoTiger mosquito: will tropical diseases hit France?
This approach is often delegated to developing countries, the most vulnerable to extreme events. Hence the 100 billion dollars a year that the rich countries have pledged to pay to the latter to help them deal with it. Alas… the account is still not there, far from it.
A measured ambition
“Adaptation, sometimes seen as a form of capitulation, has long remained a blind spot in climate policies”, underlines Antoine Gillod, director of the Climate Chance observatory. The closure of nuclear power plants in France last summer clearly showed the need to adapt to this new situation.
Read alsoFour scenarios to aim for carbon neutrality in France
France has well equipped itself with tools giving the impression that it is tackling the problem head-on. The national low-carbon strategy aims for carbon neutrality by 2050; a third ten-year national climate change adaptation plan (PNAC3) is to be published in mid-2023. But the ambition is not there.
The climate and resilience law provides for very few measures relating to resilience. Only 126 threatened coastal municipalities have registered, on a voluntary basis, in the risk zone, while there are more like 250.
Doing otherwise
Regarding the building, “the new RE2020 thermal regulations, which have applied since the summer of 2022 for new buildings under construction, still do not take a climate indicator into account. And the scenario is that of the heat wave of the summer of 2003. However, this may be a normal summer in the future.deplores Guillaume Dolques, research fellow at the Institute of Economics for Climate (I4CE).
Read alsoClimate: the energy renovation of housing, a central issue in France
Uninhabitable buildings, dilation of the rails… “Today, we are building infrastructures that may be unusable in 20 or 30 years, under penalty of additional costs in the long term”continues the latter, who has quantified, with his colleague Vivian Dépoues, at 50 billion euros per year, at least, the cost of public investments in France and pleads for a “labeling adaptation” of the latter.
According to I4CE, 18 measures could be put in place quickly, such as the renaturation of cities, at an annual cost of 2.3 billion euros. The future climate energy programming law expected in 2023 could be an opportunity to integrate them. Adapt navigable waterways to the flow of rivers, port facilities to sea level… The work is colossal. Unless we look at things differently: it’s not a question of doing more, but differently.
Society, health, environment, education, energy
» Discover the actors and initiatives of change