France is inevitably warming up. And even if it does not reach an additional 4°C, you have to be prepared for it. This is now the discourse held by the Minister of Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu. According to him, “not preparing for it means exposing our fellow citizens, our farmers, our economic activities to risks without giving them the means to deal with them”, he warned on European 1 Friday.
The Minister thus set up the Ministerial Steering Committee on Thursday, responsible for finalizing the third national plan for adaptation to climate change, the PNACC3. This plan must be submitted for public consultation in the spring before being finalized by the end of 2023. The future French strategy will be based on two reference scenarios, one of which, pessimistic, would result in a warming of 4°C in France compared to the end of the 19th century, the rise in temperatures there being greater than the world average.
“It must be understood that preparing for a France at +4°C has nothing to do”, with the current situation in the country, underlined Christophe Béchu, citing aggravated risks for the rising waters, the loss snow cover, droughts or even heat waves, during which “we can touch 50°C” in the city. “Adapting to that is getting out of denial,” he said. “We need to invest in materials that allow us to withstand these temperatures, that means thinking about the organization of public services, water laws, the protection of biodiversity, soils, rules on insurance…” “In April we will present these various elements and we will make them public”, indicated the minister.
Forecasts revised upwards
The current French adaptation plan, drawn up in 2011 and revised in 2018, only considers the risks of a warming of +2°C. While the worst scenario Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) would result for France in a rise in temperatures of 3.9 ° C around 2050, according to Météo-France.
“Neither France nor Europe are an island, we do not live under glass, and other countries in the world continue to have trajectories which do not correspond to the Paris agreements”, comments the entourage of the minister. to justify integrating the disaster scenario from now on. Especially since a recent CNRS study has revised the forecasts for France upwards: even if the IPCC’s intermediate scenario, which requires a proactive reduction in global emissions, were to come true, the warming there would be +3, 8°C by the end of the century.
The latest IPCC report showed that the planet had already gained an average of nearly 1.2°C since the pre-industrial era due to greenhouse gases generated by human activities. For France in particular, this increase is already around 1.7°C. Without a strengthening of current environmental policies, the world is heading, according to the IPCC, towards a warming of +3.2°C by 2100, which would be even greater in France.