Launch of a vast consultation on global warming at 4 degrees

Should France be prepared for global warming of 4°C in 2100? What tools and support would be needed for this? These are the major questions that the government asks the French, within the framework of extensive public consultation launched on Tuesday.

The aim is to define a reference trajectory which will serve as the basis for France’s new national plan for adaptation to climate change (PNACC). Clearly, it is a question of determining both the measures to be taken today to adapt to such warming, but also the framework in which the future investment decisions of economic players will be taken.

Get out of a form of denial

The answer is not self-evident, because anticipating such a development means that France is already considering that the world will not be able to meet the objective set by the Paris Agreement, to limit global warming to 1.5 °C by the end of the century.

Christophe Béchu, Minister for the Ecological Transition who is carrying out this consultation, has already explained it several times in the last few months and repeated it on Tuesday: even if France continues its efforts to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions (and there is no question that it will not continue), we are not alone in the world .

“We are going to get out of a form of denial consisting in acting as if the world was going to fully respect the Paris Agreement”, he explained, recalling that, according to IPCC experts, the current trajectory would lead to global warming. from 2.8°C to 3.2°C – which corresponds to 4°C in France. A pessimistic scenario, “which we could call realistic as we speak,” insisted the minister.

The consultation launched on Tuesday aims to raise awareness of the reality of the current warming and its consequences. The forty-page document posted online shows that every fraction of a degree counts: at +4°C, temperature peaks could reach 50°C in France and the risk of droughts will be multiplied by five compared to pre-industrial era, recalled Christophe Béchu.

Vulnerability studies

The consultation should make it possible to identify the needs of all the actors, before the development of the PNACC that the minister hopes to build by the end of 2023. It should lead to several major projects.

All technical standards and regulations will therefore have to be reviewed to take account of these new climatic data: temperatures, the intensity of precipitation, the force of the wind, the flow of rivers and the sea level will have an impact on references in building, infrastructure, transport, production, energy transport and urban planning.

If we do nothing, then we will see the damage, and we will use public money not to adapt, but to repair.

Vulnerability studies will have to be carried out in each sector, but also at the level of the territories, which the State will support. It already provides them with tools that will be updated (the DRIAS or DRIAS-Eau portals, for example) and does not rule out releasing additional resources for this, beyond the Green Fund. “It will be the budget decision for the fall,” says Christophe Béchu.

The quantification of the cost of this necessary adaptation has begun, and will be known at the end of the year, indicated the minister. Be careful, however, not to forget the cost of inaction, he also insisted. “I hear the little music that goes up saying: “But how much will this ecological transition cost us? “We have to realize that if we do nothing, then we will see the damage, and we will use public money not to adapt, but to repair! »

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