Climate adaptation, a challenge for politicians

Christophe Béchu, Minister for the Ecological Transition, and Emmanuel Macron visit the Mayors and Local Authorities Fair, at Porte de Versailles, in Paris, on November 23, 2022. JEAN-CLAUDE COUTAUSSE FOR “THE WORLD”

Four degrees Celsius. Faced with this figure, the authorities hesitated for many months. The Minister for Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu, consulted scientists, in particular authors from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), he sent information from his departments, carefully read the report of the benchmarking mission on adaptation policies in different countries, delivered in December 2022. And then, he had to convince the Elysée and Matignon to put this data in the debate.

On May 23, when launching a consultation to prepare the third national plan for adaptation to climate change (PNAC), the minister did not rule out the hypothesis of global warming being contained at less than 1.5°C (+ 2°C in France) at the end of the century if the States respect the Paris agreement. An increasingly unattainable goal. But he especially put forward the scenario ” intermediate “ IPCC, SSP 2-4.5, “more realistic than pessimistic”in his words: France will suffer an average temperature rise of around 4°C (2.7°C-2.8°C globally).

“Reading the studies finally convinced mesummarizes Mr. Béchu. We need to follow the lucidity of scientists and collectively come out of denial. This can contribute to an acceleration of awareness, and therefore of the planning strategy. Every tenth of a degree counts and creates, exponentially, consequences on our societies. »

This communication, a kind of “anti-Don’t Look Up “, the name of this American film in which humans persist in denial in the face of the imminent crushing of a comet on Earth, is an important act for this minister considered too transparent. The National Council for Ecological Transition, on which sit NGOs, elected officials and local authorities, has issued a favorable opinion on this reference trajectory. Unanimously. Stakeholder approval is essential when revising warming adaptation software.

“Reality has caught up with us”

Because this colossal challenge has often been the poor relation of climate policies. Too costly in the short term for the liberals, too counterproductive for part of the left and the climatologists who have long feared that this project would be an admission of failure and bury the ambition to reduce CO2 emissions2. “At the beginning of my career, we focused on mitigation. Personally, I hesitated to talk about adaptation because I hoped that the drop in CO2 would be more efficientrecalls Jean Jouzel, paleoclimatologist who participated in the development of the first French PNAC. Adaptation becomes essential as measures are not taken to combat global warming. »

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