55% of the population will be affected in the future by high heat in the summer period against 16% on average between 1976 and 2015. - CHINA NOUVELLE / SIPA

  • INSEE Occitanie, in partnership with Météo France, has just released a study on indicators of sustainable development in Occitanie.
  • It reveals that in the future, one inhabitant in two will be exposed to repeated hot weather, with in some places years where there will be more than 82 days when the temperatures will exceed 30 ° C.
  • The study shows that poor people will also be three times more affected by these high temperatures.

The summer of 2019 in Occitania has accumulated records on the heat side, with a peak never reached in Vérargues in the Hérault at 46 ° C. In Montauban, the two successive heat waves of June and July resulted in a thermometer above 30 ° C for 51 days, 20 days more than the seasonal norms.

Exceptional temperatures for the inhabitants of Occitanie, but to which they will have to get used, especially if they live on the coast, the plain of the Garonne or between Carcassonne and Narbonne. This is one of the lessons learned from the joint Météo France and INSEE study on sustainable development, in particular the fight against climate change.

Outlook for heat increases in the Occitania region by 2021-2050. - Insee - Météo France

"In the future, one in two inhabitants of Occitania will be exposed to repeated high heat," says Rémi Lardellier of INSEE, who relies in particular on the increase in summer days, when temperatures exceed 25 ° C , and the proliferation of "tropical nights" where the thermometer does not drop below 20 ° C.

Between 1976 and 2005, only the Mediterranean coast, the surroundings of Narbonne and Perpignan had more than 82 hot days and more than 19 tropical nights. And as in recent years, population growth has tended to take place in these areas, it is logical that the number of people affected is exponential.

Distribution of the population correlated with future temperature increases in Occitania. - Insee - Meteo France

Over the next few decades, a triangle between Muret, Albi and Castelsarrasin will also be subject to the same climatic "regime" when the frequency of hot days was close to 70 days until 2005.

"We are faced with three types of major phenomena in Occitania due to human activity: the rise in temperatures of more than 1.5 ° C since 1960, heat waves more and more frequent since the 1980s and by 2050, temperatures should increase by 1 to 2 ° C, ”explains Jean-Marc Soubeyroux, climatologist at Météo France.

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If they were still preserved in recent years, mountainous areas will also have their share of summer days: there will be 29 in the future against 17 ten years ago. For urban dwellers, they may remain a refuge zone, an island of freshness where the nights will still be tenable.

Three times as many poor people affected

Still it will be necessary to have the means to be able to pay a stay in expenses. If the most fragile populations will be the most concerned, whether children or over 75s, or 500,000 people in total, the most impacted will also be the most precarious.

“Age is not the only criterion that makes people vulnerable to the heat. Poor people, by their living and housing conditions, are also the most vulnerable. Adapting to rising temperatures at a cost: insulating homes or buying equipment to cool them is not accessible to everyone, ”explain the study authors.

If 19% of the poor people of Occitanie were before on a zone at risk in terms of heat wave, in the future they will be 60%, either triple to be potentially concerned, or more than 564,000 people in the region. Not to mention the people on the street or accommodated in emergency shelters, present in majority in urban areas, the most affected by these heat peaks.

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