France: the shortcomings of public policies to adapt to global warming
In Paris, the Trocadéro fountains were stormed during the July 2019 heat wave. AP - Rafael Yaghobzadeh
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The IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, publishes this Monday, February 28, the second part of its climate change assessment report devoted to the impact of climate change and the necessary adaptation of our societies to deal.
France, like all states in the world, is far from ready.
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If some actions are undertaken here and there, the French political leaders have not yet taken the measure of all that climate change will induce in the country.
Vivian Depoues, a researcher specializing in these questions of adaptation at the Economic Institute for the Climate, nevertheless lists the major risks that the country will have to face: “
There are certain risks which are health risks, heat waves, heat – much more frequent, much longer – these are things to which we will have to adapt.
There are risks on extreme events, an extension of the risk of forest fires in the summer and possibly changes in the risk of flooding, particularly in the South of France.
The rise in sea level will partly eat away at the coasts.
Drought also, with issues of lack of water, which we are already beginning to see more and more often, which affects agricultural activities, economic activities, but also certain cities
”.
In France, in recent reports, the Senate and the High Council for the Climate have already highlighted the shortcomings of public policies.
“
At the moment, we are renovating a lot of buildings, we are renovating entire districts of cities, without taking into account the fact that it will be much hotter in summer and that it could become very difficult and very uncomfortable places to live. .
This question should therefore be included.
And that's also adaptation, when you renovate, when you build
,” explains Vivian Depoues.
"The Deal of the Century"
In 2019, France was condemned by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for its failure to protect its citizens against air pollution.
Another example, in October 2021, the administrative court of Paris
condemned the French State for its shortcomings in the fight against global warming
.
Four associations, Notre Affaire à Tous, the Nicolas Hulot Foundation for Nature and Man (FNH), Greenpeace France and Oxfam France had brought the case to court, declaring the State "responsible" for breaches of its own commitments. in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, taken in particular within the framework of the Paris agreement.
The NGOs then asked the court to order the State to take measures to repair this damage.
However, IPCC scientists assure us that life as we know it will inevitably be transformed, and this, in the short term.
It is vital to prepare for it.
► To read also: Global warming: half of the inhabitants of the planet "very vulnerable", says the IPCC
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