Climate change: cost of adaptation for France evaluated for first time

The Institute of Economy for the Climate List Eighteen essential measures, representing an additional budget of 2.3 billion euros per year, to “catch up with the accumulated delays”.

by

The climate crisis no longer offers respite. This week, part of France is affected by violent hailstorms and intense precipitation. Last week, it was sufficient under an exceptional heat wave by its intensity and precocity. In early June, other bad weather had struck three -quarters of the territory, resulting in nearly 1 billion euros in damage. While the consequences of climate change will continue to worsen, it is urgent to adapt to a climate that changes, that is to say to prevent and minimize its deleterious effects. France is not ready, however and does not devote enough funding to it, warns the Institute of the Economy for the Climate (i4ce).

The Think Tank publishes, Thursday, June 23, The first evaluation public financial needs for adaptation to climate change in France, a year of work. “Without this knowledge of needs, it is difficult to set up a coordinated and effective policy,” explains Vivian Depot, project manager adaptation to the i4ce, one of the authors of the report. However, today, adaptation in France, which remains a “secondary subject”, is above all, according to him, reactive, partial and suffers from many dead angles. “We do not anticipate and we lack strategic vision,” he says. The expert wants as proof, the announcement, by the government, of a renaturation fund of cities of 500 million euros in the heat wave on June 14, or the emergency unlocking of a support plan for a billion euros to help farmers affected by intense frost in spring 2021.

The i4ce list eighteen essential measures, representing an additional budget of at least 2.3 billion euros per year, which can be taken immediately to prepare France for climate change or strengthen adaptation measures Already in place, in order to “catch up with the accumulated delays”. Among these proposals, the think tank calls, for example, to raise the budgets allocated to civil security to cope with a longer and longer fire season affecting more departments, as well as to increase the credits of the health policy , water agencies or the prevention fund for major natural risks.

to perpetuate an annual envelope

It also proposes to perpetuate an annual envelope to rethink cities in order to fight against the islets of urban heat, which transform them into furnaces, to build buildings adapted to longer heat waves (starting with those of teaching and research), to reduce vulnerabilities on transport, water and energy infrastructure, to act to make forests resilient or to sustainably support the diversification of mountain economies for respond to the decrease in snow.

You have 49.48% of this article to read. The continuation is reserved for subscribers.

/Media reports.