The High Council for the Climate calls on France to “recognize the urgency” and to accelerate “insufficient” action

2023-06-28 22:00:10

The end of the small steps but not yet the running step. This is how Corinne Le Quéré, the president of the High Council for Climate (HCC), sums up the government’s current climate policy. In its fifth annual report posted Wednesday, June 28a thick document (200 pages) accompanied by more than a hundred recommendations, the independent body judges that France has been overtaken by the extreme climatic events which hit it in 2022. It calls on the government to “to act urgently” and to accelerate its action both for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions – the pace of which is ” insufficient “ – only for adaptation to climate change, which remains for the moment “reactive”. None of this will be possible without a “extensive economic policy”which is currently lacking.

The year 2022, emblematic of the intensification of the effects of climate change, has had « impacts graves » on people, economic activities, infrastructures and ecosystems, note the institution’s thirteen experts, climatologists, economists and geographers. Exceptionally hot and dry, it led to many deaths (nearly 7,000 people in summer), major fires (72,000 hectares went up in smoke), strong tensions for the drinking water supply of 2,000 municipalities or even declines in agricultural yields (up to − 30% for certain sectors). Effects exceeding the current crisis prevention and management capacity.

The High Council judges that France is not “not ready” to cope with global warming to which it is nevertheless particularly exposed and which will worsen. The rise in the thermometer has already reached + 1.9°C over the last decade in France, against nearly 1.2°C worldwide. While the record temperature of 2022 will become an average in France by 2050-2060, “adaptation must change scale and become transformative”, calls climatologist Corinne Le Quéré. It considers that the new reference framework announced by the government, namely adapting to a warming of +4°C in mainland France in 2100, is ” consistent “provided that the “additional risks” which may occur.

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France must also tackle more head-on the causes of climate change. Greenhouse gas emissions fell by 2.7% in the country in 2022, compared to 2021, i.e. 25% below 1990 levels. This drop, higher than that observed over the period 2011-2021 (− 1.5% per year on average), is explained by strong reductions in carbon emissions in the building and industry sectors. They are linked both to cyclical factors (a mild winter limiting heating) and to sobriety measures in response to rising energy prices and the government’s sobriety plan. These reductions in emissions were partially offset by increases in the energy transformation and transport sectors.

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