France is suffocating again. Since the beginning of the week, it has suffered a heat wave whose intensity could surpass that of 2003. A new test, while the country had already been hit by an unprecedented heat wave by its precocity in mid-June.
In this context of scorching temperatures and drought, firefighters are called upon on all fronts, and have already had to face several large fires in Gironde, Gard, Cévennes, Var or Pyrénées-Orientales. The bad weather that hit the country between the end of May and the beginning of July also caused “nearly a million claims”the cost of which is estimated at 3.9 billion euros by France Assureurs.
The climate crisis is still affecting France the hardest, like the rest of the world, illustrating the latest reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which showed that climate change was intensifying in all regions, unprecedented levels. While the IPCC called, at the beginning of April, for immediate, radical measures and in all sectors to “ensure a livable future”, the response of the French government is, for the moment, not up to par. She “progress”, but she stays “insufficient”, warned the High Council for the Climate (HCC), in its fourth annual report, published at the end of June. So that “major risks persist” of not meeting the targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions for 2030, according to the independent body, which calls for a ” startle “ of climate action.
The sources of concern are multiple: if the emissions for 2019-2021 are in the nails, it is mainly due to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and the postponement of part of the action to later. “The measures put in place today are not enough to put us on the right trajectory”, observes climatologist Corinne Le Quéré, president of the HCC. In addition, the European Union (EU) has raised its climate objectives for 2030, so it will be up to France to considerably increase its efforts. The annual rate of emission reduction will have to double, i.e. a “unprecedented acceleration”, warn the thirteen experts. At the same time, France, which “not ready” to deal with the already visible impacts of climate change, must also put in place a real adaptation strategy, recalls the HCC.
The pressure is all the greater as the government is subject to two court decisions, from the Council of State and the Paris administrative court, ordering it to take additional measures. In recent months, other authorities had noted the delay accumulated by the country, the environmental authority even judging that “the ecological transition has not begun”.
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