Prepare for life in the heat, says France's ecology transition minister Béchu

Environmental chiefs on Tuesday unveiled a package of measures to help French regions cope with the severe weather predicted for the summer months and the prospect that temperatures will rise in the country by as much as 4 degrees Celsius by 2100.

Christophe Béchu, France's Minister for Ecological Transition and Territorial Cohesion says that the country needs to have a co-ordinated response to the impending wave of hot weather. AP - Michel Spingler

The options for departmental politicians as well as company bosses and organisers of school exams and cultural events come as part of government proposals to promote a central policy and avoid a scattershot approach.

Heatwaves this summer

Christophe Béchu, the Minister for Ecological Transition and Territorial Cohesion, said French citizens had to be prepared for heatwaves from as early as next month.

"We are going to put in place clear technical sheets that will outline what to do in all areas," said Béchu in an interview with the French newspaper JDD.

On Tuesday, the findings from a report written by the national council for ecological transition were officially opened for views from organisations and institutions likely to be affected by the array of options.

A report by the intergovernmental panel on climate change says that temperatures around the world will rise by 3 degrees Celsius. However, in France, it is estimated to climb by 4 degrees Celsius.

"We have to get the country to be ready to cope with that rise," said Béchu. "This is not climate defeatism, it is lucidity. We owe it to our fellow citizens not to be in a form of climate denial."

Béchu, who took over his from Amélie de Monchalin last July, added: "It's far better to prepare for a four degree rise and find out that it is slightly less than the other way round."

The government's move emerged a day after researchers warned that policies to limit global warming will expose more than a fifth of the world's population to extreme and potentially life-threatening heat by 2100.

France and the next heatwaves

Publiée aujourd’hui pour anticiper la situation estivale, la nouvelle cartographie est une projection d’ici à la fin de l’été des territoires avec risques de sécheresse.

Alors, dès aujourd’hui, nous anticipons les risques. pic.twitter.com/uvyiT8XMFb

— Christophe Béchu (@ChristopheBechu) May 17, 2023

Rise

Earth's surface temperature is on track to rise 2.7 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels by 2100.

A 2.7 degree Celsius rise in the earth's surface temperature is likely to take more than two billion people – 22 percent of projected global population – well outside the climate comfort zone that has allowed humanity to thrive for millennia, the scientists reported in Nature Sustainability.

India will be the worst affected with around 600 million people facing deadly heat. Millions will also be hit in Nigeria, Indonesia, as well as the Philippines and Pakistan.

"That's a profound reshaping of the habitability of the surface of the planet, and could lead potentially to the large-scale reorganisation of where people live," said lead author Tim Lenton, who is director of the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter.

Capping global warming at the 2015 Paris climate treaty target of 1.5C would reduce the number of those at risk to less than 500 million – some five percent of the 9.5 billion people likely to inhabit the planet six or seven decades from now, according to the findings.

Drought in France

This photograph taken on August 19, 2022 shows herd of cows in a dried meadow following the recent heatwave in Vensat, southern France. AFP - THIERRY ZOCCOLAN

Change

Just under 1.2C of warming to date has increased the intensity or duration of heatwaves, droughts and wildfires beyond what could have occurred without the carbon pollution generated by burning fossil fuels and forests.

"The costs of global warming are often expressed in financial terms, but our study highlights the phenomenal human cost of failing to tackle the climate emergency," added Lenton.

"For every 0.1C of warming above present levels, about 140 million more people will be exposed to dangerous heat."

On Monday, an intergovernmental panel of experts revealed in a report that France's transition to a low-carbon economy would add 25 percentage points to its debt burden by 2040.

Cost

France Stratégie think tank said France will need to make additional annual investments of about 67 billion euros by 2030 to meet its objectives for reducing its dependence on fossil fuels.

The financial effort would weigh heavily on public finances, said France Stratégie, partly because the investments imply lower potential growth, which would cut tax revenues.

As a result, the debt burden would rise by 10 percentage points by 2030 and 25 percentage points by 2040, which might need to be financed in part by a temporary tax on wealthy households.

President Emmanuel Macron's government says it wants to erode France's national debt, which stands at slightly more that 111 percent of gross domestic product after surging during the response to the coronavirus pandemic.