The fires that have been ravaging several forests in western France for a week have raised the country’s problems of adaptation to the consequences of climate change. For Loire-Atlantique Senator Ronan Dantec, co-author of a report in 2019 on the subject, the time has come for action and we must “positioning all our public policies” in the sense of adaptation.
franceinfo: Is there still time to change our culture and lifestyles to deal with climate change?
Ronan Dantec: I believe that the essential recommendations that have been on the table for a number of years are even more topical and sufficient if we ask ourselves the right questions. We have a climate energy orientation law which will be discussed in Parliament at the beginning of 2023. There are already working groups looking into the issue. I believe that we must now accept a standard for rising temperatures of around four degrees towards the middle of the 21st century and position all our public policies on the scale of these four degrees. That’s what we dare not do.
Should we focus on sobriety or adaptation?
It is obviously necessary to pursue emission reduction policies. But we must be well aware that today, after the COP in Glasgow, the commitments of the States which are on the table lead us to an increase in temperatures before stabilization at around 2-3°C at the global level, which is about four degrees in France and already corresponds to a very significant innovation effort so it is not a question of opposing attenuation and adaptation. But we must also now face the facts: France will live with plus 4°C in a few decades. This means a rise in water levels, fire risks, this means, for example, that we have schools where, if we continue like this, it will be impossible to give lessons in June.
So, we have to integrate all that today and, extraordinarily important point, in all investments in the territories. Today, we have territorial climate-air-energy plans (PCAET) which are mandatory in intermunicipalities with obligations for vulnerability diagnostics in relation to climate change. But these climate plans are insufficiently invested by the territories and insufficiently supported by the State.
What are the ways to get there?
I believe that here, we have an absolute priority and an absolute priority for collective debates. I happen to be very critical of this government, but it must be recognized that the next climate energy programming law (LPEC) will raise the National Program for Adaptation to Climate Change (PNACC), to the same level as the low strategy carbon and multiannual energy programming. This is a good thing. It must be the occasion for a great national debate on the effort to be made, which must be an effort that goes from the citizen to the State via the communities and all the major economic sectors.
Now is the time to have this great debate. I believe that it is necessary to capture the current emotion to bring it towards real solutions. We talk all the time about the little gestures of everyday life: they are important but we also know that they remain quite marginal. For example, gestures that cost us dearly are those who oppose the development of wind power because they are afraid that it will reduce the quality of their landscapes, the value of their second home. These people, and there are many of them, it’s like all of us at some point, very clearly play against the fight against global warming.