in the face of global warming, environmental associations call for “urgent rethinking of our water uses”

Faced with the climate emergency, we need a change in the way we manage water: this is essentially the message of a dozen environmental associations, in a column published by franceinfo. The signatories recall recent or current episodes of drought, falling water tables and forest fires. And they call on the government, elected officials and citizens to initiate a real change in our water consumption habits. They express themselves here freely.

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Water is an essential element in the balance of all natural ecosystems and a vital common good that we must preserve at all costs. . In a world that is warming up and facing increasingly frequent and intense episodes of drought everywhere, the issues of availability and access to water for all are becoming as crucial as they are current. They raise the question of its fair distribution, between essential needs for all and superficial uses of a minority. It is therefore a question of social justice that requires us to urgently rethink our uses of water and its distribution in the light of these new realities.

After a summer of 2022 marked by historic droughts and devastating fires from the south of France to Brittany and Normandy, the low level of precipitation this winter did not make it possible to fill the water tables over a large part of the territory. French. According to a report by the Bureau of Geological and Mining Research, more than 68% of the water tables are at levels below normal for the season (compared to 58% last year) and 20% even have a “very low” level. Four villages in the Pyrénées-Orientales have already been deprived of drinking water at the end of winter due to major droughts in progress . To date, more than 40 departments are subject to regular water restriction measures and four of them are experiencing crisis situations.

In this context of global lack of water, the hydrological deficits inherited from last summer will be coupled with the periods of heat announced for the summer of 2023. Indeed, climatologists are predicting intense heat waves again this year and risks of severe droughts very high in many departments. The water situation in France, already extremely worrying today, is therefore likely to worsen in the coming months.

“Rethinking public water management policies”

Who will then have access to water? The whole population or a privileged class? And for what uses? The watering of golf courses and the operation of hotel complexes with swimming pools and spas or the vegetable gardens of individuals? Individual car washes or refreshing fountains for everyone during heat waves? More generally, do we want to continue to favor a model of intensive and destructive agriculture, between excessive withdrawals and mega-basins, to the detriment of peasant agriculture, nourishing and saving water? ? Until when will multinational agrifood companies be able to excessively withdraw from springs or groundwater when restrictions on use apply to populations? ?

The water crisis, exacerbated by climate change, poses problems of social justice. Exemptions from restrictions for non-essential or polluting uses are not acceptable. On the contrary, it is essential and urgent to place the general interest ahead of that of the privileged classes and polluting economic sectors, in order to lay the outlines of an egalitarian society of tomorrow that would guarantee everyone access to vital resources. like water. We need to rethink public water management policies to adapt to current events on the one hand and reduce the intensity and frequency of those to come on the other. And, far from the necessary radical measures, these are not the 53 measures, vague and non-binding, of the water plan of Emmanuel Macron that will allow us to achieve this.

We ask the public authorities, elected officials and government, to take the measure of the urgency of these issues and to put in place this summer an ambitious policy allowing a fair and sustainable distribution of water resources. And in the first place, we demand that no derogation from restrictions on water use be granted for non-essential uses or uses that do not allow people to be fed directly. We also call on citizens to mobilize massively on their territory in order to denounce and oppose the development of new or existing projects that are useless and waste water.

The petitioners :

• Alternatiba
• ANV-COP21
• ATTAC
• Last Renovation
• Escape Jobs
• Greenpeace France
• Earth Day France
• human rights league
• we are alive
• Oxfam France
• Zero Waste France