“We have won the battle against the pandemic, I am convinced that we will win the climate battle,” says Jean Viard

A look back at two major themes or events that marked 2023: global warming and the situation in the Middle East with the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

To conclude the year 2023, sociologist Jean Viard wanted to return to two events which are troubling the planet. The first concerns global warming, the other the situation in the Middle East.

franceinfo: Between heatwaves, fires and floods, we have still widely seen the consequences of global warming. Should we be worried?

Jean Viard: In any case, this will continue. We have entered into an immense battle between humanity and nature that we have disrupted. It was announced to us, some were dragging their feet a little, then came the great pandemic which demonstrated that we could all fight together, 5 billion people on the planet; it’s a strength. COP 28, despite various assessments, opened doors, even if they remain narrow. We are in the midst of a disruption in the world with two major revolutions: the industrial revolution linked to global warming (all the innovations, transformations in lifestyles) and artificial intelligence (which will modify our networks and our way of working). It is both dangerous and exciting, because there will be plenty of innovations, which should give us courage in battle.

Scientists believe that we can still stop the catastrophe, except that things are getting worse year after year. Are world leaders taking enough action?

The IPCC is not as pessimistic as you. We will not be able to block the temperature at 1’5°C, we are going to increase it to 2°C. But what we have to say is that we can go up to 2°C and then we can go back down. The real problem is not going up too much but above all, and at the same time, going down again. Another question: emerging countries, those in Africa. They need to develop. Either they do it like China with coal firstly because it is cheaper, or they develop with new technologies, and in this case we have to finance them. It is both a battle for solidarity between societies and within our societies. The same goes for housing: either we help the poorest people, or they will not insulate their homes. So there is this battle of solidarity at the same time as the climate battle. We have won the battle of the great pandemic, I am convinced that we will win the climate battle.

Are you also optimistic about the other big end-of-year topic: the war in the Middle East?

This subject is absolutely tragic. We are even facing two wars that respond to each other: one in Ukraine and the other after the Hamas attack in Israel. These are two relatively new countries, Ukraine declared its independence in 1991, Israel was created in 1947 by the United Nations to give territory to the Jewish world. In both cases, there is a clash of territories, and the Palestinians have been deprived of the part that had been allocated to them. Isn’t so much barbarity likely to lead to a new conflict every 10, 20 or 30 years, because at the moment we are producing lots of “terrorist babies”; It’s still terrifying. Or on the contrary, we will end up saying that this barbarity is so enormous that we must impose peace. I don’t know.