Who suspects that in 2050 almost half of metropolitan France – more than 10 million individual houses – could be riddled with cracked buildings due to the multiplication of droughts? Who expects ragweed allergies to explode in the coming decades, reaching 1 in 4 people in the Centre-Val de Loire region? Probably no one, with the exception of the scientists from Axa Climate.
The latter rotated their models to see what our country will look like in twenty years. And the results, published exclusively by L’Express, are chilling. In the future, we will not simply face an epidemic of damaged housing or people allergic to pollen. Submerged by water, certain emblematic tourist sites – like the planks of Deauville – will no longer be passable at certain times of the year… Planes will have difficulty taking off during heat waves due to the lower lift of the air. ‘air. In the Landes, the fire season will be three times longer than today! Welcome to a warming world.
In Lacanau, 40% of the town is threatened
No region will be spared, and we now have sufficiently fine tools to predict this. “Computing resources are evolving. Our supercomputers can now run climate models at 1 square kilometer resolution, explains Christelle Castet, chief scientist at Axa Climate. Used for the study of risks, they produce more and more results ‘ concerning’.” In Lacanau, for example, rising sea levels and coastal erosion are threatening 40% of the seaside resort, or 1,200 homes, as well as the majority of commercial activities in the town. “Thanks to the precision of our calculations, it is now possible to tell a company very precisely whether it can set up in a particular area”, explains Antoine Denoix, CEO of Axa Climate.
In Montpellier, we already know that the air conditioning in offices and shops will have to run for around 120 days in 2050, an increase of 77% compared to today. Similarly, in Strasbourg, the number of days requiring the heating to be turned on will decrease by 26%, from 120 on average to 90.
“These results are not the product of outlandish assumptions. They are based on solid science. And this tells us that because of the inertia of the climate what will happen in 2050 is already almost written”, specifies Christine Castet. In its study, Axa Climate highlights fifteen specific examples illustrating climate change. But this is only a small part of the possible effects. Moreover, the latter are cumulative: some regions will suffer from cracked buildings, more frequent fires and reduced crop yields.
Climate: what awaits France in 2050.
© / THE EXPRESS
Complete changes of business model
The main message of the study is therefore that France will have to adapt. However, in this area, our country is lagging worryingly behind. “Four years ago, adaptation to climate change was not on people’s minds at all. The main focus was on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Adaptation was seen as a sign of renunciation by public authorities. And as something uninteresting for economic players”, explains Antoine Denoix.
Since then, the lines have started to move. “Some of our customers seek to adapt by changing, for example, business model“, confirms the boss of Axa Climate. This is for example the case of Mustela, the baby care brand. Faced with the ecological challenge, the company of the Expanscience group has decided to stop in advance, in 2027, its baby wipes activity, giving up 20% of its turnover. And to make greater use of agricultural production in the territories close to its factories to design its new products. Another example: a producer of peas in the north de la France is advancing its sowing dates in the season to avoid the risk of frost.In the south of the country, a wheat producer is testing varieties that are more resistant to drought…
Practices are also changing in the industry. Since the color black captures a lot of heat, switching to roof coatings with a high albedo effect – the reflection of solar energy -, such as white paint, can significantly reduce the interior temperature of a building, and therefore the energy consumption related to air conditioning, up to 30%.
Similarly, many refrigerated warehouses, in mass distribution or the pharmaceutical sector, experienced cooling failures last summer linked to extreme heat. Adding only cold would only increase the problem: more energy equals more greenhouse gases, therefore more warming. Some companies are therefore successfully moving towards the systematic cleaning of the dust accumulated in the heat exhaust grilles.
Do away with piecemeal responses
However, these examples still weigh very little on the scale of the country, still a prisoner of its habits. “We continue to design policies and invest in infrastructure as if the climate were not changing. Each year, at least 50 billion euros of public investments are still made without systematically taking into account the fact that temperatures are changing” , recalls the Institute of Economics for the Climate in a recent note.
For several years now, the High Council for the Climate has also insisted on the fact that France is not ready in terms of adaptation. Its latest report, published at the end of June, is no exception to the rule. “Adaptation in France is very largely limited to ad hoc responses. Structural measures, which make it possible to tackle the causes, are very largely absent. There is also a lack of diagnostics of the vulnerability of resources to adapt to territorial scale”, Judge Magali Reghezza-Zitt, geographer and member of the High Council for the Climate.
So it’s not just a question of saying that we’re going to put a dike here, a water tank there and plant trees. What we need is a global strategy capable of strengthening warning systems while reshaping the territory. “By dint of responding sporadically, we mobilize means that reduce our room for maneuver. However, these are restricted with each additional tenth of a degree, warns the scientist. Humanity has never had to adapt to changes that are so rapid and already, for some, irreversible. shares the effort, the more we condemn ourselves to running after crises”.