” Not a day of respite, sigh Release. Since the beginning of the summer, climate change has been constantly shaking the planet. Repeated heat waves, droughts, fires, storms, floods… The northern hemisphere experienced a summer season with intense and incessant episodes. A summer where a number of disturbing records were broken, suggesting a frightening future. »
For the American climatologist Noah Diffenbaugh, interviewed by ReleaseThe worse is yet to come : ” Climate change is an undesirable side effect, he explains, of something that generates a lot of benefits elsewhere, the combustion of fossil fuels, on which we have built a very complex industrialized economy and society. Any transition from this state of affairs is tantamount to attempting to make a U-turn with a huge ocean liner, says the American climatologist. Even if the most ambitious emission reduction targets are reached in a few years, pollution continues in the meantime, and we can expect more warming than at present, and therefore more phenomena never experienced so far, like those we have just mentioned. It’s quite simple, concludes Noah Diffenbaugh: today, we are still only 1.1 degrees warmer than in the pre-industrial era. Imagine if we go above 2 degrees of increase. It may seem small, but the difference would be considerable “.
And indeed, point Releaseas far as France is concerned, this summer of all disasters is just the beginning. It’s “a historic summer today” which will be “classic in a few decades”, warns Météo France. The Minister for Energy Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, goes even further by declaring yesterday : “The experts are very clear on the subject. The summer of 2022 is probably the coolest you have experienced or will experience in the next twenty years” “.
And a freezing winter?
After this hot summer, are we going to have a freezing winter? And will we have enough gas and electricity to heat ourselves? This is the other major concern that feeds the columns of the newspapers. ” energy crisis : the government is preparing for the worst-case scenario “, title The Parisian. ” Imagine neighborhoods, entire cities, geographical areas deprived of electricity, plunged into darkness and sometimes without heating, for thirty minutes, an hour or even more, to relieve our electricity network and avoid a total blackout. This is the catastrophic scenario from which the government wants to escape at all costs next winter. A scenario that is now possible, however, if the thermometer drops frankly below zero and our resources do not allow us to meet the energy demand of the French. »
Result, tip The Parisian“ faced with this worst-case scenario, not a day since his return to school without the executive, from the President of the Republic himself to Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne and his ministers, calling on individuals and businesses alike to mobilize general to save energy “.
Nuclear power sacrificed?
” How did we get here ? », wonders Le Figaro. Certainly, there are climatic hazards, certainly, there is the war in Ukraine. But, the newspaper laments, the reality is that, for small political arrangements with the ecologists, we have, for fifteen years, voluntarily sacrificed part of our nuclear power, which ensured our energy sovereignty. Fessenheim has been closed, Flamanville still does not open, and around thirty reactors are shut down “.
The scissor effect…
In fact, Emmanuel Macron ” is confronted with the famous scissor effect, to analyse Free lunch. Not enough budgetary leeway to invest massively in nuclear power and green energies and not enough time with inflation whose gallop is curbing consumption, the engine of growth and generator of tax revenue. As during the oil shocks, the call to save energy is therefore launched. A minimal solution, but not so simple to implement “.