This French island is seriously threatened by global warming in Europe.
Mega forest fires, drought of lakes, heatwaves in cities… the consequences of climate change have accelerated in recent years in France, with events becoming more and more frequent and intense. According to an alarming new report from the NGO Réseau Action Climat published on September 19, 2024, France is the European country most at risk of coastal flooding due to rising water levels and erosion caused by climate change. Concrete consequences could be particularly observable in this very popular metropolis island.
With its 5,800 kilometers of coastline, mainland France is at great risk. In a disaster scenario, coastal areas located in the seaside regions of Normandy, Brittany, Pays de la Loire, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Corsica and Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, risk the submergence due to rising sea levels and coastal erosion. An island renowned for its untouched wild nature and its fine sandy beaches, the one nicknamed the “bright island”, risks being literally wiped off the map: this is the island of Oléron, in Charente-Maritime.
It is a very dark scenario which is gradually taking shape on this island which is particularly subject to the strongest submersion and erosion in Europe: each year in Oléron, the sea nibbles away a little more at the sand, its southern coast already reaching a decline of 10 to 20 meters per year since the 1960s. By the end of the century, sea levels could rise up to 75 centimeters and swallow up its neighborhoods.
The NGO’s report provides an estimate of the number of people living in these risk areas, like the inhabitants of the island of Oléron, the island of Ré, Saint-Malo, the bay of Mont-Saint-Michel and even the banks of Bordeaux and Bayonne, going from 900,000 people currently to 1.7 million by the end of the century. At the same time, the average warming observed in France, which is currently +1.9°C, could reach +4°C in 2100, the report emphasizing that temperatures could reach 50°C.
But it is still possible to limit the effects of climate change on the French landscape, provided that it is taken seriously… According to Benjamin Crettenand, co-author of the report, “the main means of combating the impact is “is to limit our greenhouse gas emissions on a collective scale.”