France starts preparing for 4C temperature rise
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00:00 The French government is launching a national consultation on its climate change roadmap.
00:05 The initiative comes amid warnings that the country must prepare for temperatures of
00:11 4 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels at the end of this century.
00:15 According to France's Minister for Ecological Transition, the most optimistic scenario
00:21 would be by the year 2100 a 2-degree increase for metropolitan France. But
00:27 they say a 4-degree increase is actually more likely.
00:32 To tell us a bit more, Valérie de Camp, our environment editor, is with me. And Valérie,
00:36 just tell us first of all about this consultation that's kicking off today.
00:40 Right. So essentially what the government is saying is that we cannot rule out the possibility
00:45 that the country will hit the 4 degrees warming mark. And that is pretty significant because that
00:51 is saying, hey, we're actually preparing for a pretty grim scenario, considering that under the
00:58 Paris Agreement, the world should aim to cap global temperatures at 2 degrees Celsius of warming.
01:04 So the point of this public consultation, as you mentioned, will be to try and define
01:09 a climate change roadmap for adaptation. So it's not only about how we reduce greenhouse
01:15 gas emissions, but also how do we adapt to the reality, to the real-life consequences
01:21 of climate change. So it will last until the end of summer. It's only just beginning. And it will
01:26 serve as the basis for a climate change adaptation plan that the government will release later by the
01:33 end of the year. So they're looking at different scenarios, 2 degrees of warming, 4 degrees of
01:37 warming, the more pessimistic scenario, bearing in mind that the world is already on track for
01:45 a temperature rise of between 2.4 and 2.8 degrees of warming. We also know that 2022 was the warmest
01:53 year on record for France. So let's face it, 4 degrees of warming, that's not just a far-fetched
02:00 scenario. That is a real possibility. It doesn't mean that France will potentially hit that mark
02:06 of 4 degrees, but the country needs to prepare for that possibility. So they're going to launch
02:11 a nationwide plan for more recurrent droughts. Also, how do we make sure that farmers can adapt
02:16 to that new reality, renovate schools, homes, just thinking about how French people 20 years from now
02:24 will go on about their daily lives if we're not able to rein in emissions in time. And Valerie,
02:29 one thing we know at the moment is that Europe is warming faster than other parts of the world.
02:35 Spell out what the implications of that are, particularly here in France.
02:39 So globally, I mean, global temperatures have increased by 1.2 degrees. But as you say,
02:46 Europe is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world. And so 1.2 degrees globally,
02:52 that already has translated into 1.7 degrees of warming here in France. So half a degree,
02:57 an additional half a degree than the rest of the world. And I want to show you this graph here that
03:03 I think is really quite interesting, because you see that if temperatures rise by 1.5 degrees,
03:09 that's 2 degrees here in France, 2 degrees by the middle of the century, that's going to mean
03:15 2.7 degrees of warming in France, and then 3 degrees of warming by the end of the century.
03:21 That's the 4 degrees that France is preparing for. So again, very much real climate warming
03:28 projections. And so the reason why Europe is warming faster than the rest of the world is
03:34 pretty simple, is because the percentage of landmass is a lot higher in Europe. And so it
03:40 warms a lot faster than the sea. And so that is one of the explanations, which means and that is
03:46 why scientists are saying that Europe has become a heatwave hotspot. And the consequences of that
03:52 are very much real here in France. And as part of this consultation, for example, in that scenario,
03:58 that the government is working on, there could be four times as many droughts in the future,
04:03 tropical storms could increase by 50%. And that could have real consequences for the economy.
04:10 France's GDP could drop by 6% or 13%. So all of that, again, not a far fetched scenario,
04:17 but things that France needs to be preparing for.
04:20 Valérie de Camp, thank you very much indeed for coming in to tell us a little bit
04:24 about that plan. Thank you very much.