Adapt to heat waves or do everything to avoid them

Are heat waves and droughts linked?

It is clear that we experienced a summer that combined successive heat waves unprecedented in their frequency, intensity and extension, along with exceptional drought. But this does not mean that drought and rising temperatures systematically go hand in hand. There are regions in the world where the climate is cold and dry and others where it is hot and humid.

In France, the climate will develop in different ways depending on the region.

The edge of the Mediterranean is exposed to drought and warming, especially in the summer, and this will be accompanied by an increased probability of the occurrence of so-called “seven” episodes of high intensity.

In the Alps, warming is more pronounced in summer and autumn, with drier summers, but more precipitation is likely in winter, and the limit of rain and snow several hundred meters higher.

Beyond this diversity of situations, the dominant feature of the new hydroclimatic age we are entering is a more variable precipitation regime, with longer and more severe droughts, on the one hand, and less frequent but more severe precipitation, on the other.

Getting water: How are you adapting to the new situation?

Adapting to this means, first, not considering water as an inexhaustible resource in our latitudes.

Water as a public good is fundamental to the well-being of all.

It must therefore be managed as such by incorporating the fact that shortages and thus competition will become more frequent and more serious.

We need to develop a clear vision of our priorities:

Water bays to facilitate recreational activities for a small minority or ensure affordable access to water for garden workers?
Continuing to encourage water-intensive field crops to feed livestock or to maintain breeding in mountain pastures where water stress is exceptional?
Using water to make artificial snow or ensuring that our aquifers are refilled in the winter to meet the summer drought in better conditions?

Comprehensive and sustainable policies are needed

In fact, what we need are real global hydro-climate policies which are variations of the climate policies that need to be implemented to mitigate warming as much as possible and adapt to the new hydro-climate deal, elsewhere.

The climate will continue to warm because politicians have neither the foresight nor the courage to take action in a timely manner, despite all the warnings of scientists for 30 years.

And it is shocking to see that even today, the policy of adaptation that our region finances on a large scale is the policy of making artificial snow.

All this only delays the real adaptation, which will necessarily take time.

And this time we miss it. On the other hand, we promote among some economic actors the idea that we have the weapons to adapt to everything – the confrontation with the reality of the future will be more brutal; On the other hand, the longer we delay basic measures, the fewer degrees of freedom we have when the situation becomes unacceptable. Just look at our helplessness this summer in the face of the spread of great fires.

This means that it is ironic that we do not have the courage to take restrictive measures today so as not to exercise a punitive environment, presumably (ie we do not want to restrict freedom of consumption unhindered) but we do not see or say that this leads us to situations in which we would not have degrees of freedom to act.

And in emergencies, the most vulnerable are often the hardest hit. It is therefore essential to put in place policies on climate and water access that are socially just and designed for the long term.