16 departments, including the Paris region, will be placed under a red heat wave alert on Tuesday, July 1, and 68 others will remain on an orange alert. Geographer Magali Reghezza-Zitt, who specializes in climate change adaptation and is a former member of France’s High Council on Climate, explains why France is ill-equipped to face the effects of climate disruption − whether on cities, buildings, schools or working conditions.
Is France adequately prepared for heat waves?
French citizens and elected officials have become increasingly aware that even within this wealthy country, we will not be spared from the climate crisis. And yet we are not ready − the High Council on Climate has been saying this since 2020. The gap between what needs to be done and the pace at which climate change is accelerating grows wider each year. The national adaptation plan for climate change is insufficient; we lack both a sufficiently robust strategy and adequate resources.
Instead of a prevention-based approach, we have instead relied on reactive, remedial responses that are essential in emergencies but that no longer reduce the threat of warming, and which certainly do not promise, in the long run, survival under decent conditions. The significant excess mortality during heat waves will only increase, with increasingly severe consequences for physical and mental health. Overturning this trend requires a major step, which was already taken to reduce the vulnerability of older adults [after the 2003 heat wave, which caused 20,000 deaths], but has not yet been taken for schools or for outdoor workers.
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