The issues of adaptation of territories and climate vulnerability are also important for developed countries.

eBetween severe floods that destroyed a third of Pakistan and record temperatures and drought in Europe in the summer of 2022, climate change is now considered a significant threat by four out of five French people. Until now, the issues of territorial adaptation and climate vulnerability, which were considered to be a characteristic subject for southern countries, are now a necessary problem for developed countries.

Initiated at COP26 in Glasgow, the issue of financing losses and damages related to climate change hazards is one of the most sensitive points in the negotiations between developed countries responsible for global warming at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh. And the main victims of its consequences are the southern countries.

Indeed, northern countries appear to be responsible for 92% of historical greenhouse gas emissions, while many regions in Africa, Asia and Latin America are at risk of becoming uninhabitable due to global warming. Highlighting the climate justice argument, Southern countries are calling for a mechanism to finance and cover part of these losses and damages from Northern countries.

Regular crises and restructuring of activities

However, without agreement on the terms “loss and damage”, the negotiations seem to be moving in that direction, namely by launching an adaptation agenda that envisages mobilizing between 140 and 300 billion dollars. But the problem of adaptation and loss and damage related to climate change is not limited to the countries of the South. It is also generated at the national level for developed countries.

In France, climate change will forever affect the quality of life in the city, the sustainability of the agricultural production model and the viability of our infrastructure. What’s more, climate change is now in an irreversible phase, meaning that stopping emissions will actually stop the drift, it won’t allow a return to past climates.

In fact, in France, as everywhere else in the world, drought, floods and temperature levels in 2022 are, in the most optimistic scenarios, the new normal. Therefore, the challenge is to limit the existing drift as much as possible and to adapt the functioning of societies to it. In this context, human organizations will have to deal with regular crises and deep restructuring of their economic activities.