Town planning meetings in Toulouse: “The heat we experienced this summer will be the norm”
François Gémenne, co-author of the 6th IPCC report, painted a realistic picture of climate change at the Urban Planning Meetings, in Toulouse, this Wednesday, October 12. Cities must act today for more energy sobriety and efficiency.
“We have entered a new era, what we realize as exceptional events, the heat, the drought, the fires this summer in France, the recent floods in Belgium and Germany, have become the norm”.
François Gémenne, co-author of the latest IPCC report (6e), painted a black but realistic picture of climate change at the National Meetings of Urban Planning Agencies in Toulouse, this Wednesday, October 12.
“Climate change is irreversible”
In front of nearly 500 urban planners from all over France, gathered in one of the Stadium’s large lounges, the guest at the inaugural conference raised the awareness of those responsible for imagining the city of tomorrow: “He will continue to do more hotter, climate change is irreversible, if we stopped all greenhouse gas emissions tomorrow in the world, we would still be a hundred years away from reversing the trend. We never know again the climate that we knew in the XXe century”.
This is because of the accumulation of greenhouse gases already emitted since the start of the industrial era in Europe, relayed today by emissions from Asia, the USA and emerging countries.
“Every little gesture counts, we can make cities more sober and efficient”
“What we can do by limiting greenhouse gas emissions is to moderate the rise to 2 or 3° instead of 4 or 5°”, adds the professor from the University of Liège (Belgium), who nevertheless remains optimistic and wants to be positive: “Our great collective challenge is to make the fight against climate change a mobilizing project for society (…) Every small gesture counts, we must stop setting medium-term objectives or long-term for which decision makers will not be accountable; it’s a bit like when you want to lose weight, if you set yourself the goal, at 10 years, to lose 10 kg, you can’t do it, if you decide to lose 1 kg a year, it’s more effective”.
For this specialist, adaptation to climate change is imperative, we must get out of a binary logic of all or nothing (which “contributes to giving up”) and “engage in social policies to stem the rise in inequalities which makes society even more vulnerable”.
And to place the city and town planning at the heart of the fight for more sobriety and energy efficiency.