PARIS -- French scientists and environmental groups say global warming could hit France particularly hard.

Scientists are anticipating high summer temperatures, droughts, erosion and the consequent damage to agriculture, destruction of beaches, and dangers for biodiversity and human health.

A report 'Un climat à la dérive, comment s'adapter?' ('A changing climate - how to adapt to it?') presented to the government late in June by the National Observatory on the Effect of Global Warming (ONERC, after its French name) says temperatures in France could rise by nine degrees Celsius by the end of this century.

This would exceed the worst-case scenario expectations presented by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) of a global average of close to six percent by the end of the century. The IPCC was set up by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) to assess scientific, technical and socio-economic information for an understanding of climate change.

The projection is based on a study of rise in temperatures globally and in France. ”Since 1950, global temperature has risen by 0.6 degrees, but in France by 1 degree,” ONERC president Paul Vergès told IPS.

One of the consequences would be far hotter summers than the one of 2003 that led to more than 15,000 deaths in France.

France is particularly vulnerable to the effects of global warming due to changes in sea streams, environmentalists say. According to official figures, more than a fifth of the French coast is already affected by erosion.

The erosion is particularly visible at the beaches on the south-west Atlantic coast. It is affecting around half of all beaches here, including well-known tourist resorts such as Cap Breton, Cap Ferret, Soulac sur Mer and Biscarrosse. According to a 2003 study by the University of Bordeaux, erosion in Biscarrosse has shrunk beaches by some 60 meters between 1957 and 2002. This was more marked between 1997 and 2002, when beaches shrank 15 meters Environmentalists say erosion of beaches is directly linked to global warming. Sea level is believed to have risen as a result of higher water temperature and the melting of glaciers, leading to more powerful tides and a change in the pattern of water streams.

The IPCC has estimated that sea levels could rise 44 cm by 2100. That would be three times the rise in sea level in the last century. French authorities have been building artificial reefs to contain the power of tides and limit damage to beaches. Chains of giant stones have been placed at sites where erosion of beaches is greatest. But this may prove an insufficient measure. ”Building artificial reefs is as though you would plant a couple of trees in the desert, arguing that a forest there would be a good idea,” says Denis Lacroix at Ifremer, a French institution that studies sea resources.

”Artificial reefs stop somehow the erosion, but it is extremely difficult to gauge their impact on a larger scale, or the secondary effects,” Lacroix told IPS. Roland Paskoff, professor emeritus at the university of Lyon, says artificial reefs are like aspirin. ”You can reduce fever, but not heal the disease.” They need to be reinforced by more radical measures, he said. Vergès points to other changes taking place in France. ”We can observe a substantial retreat of glaciers in the French Alps,” he said.

Evidence of such changes is more than anecdotal, says Christophe Aubel, director of the non-governmental organization France Nature Environnement. ”We are obviously facing disquieting climate change, which can provoke the annihilation of hundreds of thousands of species by the year 2050,” he told IPS. France Nature Environnement has released a booklet 'Changement climatique: la nature menacée en France/en savoir plus et agir' ('Climate change: nature under threat in France/To know more, and how to act') in cooperation with Greenpeace France and the World Wildlife Fund. Rising water temperatures and deforestation as a result of global warming are already bringing the extinction of fish and other species, Aubel said. ”What is in particular danger is biodiversity.”

© 2005 IPS

###