Climate: Despite increased budgetary power, France still underfunds its adaptation to global warming

After another summer marked by two intense heatwaves, a devastating fire in the Aude region, and multiple drought orders issued across the country, is France looking elsewhere? To shed light on the crucial issue of adapting to climate change, which is often overlooked, experts from the Institute for Climate Economics (I4CE) have identified all the expenses incurred to prepare society for the shock of global warming.

According to them, 1.7 billion euros were directly invested in adaptation in 2025, which demonstrates that this issue is being taken into account, although it is not yet sufficient. "The 2020-2024 period was a real moment of appropriation of the issues and of increasing national resources. To date, we no longer identify any obvious blind spots, even if the amounts or the scope covered remain limited at this stage," we can read in this document that Le Monde was able to consult and entitled "Adapting France to +4°C, means, needs, financing."

In detail, the funds allocated to adaptation are mainly distributed this year in the credits allocated to water agencies (939 million euros to finance projects devoted, for example, to the renovation of networks and therefore to the preservation of the resource), but also in the green fund and the Barnier fund (714 million euros for adaptation projects in local authorities and to compensate for losses linked to climate disasters).

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