The Monaco Press Club invited two noted specialists to its most recent meeting, at the Hotel Hermitage, to hear their expert evaluations of the impact of climate change in Monaco.

Nathalie Hilmi, head of the Environmental Economics section of the Scientific Centre of Monaco and member of the High Council for the Environment of the Metropolis of Nice, was joined by François Gemenne, political scientist, professor at Sciences Po Paris, migration specialist and author of Ecology is Not a Consensus at Fayard editions. Both are members of the IPCC (Group of Intergovernmental Experts on Climate Change)

Nathalie Hilmi said: “The later that countries act, the higher the bill will be”.

François Gemenne pointed out that everyone agrees that “our house is burning”, in the words of Greta Thunberg. But what solutions to bring?

There is a plurality of options in democratic countries, he said. We see that this creates increasingly strong tensions, precisely because climate change will call into question a whole series of essential foundations of our democracies. not only on the modes of consumption of goods, but also on freedom, justice, sovereignty, security, health, North/South relations.

In real terms, for Monaco, the situation is more critical than in other places.

François Gemenne spoke of the fact that the Mediterranean basin is likely to warm up faster, even faster than the rest of Europe, where the impact of climate change is expected to be greater than in other regions.

The most recent consensus of the IPCC is that temperatures are set to rise by four percent globally by 2100. However, Monaco is likely to grow warmer by an astonishing seven percent over the next 77 years.

“In the Principality, the thermometer will rise much faster than elsewhere because Europe, and even more so around the Mediterranean, tend to warm up more. It would be +7° in Monaco…” Said François Gemenne.

There will be other major issues. Nathalie Hilmi said that the Principality will have problems of access to drinking water.

If that were not enough: “There are a series of studies that suggest that climate change could also have some influence on seismic phenomena,” François Gemenne said.

PHOTO: Yann-Anthony Noghès, Nathalie Hilmi, François Gemenne and freelance journalist Milena Radoman Monaco Press Club