Heatwave 2026: a geographer imagines 2055 differently

What would a carbon neutral world look like in 2055?

At the end of this scorching summer, my book demonstrates that it is still possible to stabilize global global warming at 2°C by 2055. On condition that we stop emitting more greenhouse gases, particularly CO2, than what the oceans and forests can store, etc. However, 90% of these greenhouse gas emissions are linked to the combustion of coal, oil and gas. The lever to achieve carbon neutrality is to do without fossil fuels as much as possible.

While the time is rather for catastrophism, you affirm that it is not a utopia…

Effective decarbonization solutions already exist. They were assessed in the sixth report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). If French society does nothing, it risks becoming dependent on the industry of countries like China, which are in the process of making this shift towards a carbon-free economy. And, in the worst case scenario, to disappear.

Scientists say it: beyond 2°C on average, physiological adaptation is no longer possible and the ecosystems we need to live collapse. It is high time for our democracy to debate in order to choose the options we want to implement.

Especially since the daily life you project us into turns out to be attractive. Describe it to us…

It is a world that has gone from always more to always better. Our food, for example, is experiencing the same qualitative leap as wine in the 1980s. In 2055, there is less meat on our plates, four meat meals per week. And more seasonal fruits and vegetables, grown locally and organically.

The small business has been relaunched to offer ready-made meals, the polar opposite of the ultra-processed products of mass distribution. More broadly, our goods come from the circular economy. Without plastic, our clothes are made from animal and plant fibers and our furniture, from wood. Jobs in brown industries (with a high environmental impact, editor’s note) have been replaced by those of depollution, recycling or even crafts.

What do our cities look like?

Large and medium-sized cities have been densified. The accommodations are better arranged. Useful surface area was gained by pooling a certain number of spaces: laundry rooms, kitchens, teleworking areas, children’s play areas, etc. Roofs, facades and balconies, built in natural materials, were greened. Benches, squares with fountains, café terraces and rain gardens encourage interactions between generations.

In these more colorful, shaded, cooler cities, the birds are back and city dwellers hear their song again, because they travel there on foot or in electric vehicles, such as bicycles, trams or buses.

And our campaigns?

There is a whole range of possibilities. At one extreme, ultra-technological agriculture favors exports and generates surpluses which allow us to buy our food. On the other hand, a sector with little mechanization but employing a lot of labor relies on local outlets.

In this projection, the role of farmers has evolved: not only are they paid for the foodstuffs they provide, but also for the preservation of biodiversity, water storage and electricity production. The agricultural map has also changed. Like vines, which have moved north, and livestock farming, which has become extensive in the mountains.

Is electricity the keystone of this revolution?

Today, in France, energy consumption is still more than 50% carbon-intensive, particularly for heating and transport. To get out of this, we must put electrical devices on the market, in particular vehicles: cars, but also trucks, tractors, boats, etc.

However, for the moment, electricity is decarbonized thanks to nuclear power, whose production is plateauing because the fleet must be modernized. We will therefore have to develop renewable energies. And reduce our overall demand.

So this future will only come about with a metamorphosis of our model of society?

For two centuries, our Western civilization has thrived on the profits from fossil fuels, in a logic of accumulation. Our individual behaviors have been conditioned by these collective ways of living, of feeding ourselves, of dressing, of moving around…

For several years, the most vulnerable have been paying the price of these political orientations and the state’s climate inaction. This is the case of the yellow vests in 2017, who had no alternative to the gasoline car to function on a daily basis.

Today, taking the turn towards sobriety would mean adjusting our needs to the planet’s resources. A wisdom that our grandparents summed up simply: “You have to eat to live, and not live to eat. »

Moreover, to those who criticize you for your optimism about the future, you recall the post-war reconstruction…

When my grandmothers were born in Nice, in the mid-1920s, she and their fellow citizens benefited neither from Social Security, nor from women’s right to vote, nor from Europe. Thirty years later, they had overcome the political divisions of the war and assimilated upheavals greater than what the ecological transition would generate. In other words: we are capable of doing it too.

With an advantage over our elders: we know the end of the story and the solutions to adopt. This is why I dedicated my book to this generation of 1945 who still talked about the future, even if they were tired, but also to my daughters and to all the children of today, who, tomorrow, will be the first to be affected by our choices.

Your entire journey shows it: we can go much further than we imagined…

My parents, employed by Social Security in Nice, did not have the baccalaureate. When, in 2000, I joined the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, I received a scholarship which allowed me to offer them a trip to Venice to thank them for always supporting me and I showed them this historic building where I studied and whose doors they would never have dared to cross. I am proud of my trajectory. Values ​​that my parents passed on to me: being able to look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself that you have done the most you can. And have access to this world of knowledge and beauty.

What led you to a geography of action?

As a teacher-researcher at the École Normale Supérieure, I first worked on flooding theoretically. In 2006, I defended my thesis on the risk of a hundred-year flood of the Seine. Then, little by little, I collaborated with crisis management practitioners, firefighters, elected officials… From 2018, I met victims of natural disasters in the West Indies and it became impossible for me to leave emotions aside. I will always remember the testimony of a Haitian who lost his son in the 2010 earthquake and returned to work immediately afterwards to pay for his burial… After Covid, I left research for administration.

Why this new path?

It’s a way to continue to serve my country, but to use my expertise to implement public policies. This work constitutes my legacy as a researcher and teacher. I wanted it to be as rigorous but also as popularized as possible, illustrated and readable by adolescents. My objective was to give readers elements of analysis so that they could form their own opinion and debate it. Since its publication, I, who am not a believer, have spoken a lot with a Swiss pastor and a practicing Catholic. As in the Spanish poem by Antonio Machado, which I highlighted in the conclusion, our paths are different, but our horizon is tinged with the same humanism.