why some French people still doubt climate change

Extraordinary rains causing massive flooding in France and Spain this fall. Extreme heat in India and Pakistan up to 50°C. Serial killer hurricanes in the United States. The year 2024 has once again shown the multiple and worrying faces of climate change. And yet… Even if these phenomena are manifesting before our eyes after having been for a long time only a projection, the scientific consensus on the climate is still far from being accepted by all French people.

“There is no climate change. I don’t feel it. During the summers and winters of my little life of 20 years, I have not seen any evolution,” assures Ornella L., an advertising student in Paris after having had a scientific baccalaureate. Like her, in 2024, 33% of French people can be considered “climate skeptics”, according to Obs’COP, the international climate and public opinion observatory. Because they say that climate change does not exist (10%) or that it is not caused by human activities (23%). Last year, according to the Observatory, France was ranked 6th among nations where doubt about the origin of this change has increased the most. Surprising, in the land of Descartes. These big skeptics are rather older and vote to the right according to another recent survey.

Certainly, climate skepticism is no longer what it used to be. Those who, like former minister Claude Allègre in the 1990s, spoke of imaginary danger are less heard. Until the beginning of the 2010s, most of the attacks focused on the very existence of climate change. Today, given the difficulty in denying reality, it is mainly its causes of human origin that are denied… but never by climatologists. On the other hand, other people, because of their scientific training, find a particular resonance. For François Gervais, for example, a retired physicist, solar activity alone bears the responsibility for warming.

In recent years, a new nuance has emerged: climate relativism. According to the Obs’COP 2023 survey, only 52% of French people believe that climate change will have “mainly negative consequences” where they live. A minimization of the threat in contradiction with scientific data. “All studies show that there are and will be serious consequences for everyone: massive loss of biodiversity, displacement of populations with rising water levels, increase in fires and floods,” underlines François-Marie Bréon, spokesperson for the French Association for Scientific Information.

So, how can we explain that a third of the French population is still inclined to deny the scientific reality of disruption and its causes? Or put its dangers into perspective? “For me, this is a sociological enigma,” confides political scientist Daniel Boy, a long-time observer of French opinion on ecology. The summer of 2022 saw an unprecedented increase in extreme events on national soil, such as the fires in Brittany. And when we surveyed the French at the beginning of autumn for the Obs’COP survey, the proportion of climate skeptics had increased by six points compared to the previous year! »

A unifying theme

Summer 2022… David Chavalarias remembers it as a turning point. At the time, this research director at the Center for Social Analysis and Mathematics saw the number of French accounts spreading false information about the climate explode on the social network X (formerly Twitter): 10,000, compared to 400 a year Before ! “84% of these accounts had previously been part of the antivax-antisystem community,” he explains. The pandemic had allowed the creation of very powerful digital communities around a narrative pitting the people against the elites (government, scientists, media, etc.). In 2022, as the pandemic subsided, it was necessary to find another unifying anti-elite theme. » In two months, these accounts have taken up the climate theme. This opportunistic climate skepticism had several aims. “For some, gaining an audience on controversial themes in order, for example, to sell books on the climate,” notes David Chavalarias. For others, to sow division in French society in order to destabilize it; 80% of new anti-climate accounts also relayed Kremlin propaganda on the war in Ukraine. »

The recycling of anti-vax rhetoric thus results in brandishing the threat of a climate pass just as there was a health pass. And to define the contours of a new plot. For those who prefer to call themselves “climate realists” rather than “skeptics”, too stigmatizing in their eyes, environmentalists are fomenting a “totalitarian project which fights the very aspiration for a more prosperous and freer world”, in the words of Benoît Rittaud , one of their leaders. Result: the denial of climate science has gained both virulence and visibility. “Social network algorithms structurally favor the dissemination of publications containing disinformation,” points out a note from the Jean-Jaurès Foundation (1). The evolution of the media habits of the French constitutes a favorable breeding ground for the propagation of climate-sceptical discourse. »

Purchasing power above all

This is how Ornella L. became interested in the Raptor. This far-right influencer who sells food supplements created a buzz on YouTube in early September with a video intended to “destroy the climate scam”. An hour and a quarter of a pseudoscientific presentation whose sole purpose is to assert that global warming is not as serious as the supposedly manipulated experts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) point out. by economic and political interest groups. Ornella is convinced: “Raptor has nothing to gain, unlike the specialists. The majority of people fit the mold but he stands in opposition to the official discourse. So I tend to believe it. »

If the “seduction of the false” and of dissident discourse reinforces climate skepticism in France, it does not explain everything. The prospect of having to question one’s way of life to collectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions also weighs heavily.

“The pressure on purchasing power is leading some French people to put the human origin of climate change into perspective,” analyzes Brice Teinturier, Deputy Managing Director of Ipsos. Recognizing it would lead to questioning its lifestyles. » The ban on the sale of new thermal cars in 2035 or environmental regulations in agriculture can be experienced as painful challenges… leading to sweeping away the climate situation as a whole.

“We cannot completely deny the role of humans in climate change but, at Rural Coordination, we take a step back from that,” explains Patrick Legras, head of the protest agricultural union in Hauts-de-France. The problem is when politicians make decisions dictated by the IPCC, without financial compensation for farmers. »

So how to cope? How can we put in place public policies preventing the worsening of climate change without targeting entire sections of the population… to the point of reinforcing denial?

“The challenge is to act for the climate… without necessarily talking about the climate, which can polarize society,” argues Jonathan Mille, teacher-researcher at University College London, in a department dedicated to climate action thanks to neuro science. For example, in the same neighborhood, solar panels will be adopted for ecological reasons… or because they allow you to gain energy autonomy or save money. Research shows that highlighting beneficial actions is much more effective in combating climate change than doomsday speeches. » In short, faced with an emergency, the most important thing is perhaps not to try to convince. The main thing is to find ways to act together, climate skeptics or not, in favor of reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. A stimulating challenge, at a time when French society appears more divided than ever on ecology.