Change (IPCC) and a very large majority of the scientific community have estab- lished that Man s actions are the key factor contributing to the climate changes that will occur this century, and whose first effects are already being felt.

The first six months of 2015 set a new record for the temperature of the planet for more than a century, and the three last decades were, one after the other, the hottest since 1850. At the same time, droughts, heavy rainfall and storms are becoming increasingly frequent in both hemispheres. Fresh water glaciers, which provide essential water supplies for hundreds of millions of people, are continuously shrinking, forecasts state that the level of our seas and oceans will rise significantly, threatening numerous towns, cities and coastal ecosystems, the Arctic Ocean will be free of ice by 2050. There is no need to continue this list of figures and forecasts, which are now already well known.

Our lives, on every continent, are affected. Mobility, production, food 1 and all of our other practices must be reinvented. The first task consists of understanding and explaining the scale of these challenges, with neither ideology nor laxity. This

Maybe we have forgotten this lesson, and become another Modern Prometheus, who today is confronted with the conse- quences of his own actions. Since the first industrial revolution, Man has shattered the fundamental balance of the planet and its ecosystem. Scientific, technolog- ical and industrial progress has been immensely beneficial for Mankind. But the linear economic model, on which this progress is based extract, produce, con- sume, throw away is now obsolete.

Impassable fatalism?

Since pre-industrial times (before 1800), the concentration of CO2 the main gas responsible for global warming produced by human activities has increased by 40%. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

de concentration de CO2 dans l atmosphère depuis l époque préindustrielle. increase in the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere since pre-industrial times.

+ 40 %

1 Dérèglement climatique et sécurité alimentaire Climate change and food security_p.46

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