'No region is safe from climate change: Brittany will not be a climate refuge'

There’s a persistent, widely held belief that the past few weeks have seriously shaken up: the idea that France has certain refuge regions, safe havens from global warming. To cite the most emblematic example, who hasn’t heard, and not always as a joke, that Brittany would serve as the last bastion of coolness in the age of global warming?

The repeated heatwaves that have hit France since May proved this is not the case. No region is immune to climate change. Brittany will not be a climate refuge. This is not to deny that some areas may experience lower temperatures than others during certain heatwaves, which is sometimes the case in Normandy or northern France. But Brittany, too, is facing “climate insecurity,” referring to the term coined by engineer Alexandre Florentin, just as those other regions are.

A study conducted by the state-run Brittany Climate Observatory found that in a France that is 4°C warmer – the current trajectory for 2100 – temperature records in Brittany could reach 50°C in some places. Up to six heatwaves could occur in a single year; the number of days with conditions favorable for forest fires would increase by 25 per year; soil drought would last at least a month longer and be 47% more intense; and in summer, river flows would drop by 37% compared to the 1976-2005 period.

‘Illusion of protection’

The list goes on. The findings of the study came as a shock when they were presented last summer to Brittany’s elected officials and their administrations, as recounted by the study’s lead author, Pierre d’Arrentières, interviewed for our book Gérer l’inévitable: repères face à la dérive climatique (“Managing the Inevitable: Guidelines for Facing Climate Drift,” 2026, untranslated). Many local officials expressed surprise at the time, “as if a lot of people were discovering the subject for the first time,” he said.

These reactions highlight a real risk: a false sense of protection. This is not unique to Brittany. Recent research from the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] in Normandy, for example, shows that only 52% of Normans said they felt the effects of climate disruption in their daily lives, compared with 71% nationally, according to a 2023 Odoxa survey. While these perceptions are based on undeniable facts, they are also misleading. The illusion of protection can delay adaptation efforts. Researcher Julien Reveillon of the University of Rouen-Normandy described in an article published on The Conversation an “unrealistic optimism bias” in Normandy, stemming from “a significant gap in perception of climate disruption.”

You have 56.13% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.