Climate Iniquities

Insecure Housing and Climate Inequalities

As we know, the poorest countries and individuals are the most directly affected by the consequences of the cumulative emissions produced by the wealthiest countries and individuals.

Today, in France, 20% of homes are considered difficult or too expensive to heat, and these are mainly the homes of the least privileged populations; in the summer of 2022, temperature readings at a home in Aubervilliers, northeast of Paris, indicated temperatures in excess of 122 degrees. This does not qualify as decent living conditions.

When a health crisis or heatwave occurs in a densely populated city, the most privileged residents are able to leave their homes to go to a less-affected area, such as their second home, which is more out of the way or enjoys a milder climate, in the mountains or by the sea. These “voluntary climate travelers” are less beholden to climate fluctuations and the uncertainty they bring. On the other hand, those who have only one home—of which they are rarely the owners–are forced to live in precarious conditions and have no way out: they are “climate prisoners.” Their homes often have construction problems, inadequate insulation, single-aspect orientation, lack of solar protection, and so on. This population, whose housing is ill-suited to climate change, is unable to cope with the related hazards.

To ensure the resistance of all to extreme climate conditions and heatwaves, it is essential we create cross-ventilation in residential buildings that lack it (using ventilation ducts, for example), increase the thickness of facades to generate self-protection from the sun, and employ other solutions. But it is also important to set up equalization systems to allow the best-off new developments to be of benefit to existing ones in the area; to harness some of the budget where engineering skills, financial expertise, and funds are abundant to generate leverage effects and take indirect action where direct action is lacking, as is happening in Bordeaux Euratlantique or on Ile de Nantes.

Taking action on existing housing is therefore not just a matter of mitigating obsolete, energy-hungry buildings. It is a social necessity too, to make them more adapted and resilient, and reduce climate inequalities in the process.