Datadapt: monitoring resources committed and needs for adaptation to climate change

Context

In France, 2023 was marked by an unprecedented commitment to adapting to climate change. First, the national reference warming trajectory for adaptation to climate change (TRACC) was put out to public consultation. This trajectory considers an average warming level for France of +2°C in 2030, +2.7°C in 2050 and +4°C in 2100 (corresponding to a global warming level of around +3°C in 2100). The consultation was followed by initial discussions on the prefiguration of the next National Plan for Adaptation to Climate Change (PNACC 3).

In 2024, once the new plan will be adopted, an operationalization phase will be necessary. This will have to be based on precise elements that go beyond mere scientific knowledge of the impacts of climate change. We need to have a clear vision of what is already being done to adapt, and above all we need to understand where the gaps are and how to fill them: i.e. identify the additional needs and their cost. As part of the iterative approach inherent in adaptation policy, at each stage we need to prepare the next step and determine the resources to be allocated. 

Objectives

The Datadapt project aims to ensure that up-to-date information is continuously monitored and made available on the public resources committed and the immediate and longer-term needs in terms of France’s adaptation to climate change for around fifteen thematic challenges.
Ultimately, the project aims to set up an ‘economic observatory for adaptation’ that will provide information on:

• Monitoring the human and financial resources mobilized for adaptation;
• Expressing immediate needs and proposing elements for understanding medium- and long-term trajectories for each adaptation challenges. This will be based on the elements already expressed in the Quanti-Adapt and EcoTRACC projects.
• Defining the gaps between needs and the resources actually available, to feed the discussions on the budgets to be allocated to adaptation policies;
• The consolidation of qualitative and quantitative data on the cost of inaction/cost of damage, which will enable stakeholders to better grasp the issues and, above all, to objectively assess the benefits of speeding up adaptation policies.

Among the elements being monitored, specific work will be carried out on structuring public investments that ‘will have to meet the adaptation requirement’. Identifying the flows potentially concerned is only the first step. To make progress towards taking adaptation into account, it is necessary to characterize the adaptation issues more precisely, to draw up an inventory of the possible levers of action to be taken, and to specify how they can be taken and how much they may cost. Much of this work remains to be done at various levels. The first stage of this work will be carried out as part of this project, to better characterize the process that will ensure that the adaptation of priority flows is properly taken into account, and to provide a more accurate picture of the progress made by investment operators in this process. 

Partners 

Project conducted with the support of the Bureau de l’Adaptation au Changement Climatique du Ministère de la transition écologique, ADEME and CGDD.

Périod

March 2024 – September 2025