Using foresight exercise to design adaptation policy to climate change: the case of the French wine industry.
L'utilisation par la viticulture française d'un exercice de prospective pour l'élaboration d'une stratégie d'adaptation au changement climatique.
Résumé
Foresight studies are regularly conducted at sectoral or
geographical scales, in order to help policy makers and
economic actors to define their strategy of adaptation to
climate change (CC).
Some studies are rather “quick exercises”, in which
a panel of experts is consulted to define the expected
impacts of CC and to identify adaptation leviers for future
policy. In other cases, a true foresight methodology is
developed, leading to the building of scenarios based
on : i) a systemic and participatory approach, ii) the
definition of key variables, iii) the choice of assumptions
and the coherent relations between these assumptions, the
narrative description of scenarios.
This participatory dimension of the approach may be
relevant to better integrate the climate change challenge
into future strategies chosen by decision makers.
Such an exercise was conducted in the framework of
the multidisciplinary INRA / LACCAVE research project
(2013–2017) to consider the CC adaptation strategy that
could be implemented in the French wine industry by 2050.
This communication presents the outcomes and
insights opened up by this prospective exercise, based
on a new approach derived from the scenarios method,
following two main steps :
1) The first step consists of a “classical”, topdown,
expert-led prospective approach, including
the selection of four possible adaptation scenarios
; it was presented at the OIV Congress in Bento
Gonc¸alves in 2016.
2) The second step is based on a bottom-up
participatory approach with regional and national
stakeholders during six regional meetings. Each
meeting brought together 60 to 100 actors invited
to interact on four scenarios and on solutions that
could be developed : the “Conservative scenario”
driven by incremental changes ; the “Innovative
scenario” driven by the development of a wide range
of technical innovations ; the “Nomad scenario”
focusing on the relocation of vineyards ; the
“Liberal scenario” where “everything would be
possible anywhere”.
A national working group has been set up by INAO1
and FranceAgriMer2, inviting the main national wine
organizations to analyze the information collected during
the regional meetings. This working group aims at making
proposals to design the future climate strategy of the
sector, taking into account the inter-regional diversity of
situations.
The participants expressed common positions (perception
of limited resilience of the wine industry, increasing
need for innovation, opposition to the relocation of
vineyards...), but regional specificities were also noted (for
example : development of irrigation in the south of France
or calls for new research on pest control in other French
regions). The large majority of stakeholders wanted to
favor the pathway to the innovative scenario, with several
regional variations.
This foresight exercise generated a greater stakeholder
awareness of the CC issue, leading to the implementation
of collective actions at different scales. Its findings
will provide significant support to the wine industry in
developing a national climate strategy, taking into account
regional specificities.