This Thursday, Céline Tellier, Walloon Minister for the Environment, was the guest of Fabrice Grosfilly at 7h50 on Bel RTL. The minister talked regarding climate change. “Each year is the previous year’s record“, she explains. The Minister specifies that the climatic situation that we know is “both a new reality“.
Climate change impacts us on a daily basis through the dry grasslands we see, forest fires, lack of water in rivers or floods, for example.
The worse ishe in front we? “In any casewe must both realize that this is a new normal and not resign ourselves to it“, she says. According to the Minister, we must mobilize to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, adapt and take into account these climate changes.
As Minister of the Forest, Céline Tellier wishes to “preserve all risks” in terms of forest fires. “It is likely that we will have to close some sections of the Walloon forest (…) to avoid the risk of fire (…) It might concern the D’Anlier forest“, she announces.
The Walloon government also wants to be able to order water restrictions
A new meeting of the drought expertise unit of the regional crisis center is scheduled for this Thursday at the start of the followingnoon. Experts will provide a new update on the situation while temperatures are still very high and rain is extremely rare. Currently, 19 municipalities are still subject to water restrictions.
In this regard, the Minister of the Environment indicates that the Walloon government plans to equip itself with the possibility of ordering restrictions on the use of water in the event of drought, a prerogative hitherto exclusively communal.
As for the underground water reserves available to all Walloons, “we have no particular alert”. “The reserves of course are decreasing, but we remain in sufficient winter refills.” It is for surface water (rivers) and impacts for farmers, forests and natural areas that the signs are “much more disturbing”according to Ms. Tellier.