Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has announced a 10-point plan to prepare the country for the climate emergency, warning: “If we don’t want to bequeath our children a Spain that’s grey from fire and flames, or a Spain that’s brown from floods, then we need a Spain that’s greener.”
Sánchez said August’s heatwave-fuelled wildfires – which killed four people, burned through an area six times the size of Ibiza and required “the biggest human and technical deployment” ever seen in Spain – showed that immediate action must be taken to mitigate the effects of the climate crisis.
He said waiting any longer would be dangerous and expensive, and he criticised those who deny the realities of global heating in Spain. Over the past five years, he said, the climate emergency had caused more than 20,000 deaths and cost the public purse €32bn (£28bn) in material losses.
“We need to mobilise as a society against climate change, which is a common enemy that lies beyond ideologies,” he said. “Climate change kills. It kills. And that’s why we have to be aware of everything it represents in terms of insecurity and in terms of the risks it poses to our lives.
“The climate change denial that’s coming from an important part [of society] – and which is growing as a result of the lies spread on social networks by some members of our political class – is as incomprehensible as it is worrying.”
He proposed a series of initiatives including a state civil protection agency to coordinate crisis responses, a network of climate refuges across the country and a rethink of forest management and land use. Only by acting now, he said, could the country hope to avert similar disasters or reduce their impacts.
“The biggest opportunity we have right now is to avoid this tragedy – and to do that, we need to do as a US president once advised when he said that the moment to fix your roof is when the sun’s shining and not when it’s raining,” he said.
“I think he was right because these sixth-generation fires that have burned through more than 300,000 hectares in our country aren’t put out in summer; they’re put out in winter and in autumn. They’re put out by working all year.”
Other measures in the socialist-led government’s “state pact to address the climate emergency” include funds to prepare for, and rebuild after, climate-related disasters, improvements to firefighting capacity, a plan to increase water resilience in the face of floods and droughts, and initiatives to fight rural depopulation and thus help keep the land clear of combustible material.
Sánchez said farming would also play an important role in fighting the climate crisis, pointing to the benefits of extensive agriculture, careful grazing and efficient irrigation. The final two measures are promoting a “civic culture of prevention and reaction” and accelerating the green transition.
The plan will be approved in cabinet on Tuesday and put out for public consultation.
