Spain’s floods: warnings on climate change and its impacts on urban planning and natural landscapes, and the legacy of the October 17th DANA event
In September last year, Spain updated the targets in the national energy and climate plan, which includes a goal to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 45% compared with 2005. The European Union average of 31% was exceeded by 39% in the reduction of net emissions.
Spain is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to the impacts of climate change. It is experiencing sharp rises in temperature, increasing 1.5 °C for every 1 °C the world warms. Precipitation is also expected to decline by up to 20% by 2050. The nation will be affected by these changes, and they will affect every sector of the economy from agriculture to construction and tourism.
Last November, at the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) in Baku, the Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, stood before assembled world leaders with a stark warning: “climate change kills”.
Rapid attribution studies3 on the October DANA event linked the severity of the storm to human-driven climate change. These kinds of storm over Spain’s Mediterranean coast are now 15% wetter, producing a further 7 millimetres of precipitation per day, than past storms. A 1.3 C increase in temperature from pre-industrial levels has doubled the likelihood of storms, according to other studies.
Days after the floods, the government introduced a law that gives workers up to four days of paid leave in cases of extreme weather and requires all companies to prepare plans for climate-related emergencies. In Madrid, employees at the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) work to manage Spain’s climate adaptation plans.
Sara Aagesen, third vice president of the national government and head of MITECO, said that most of the floods were related to bad urban planning. Spain’s increasing urban development on floodplains has made the land impermeable to rainwater, and concrete foundations and underground garages further restrict natural drainage. Aagesen says importance must now be placed on rebuilding responsibly and integrating nature-based adaptation measures. Increasing the permeability of the terrain and recovering the space around the river channels are some of the things that can be done. In Alicante and Barcelona, floodable parks are green spaces that are designed to hold flood water and help with drainage.
The ruins of an 11th century church were revealed during the worst dry spell in Catalonia’s history, during which water levels in the Sau Reservoir fell to record lows. The southern region of Andalusia has struggled with drought conditions since 2016, punctuated by short periods of intense rainfall.
His parents lived in Spain when they were young and his sons are living in different places. “The heatwaves in the summer are horrible and long. This wasn’t normal a few years ago.”
Climate Change and Sustainable Olive Production in the Balearic Islands: How Tourism and Human Rights Impact Climate Change on the Economy and the Future of Sustainable Development
Political mudslinging has dominated the talk after the DANA. Zorrilla laments that fighting between parties has overshadowed a discussion of the problems, or what must be done now to avoid worse consequences in the future.
Misinformation and hoaxes have been another obstacle to productive discourse. Misinformation is one of the most serious threats facing our society. “Networks full of false information contaminate the possibility of making well-informed decisions,” she says.
I am working on long-term approaches to support sustainable olive production in the face of climate change. The World Olive Germplasm Bank contains genetic material from hundreds of olive varieties in 29 countries. I look at which olive varieties are the most resistant to heat stress.
Climate change affects every sector of the economy. Here on the Balearic Islands, the summers are dry and hot, and these conditions will only get worse with climate change. A line of research focuses on how tourism contributes to climate change, and it’s also one of the industries that’s highly vulnerable to it.
Some people suggest that we need less tourists but still have an unfair system. Furthermore, a person with a big mansion, an aeroplane and a boat has a much larger carbon footprint than does a less wealthy tourist. The government can’t keep building infrastructure because it uses a lot of materials and creates a lot of waste. It is not sustainable.
In mainstream economics, people are looking for solutions in green technologies, such as electric cars and solar power, but the production of green technologies generates lots of carbon emissions and is still limited by the availability of mineral resources. Solving climate change has to involve reversing the current socio-economic system. We need to forget about gross domestic product as a metric of social well-being. We need to imagine a different society in which we have values that take into the account human rights and the biophysical limits of Earth. It is hard work. But if we don’t do it, we’re not going to make it.
Sea life in a global warming era: a tribute to Paolo, Lucrezia, Migdal, Fossil
In 1999, I witnessed an event of sea life that died due to high temperatures in the Mediterranean Sea. It hit the French and Italian coastlines, causing about 30 species including corals, sponges and molluscs. I dedicated my career to studying the effects of climate change after seeing it happen, when I was a PhD student in marine ecology.