Spanish people know deadly heatwaves are now an annual event. So why are our politicians in denial? | María Ramírez
GLaughing in Madrid, intense summer heat was not unusual. I quickly learned to always cross the street in search of the shadows and never to be taken in the sun at 3 p.m. But when I was a child in the early 1980s, I never felt dizzy after spending more than a few minutes outside, and I had no fight to study or sleep at home because of the heat. At the time, air conditioning was a rarity, something only the Americans had. But we were going well: the stammering fan of my mother’s Ford Fiesta was enough to keep us comfortable on vacation in the capital.
What is happening in Spain is now going far beyond discomfort. More than 1,500 deaths have already been linked to heat waves this summer only. Public workers collapse from heat strokes in the streets of our city. Whole communities in the suburbs of Madrid have been devastated by forest fires. Monday, 198 weather stations recorded temperatures of 40 ° C or more. After a July record, the first 20 days of August will probably be the warmest ever recorded. In addition to the housing, the climate crisis is the most visible and persistent problem in Spain: each summer reminds us. You cannot ignore it or escape it; So why are Spanish politicians still so reluctant to fight against climate urgency?
The fight against global heating is a global challenge, but the protection of populations against the consequences – with an awareness that Europe heats up faster than other continents – must also be a national and local priority. In Spain, the climate crisis too often becomes an excuse for superficial and political quarrels. In the population as a whole, there have been years of large popular consensus, but contrasts that with Spanish politicians, for whom the problem has become more and more partisan, with the right and the left arguing the totemic policies on cars and bikes.
Even the government of central coalition of center of Spain, led by the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party of Pedro Sánchez (PSOE), has only taken modest measures to reduce industry and transport emissions. And as they do on other questions, the socialists rush to point the finger at the regional and local governments led by the Popular Conservative Party (PP), supported in some cases by the Vox of the Far Right, which pushed the lies and the theories of the conspiracy on the climate crisis.
It is true that the regional and local governments of Spain, powerful and well funded, also have a great responsibility: the protection of the most vulnerable of extreme heat, the adaptation of public spaces, the planting of trees and the guarantee that there are enough fountains of shadow and water. An urgent necessity is the creation of “cool banks”, especially for people in overcrowded and overheated houses, those who have health vulnerabilities, very young and very old. Valence has a network of these climatic shelters, while Barcelona has drawn hundreds of public spaces where people can escape heat, from libraries to museums.
But too many local governments still cannot provide a respite. Madrid is among the worst offenders. The public cooling centers are almost nonexistent and shopping centers remain the most common refuge. Regional and conservative local governments of the capital have been passive, even hostile, public demands to reduce dangerous heat levels in neighborhoods, with too few green spaces and too many cars. When the Madrid town hall spends money, it often lacks the point: the most absurd example is Puerta del Sol, the central place that after months of renovation always looks like a concrete pan all summer. It was only after protests that the municipal council finally installed some fragile nuances, at the cost of 1.5 million euros.
For Madrileños who have the possibility, the traditional way of making august bearable was to escape the city of the coast. My childhood memories of Summers fresher visiting the grandparents in northern Spain feel very far away. The North still benefits from bearable nights and rain in summer, but heat waves are also more frequent. The change is fast and visible, even in daily life.
This year in the Basque Country, the beach bath was prohibited several times because of the Portuguese O’War, a creature resembling a jellyfish, but which is much more toxic and dangerous. Once confined to warmer Atlantic waters, it has only started to appear here in recent years. During a recent walk along the beach of San Sebastián, I spotted dozens, fortunately tiny, each surrounded in the sand to warn passers -by. More medical and surveillance resources are now devoted to this new threat – another example of the small daily adaptations that we have to make.
The most dramatic consequences of the climate crisis are making the headlines around the world: the tragic death of workers in vulnerable jobs, fruit picking or street cleaning and forest fires killing people, destroying houses and even a mining site in the Roman era – now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. But through Spain, signs are everywhere: crops ruined by hail, high speed trains and districts cooked in heat.
This is the new reality with which we live. It has become a regular element in our calendars. One of my colleagues journalists observed earlier this year that the most important annual climate event for the media is not COP, it is summer. It was in February in the northern hemisphere, and he was already preparing their annual coverage of heat waves. My writing room in Madrid does the same, with ever more sophisticated data and analyzes.
The frustrating question is why our politicians always raise this reality, as if it were a disadvantage. How many beaten files and how many heat of heat will it need to change this?
