The scientific community has been warning about the danger of the climate crisis for decades. Data, research and reports confirm this indisputable reality. However, the PP-Vox tandem denies the biggest, decreasing resources directed to environmental policies. The result? Public services incapable of preventing and addressing disasters like the DANA in Valencia –which has left more than 150 dead at the time of publication of this piece–, according to experts, activists and politicians.
The researchers of World Weather Attribution have concluded in an analysis that the climate emergency has doubled the probability of this DANA happening and has made rainfall 12% stronger. Although it is not a complete study like the one usually carried out by the organization, it supports the theses of scientists which indicate how warming of the atmosphere increases humidity, which results in more intense rains.
Furthermore, another study by the same organization published this Thursday concludes that the climate crisis intensified the ten deadliest extreme weather events of the last 20 years – between 2004 and 2023 – and contributed to more than 570,000 deaths.
“The Valencia catastrophe is a model case study of the dismantling of environmental public policies,” he declares to Public Agnes Delageprofessor of social sciences at the University of Aix-Marseille and member of Scientific Rebellion.
The expert regrets that the PP-Vox tandem undertook an “ecological counter-reform” upon arriving at the Botànic. In this sense, “the closure of the Valencian Emergency Unit (SVU) is going to go down in history as a symbol of the criminal responsibility of Carlos Mazón,” he criticizes.
“People are realizing how good all this would have been for us,” he says. Juan Borderaclimate expert and independent deputy in Les Corts appointed by Compromís. The Department of Justice dismantled the UVE under the mandate of Elisa Núñez, Vox. This initiative, promoted by the Executive of the PSPV, Compromís and United We Cancontemplated the launch of a management unit of an operational nature and coordination of emergencies of the Generalitat.
Mazón boasted at the time about the cuts that Núñez carried out, considering that this project was “just another beach bar.” An attitude that Delage describes as “tragic.” Furthermore, this Tuesday the Generalitat was obliged to ask the central government the activation of the Military Emergency Unit (EMU) to face the situation caused by DANA, which reveals the need for this type of resources.
Bordera also regrets that the duo of the PP and the extreme right have been the ones that “have destroyed the Valencian Waste Management Agency or the Valencian Agency for Climate Change“. In the case of this last agency, also created during the Government of Ximo Puigwent from having a budget of 400,000 euros in 2023 to just 2,000 euros in 2024, a cut of 99.5%. At the time of its launch in February 2023, the opposition – which then formed PP, Citizens and Vox– considered that it was “a new beach bar.”
Under this premise, the extreme right evicts resources that favor citizen protection against the environmental emergency and encourage, instead, investments in other areas such as, for example, bullfighting. Thus, in June of this year, the Department of Culture and Sports of the Valencian Country, which was then headed by the retired Vox bullfighter, Vicente Barreraapproved direct aid to the Fighting Bull Foundation of 300,000 euros for the promotion and implementation of bullfighting activities and celebrations.
The physicist and former delegate of the Aemet in Navarra, Peio Oriaindicates to this newspaper a reduction in personnel in the State’s meteorological services in the last ten or 15 years. “Other European countries have 3,000 workers in these areas, while here we are talking about barely a thousand people,” he laments. Although they are about high level profilesOria insists that “the climate emergency requires more resources, not less.”
“Climate collapse is right now an exclusively political problem,” remarks Delage. The responsibility of parliaments and economic actors It is to develop all human activities within the limits of the planet and in a fair manner. He business as usual takes us to threaten the survival of our species right now“.
For his part, Bordera denounces that “politicians are legislating at the behest of large companies with only short-term benefits in mind.” A practice that is legitimized by misinformation and hoaxeswhich he considers “absolutely crucial” to understand the current panorama with decimated services.
The deputy of Les Corts identifies a link “between the bad decisions that have been made and the little information that the positions of maximum responsibility have about the climate emergency.” Along the same lines, the professor and activist of Scientific Rebellion defends that “extreme right-wing denialism is the most suicidal and radical tendency” of misinformation.
The former AEMET delegate in Navarra considers that misinformation diverts the focus and reduces the level of awareness that citizens may have about the environmental emergency. However, Oria concludes with hope: he trusts that attribution studies, such as the one carried out by the World Weather Attribution, will serve to sensitize the population and combat denialism.
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