There was never an information blackout and the warning system did not fail. It is one of the main messages that the third vice president and Minister of Ecological Transition transmitted this Wednesday. Teresa Ribera during his appearance in Congress. The defense of the actions of the organizations dependent on his ministry in the face of criticism from the PP has been one of the backbones of his intervention.
Ribera has defended that both the AEMET and the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation (CHJ) They made the pertinent notices about DANA based on their powers on October 29. “The relevant question is whether the warnings occurred. The data indicates that they did,” he stated. In this sense, he recalled that there were institutions, such as the University of Valencia, that took prior measures such as suspending classes.
The minister has given an account of the events that occurred since Sunday, October 27, two days before the tragedy. Among the data provided, it was highlighted that the CHJ issued up to 198 emails to the Civil Protection authorities of the Valencian Generalitat on the same day, October 29.
In the chronology of events, Ribera recalled that the AEMET red notice It occurred at 7:36 a.m. and was extended until 5:43 p.m. All this information was transmitted to the Civil Protection services dependent on the Valencian Generalitat. The communications included those relating to Forata and the Poyo ravine. This meant, as Ribera highlighted, the activation of the hydrological alert in the Poyo rambla and in the Magro and Júcar rivers.
Teresa Ribera has also come out to combat some hoaxes and misinformation spread by the right and extreme right. “Contrary to what has been falsely spread, no dams have been eliminated but some obsolete weirs have been removed, which worsen the functionality of the rivers in difficult times,” he highlighted.
Meanwhile, the PP deputy, Ester Muñoz, has demanded that Ribera leave the position of european commissioner if he ends up having to give explanations in court for the management of DANA. Curiously, in the middle of the appearance, it has been confirmed that the European People’s Party (EPP) will vote in favor of Ribera against the criterion proposed by Alberto Núñez Feijóo.
The representative of Compromís has intervened on behalf of Sumar Agueda Micó. The Valencian leader has come out against the PP’s accusations that the Valencian left did not live up to the DANA’s previous years and did not clean the Barranco del Poyo of canes. Micó has reminded the popular that in the years 2017 and 2022, the PP, and also the PSOE, voted against Compromís amendments for the adaptation and drainage of the Barranco del Poyo.
Besides, Micó has harshly attacked Feijóo for keeping Carlos Mazón in officewho “eliminated the Unitat Valenciana d’Emergències and renounced help from other territories in the key days after DANA.”
Alert against climate change
During his appearance he also focused on the phase of reconstruction of the areas affected by DANA. There are different measures, already approved in the royal decrees, which you have listed. In addition, he has remembered some “important” data to understand the situation.
“The temperature data is worrying“, he highlighted. “The next decade will be the warmest ever recorded,” he added. “The melting of glaciers, the rise in sea level and the warming of the oceans are accelerating more than expected. “The Mediterranean basin is warming 20% faster than the rest of the planet,” he insisted.
“We have taken important steps that require us to continue developing measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” he noted. Ribera invites us to work in a united manner and “not waste a minute in undermining the credibility of science and institutions“.
During his turn to reply, Ribera made it ugly that they were heard, on the part of PP and Vox, comments on “climate dogmatism.” “It is a bad start in the reflection process in preparation for extreme weather events,” he noted. “It is not true that the AEMET said that the alert would end at 6:00 p.m.,” he told Muñoz, a PP deputy. “The information system worked,” he insisted several times.
It has also come out against the false information given by the PP on the Forata dam. “Fortunately it did not break, the water relief does not go to the Poyo, it goes to the Magro. Perhaps if we had had a representative of the PP of Valencia she would have known this information. What did overflow was a dam owned by the Valencian Generalitat,” has stood out.
“Feel honored to have been proposed as a candidate for European commissioner. My responsibility is to work to perform my duties well, to prepare a good exam,” concluded Ribera, practically as a farewell to the Lower House before joining the European Commission.
After her, the PP through Muñoz has not changed its strategy and has once again indicated that his administration will end in the courts. “Do you plan to resign if you are accused by DANA or by Aldama so as not to drag the Commission?” he stated. A line that Vox has also maintained during its interventions.
In his last intervention, Ribera has defended the autonomous State and the powers of each administration and has once again attacked climate denialism and the dangers it poses.
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