Years and years of climate change denialist and retardation discourse have exploded in the PP in the devastation caused by a DANA that is precisely the result of the climate crisis. A journey that ranges from mockery of José María Aznar’s “climate apocalypse” to the suppression of the Valencian Agency for Climate Change and taxes to raise resources with which to mitigate and adapt to the climate emergency that this year has led to out the president of the Valencian Generalitat, Carlos Mazón. Because attached to the discourse are followed concrete measures of action or inaction.
A starting point in this position of the leaders of the Popular Party on the climate crisis can be found when Mariano Rajoy, chosen as José María Aznar’s successor, spoke on the subject in 2007: “How can someone say what is going to happen in the world in 300 years? Don’t know. It is an issue that we must be very attentive to,” he said. And the phrase he spoke next marked the line: “Nor can we make it the first world problem.”
The truth is that in that same year 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its status report which said – among many conclusions – that “a greater risk of deaths and injuries due to drowning was expected due to floods.” “The alteration in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, added to the rise in sea level, will predictably have extremely adverse effects on natural and human systems,” the document highlighted.
There is dissidence, a denial organized around mostly economic interests or ideological political approaches that generate confusion, misinform and reject or slow down the measures.
Rogelio Fernandez Reyes
— Professor at the University of Seville
“There is dissent from climate action,” explains the professor at the University of Seville, Rogelio Fernández Reyes. “On the one hand, a normal psychological reaction of rejection of the major changes it entails, but also a denial organized around largely economic interests or ideological political approaches that generate confusion, misinform and reject or slow down the measures.” As the scientific consensus and social recognition of the climate crisis have been established, this denialism “has evolved towards other positions. One of them is delayism, which admits the scientific results and the seriousness of the climate challenge, but delays the measures,” analyzes the researcher.
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, stated this Tuesday when announcing an aid package for those affected by DANA that “climate change kills. We have to adapt to that reality.”
The denialist evolution is illustrated by the former President of the Government, José María Aznar, when just one year after Mariano Rajoy, he plunged into the so-called climate skepticism despite the fact that in a memorable intervention at the FAES foundation he assured: “I am not what some call a climate change denier.” The fact is that, immediately afterwards, he added: “I don’t know if there is climate change in which human action is – or not – decisive. “I don’t know because I am not a scientific expert on these issues.”
Then he made it ugly that they wanted to dedicate resources to the fight against climate change: he cried out against what he called “flagbearers of the climate apocalypse” because “they demand that they dedicate hundreds of billions of euros to allocate them to issues as scientifically questionable in their viability as being able to maintain the temperature of planet Earth within limits in a hundred years. And solve a problem that maybe – or maybe not – our great-great-grandchildren have.”
Retardation permeates debates on climate action: opting for minimal actions or offloading responsibility to others. Focus on the socioeconomic effects of climate policies, focusing on short-term disadvantages and threats to livelihoods
William F. Lamb et al
— Discourses of climate retardation (Mercator Institute)
Precisely, containing global warming to less than an extra 1.5°C is the main objective of the 2015 Paris Agreement ratified by 195 of the 198 parties participating in the United Nations Convention on Climate Change.
President Sánchez has insisted, in the midst of the tragedy created by this DANA, that we must be guided by science. “Because it gives us the elements to understand the planet and anticipate public policies that increase security.” “I would like the rest of the regional and local administrations to do the same and not subscribe to irresponsible speeches by deniers of the climate emergency,” said Sánchez. Since the beginning of this emergency caused by the floods, part of the right has dedicated itself to spreading hoaxes and misinformation.
The retardation
“Discourses of retardation permeate debates on climate action,” explains a specific investigation coordinated by William F. Lamb of the Mercator Institute for Climate Change Research. “Retardists opt for minimal actions or offload responsibility onto others. They place the focus on the socioeconomic effects of climate policies, focusing attention on the short-term disadvantages” while affirming that these measures “threaten ways of making a living,” he concluded.
Example: upon becoming president of the Government, Mariano Rajoy announced a climate change law up to three times. One at the Paris Climate Summit, another at the following 2016 COP in Marrakech and a third at a meeting of political leaders in 2017. That law never came.
At the same time, Rajoy’s Minister of Energy, Álvaro Nadal, stated that he had not planned a timetable for disengaging from the thermal power plants: “Closure decreed as such is not contemplated.” In fact, Nadal drafted a decree to prevent electricity companies from closing their thermal plants (and with them the CO2 emissions caused by burning coal).
With the new PP after Rajoy, an evolution in the same direction has been observed. The president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, roared in the Madrid parliament: “Since the Earth has existed, since the beginning, there has always been climate change, there have been cycles. “They cannot continue against scientific evidence because they always have what is called communism in their heads.” He also aired an idea about putting a plant on each balcony as a climate measure.
Out with green taxes and the Climate Agency in Valencia
Precisely, scientific evidence is what has already confirmed how global warming has caused extreme rains (like this DANA) to have multiplied their intensity by four in Spain. Additionally, climate change has most likely made this particular storm twice as likely, according to World Weather Attibution scientists.
Just a few months ago, in March 2024, the president of the Valencian Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, announced to the employers’ association Promotion of Treball that was going to eliminate before birth three taxes included in the law on Climate Change and Ecological Transition of the Valencian Community designed to “tax actions that degrade, violate, produce harmful effects or increase greenhouse gas emissions or increase the vulnerability”. They would also serve to encourage “adaptation to climate change.”
“I will not implement them because they do not help our competitiveness,” justified Mazón, in the wake of the arguments pointed out by William F. Lamb’s research.
“In the Valencian Community there has been a fairly pronounced denial and delay in the speeches that have preceded or accompanied the measures adopted in the last period of regional government,” analyzes Rogelio Fernández Reyes, author of the report for ECODES. Approach to counterargument in the face of climate denialism and retardation. Also, he adds, it would be necessary to analyze “the measures not taken in previous legislatures regarding occupied floodplains.”
The decisions anticlimate The current autonomous government of Carlos Mazón has also struck down the Valencian Agency for Climate Change. First, it reduced its budget from 400,000 to 2,000 euros for this year. And then, he has ordered to repeal the organization by law as of December 31, 2024.
“Retardism is so subtle that it also accompanies us as citizens in our daily habits,” summarizes researcher Fernández Reyes. “With well-differentiated responsibilities, it is necessary to integrate the recognition of climate change, avoiding delays in speeches and in taking measures as soon as possible,” he concludes.
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