By Alyssa McMurtry
OVIEDO, Spain (AA) - Spain has lost more than 20,000 lives and €32 billion ($37 billion) to climate-related disasters in the past five years, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Monday, as he unveiled a national plan to confront climate change.
“Saving one euro in prevention only to spend a hundred in response and a thousand in recovery makes no sense,” he said, adding that heat-related deaths in Spain have risen 17% in five years and wildfires are burning three times more land.
This August, wildfires scorched 330,000 hectares (815,000 acres) of land – six times the size of Ibiza – and killed four people.
"We have had a clearly insufficient fire prevention policy," Sanchez said, citing overstretched fire brigades, poor land and water management and a lack of advanced forecasting tools.
Opening the political season in Madrid, Sanchez called for a state pact to adapt to the warming planet, urging opposition parties to cooperate despite his status as a minority government leader.
Among the proposals he said the cabinet will approve on Tuesday and form a subcommittee to study, he announced plans for a new civil protection and emergency agency to coordinate responses, as well as climate refuges in towns and cities to help citizens cope with extreme heat.
Other proposals include creating permanent reconstruction funds with national and regional resources, reinforcing firefighting brigades, promoting reforestation with mixed and resilient species, encouraging extensive livestock farming and efficient irrigation and prioritizing “water resilience” to tackle floods and droughts.
He said the government will begin consultations with political groups, regional administrations, trade unions, scientists, farmers and environmental organizations to shape the national pact.
“The whole of society,” he said, must be involved.
The prime minister also said Spain would seek cooperation with neighboring countries.
“The fires we suffered this year also affected Portugal. Therefore, we will propose to Portugal and France that we work together on this pact. And we will tell the European Commission that we must do everything except backtrack on ecological transition,” he said.
The proposals have been welcomed by scientists and environmental groups, according to Spanish daily El Pais.
However, skepticism remains over whether Spain’s polarized political climate will allow such a pact. Opposition leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo has already signaled reluctance to join the initiative, calling on Sanchez to resign if he fails to pass the budget this month.