Spain’s New Cabinet Declares Climate Change a National Emergency

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and his cabinet have heavily emphasized progressive climate action in the early months of their leadership. (Wikimedia Commons)

Spain’s new coalition government, led by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, declared a national climate emergency on January 21, according to the Associated Press. Spain now joins more than 20 countries that have already enacted similar states of emergency, according to the Hill. 

Spain’s cabinet approved the declaration of climate emergency, which the Spanish parliament will receive within 100 days. The country's current cabinet is built on a coalition with a Socialist alignment, reported the Associated Press.

Voice of America suggests that the bill declaring climate change a national emergency is part of Sanchez’s aggressive plan to address climate change. The bill aims to meet the European Union’s goal of reducing net carbon emissions to zero by 2050, according to the Associated Press. 

Spanish Environment Minister Teresa Ribera was inspired by the French initiative creating a public advisory board to “generate ideas about responding to climate change in an inclusive, consultative way with a special focus on the youth,” according to Voice of America.

Spain’s declaration requires up to 95 percent of the country’s electrical usage to be sourced from renewable sources by 2040, the Associated Press reports. Moreover, it seeks to eliminate pollution caused by buses and trucks.

The declaration also requires investing in carbon neutral farming methods. Further details of Spain’s climate plan will be made public when parliament receives the proposed legislation.

Spain’s recent efforts to make more substantive climate promises come amid large scale protests from climate activists. The AP reports that climate activists in Spain called for “concrete and immediate” climate legislation to be passed by the two main parties in the ruling parliamentary coalition, United We Can and the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), of which Sanchez is a member. The declaration also comes less than a week after Spain’s second-largest city, Barcelona, declared a climate emergency, according to the Independent. Along with the declaration, Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau unveiled more than 103 new measures to cut the city’s greenhouse gas emissions in half by the year 2030. Colau has resonated with many climate activists in Spain and globally by saying, “this is not a drill, the house is on fire." 

While many climate activists celebrated the declaration as a win toward creating a sustainable and carbon-neutral country, others have vowed to continue fighting for further action. FridaysForFuture, a global youth movement founded by international climate activist Greta Thunberg, demanded the government take action against climate change in the Spanish city of Huesca. Moreover, climate activists in Spain are joined by global activists who are calling for immediate change by various world governments in order to take substantial action before it is too late. According to climate scientists in a New York Times report, the 2010s was by far the hottest decade ever measured on Earth.