“Climate change kills“. It was with these words that Pedro Sánchez began his speech at the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) of the United Nations on climate change. The President of the Government recalled that, just last year, this put ended the lives of more than 47,000 people around the world and “has just contributed to the death of more than 220 of my compatriots.
Preliminary investigations, recalled Sánchez, guarantee that a DANA like the one suffered on October 29 in the Valencian Community would not have been possible without climate change. “This existential threat is obvious to everyone,” he insisted, pointing the finger directly at climate deniers and leaders who do not consider the environmental crisis an emergency.
Despite this, he said, “we see many governments hesitating, slowing down and even reversing” their climate ambitions. This, as you pointed out, is intolerable. Because “we know what the problem is”, all that remains is to get to work.
The solution, recalled the President of the Government, is simpler than it seems: ““We must not give up on abundance or return to the Stone Age.” On the contrary: “We must rethink our relationship with the planet”.
Because “it is not a question of decreasing, but of growing in a different, more sustainable and therefore more responsible way” with the planet and with the rest of the countries.
Sánchez insisted that Spain is already demonstrating that the ecological transition can be an “engine of the economy”. And it targets a 40% reduction in the country’s emissions and consumption of natural resources.
His speech was further accompanied by a sort of plea: “I ask you not to listen to those who tell you that the ecological transition is incompatible with well-being or that it is bad for the middle and working classes. Quite the contrary. » And he stressed that the most economically vulnerable social strata are also those who suffer the greatest impact from the consequences of climate change.
Pedro Sánchez also wanted to remember the victims of the Valencian DANA, because the brutality of this cold drop has a lot to do with the climate crisis. It is for this reason that he added: “At this moment there is only one thing as important as helping the victims of Valencia: preventing more natural tragedies like this from happening again “.
And he concluded with a message to his counterparts and the negotiators in Baku: “As one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change, I ask you to move forward. Let’s save the lives of our citizens, save their economies and save the planet“.
