Essay by Eric Worrall
“… opposition parties have rejected Sánchez’s plans for a “state pact” to prepare Spain for the climate emergency. …”
‘Climate change kills’: Pedro Sánchez speaks plain truth to Spain’s deniersPM has long history of speaking out on realities of global heating but political opponents remain unnmoved
Sam Jones in Madrid
Sun 2 Aug 2026 14.00 AEST
…That summer’s blazes had left two people dead in the northern region of Castilla y León and another man there fatally burned after the excavator he was using to try to dig a firebreak to protect his town was swallowed up by the flames. A street-sweeper in Madrid had collapsed and died from heatstroke while on shift in soaring temperatures that summer. The paramedics who tried to save him noted that his body temperature was 41.6C (107F).
“I want to make something very clear,” the prime minister told reporters in Extremadura that day in 2022. “Climate change kills: it kills people, as we’ve seen; it also kills our ecosystem, our biodiversity, and it also destroys the things we as a society hold dear – our houses, our businesses, our livestock.”
…
On Monday, Spain’s conservative People’s party (PP) accused the government of using the “mantra” of climate crisis to mask its “poor management” of natural disasters.
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On Wednesday, a Vox MEP, Jorge Buxadé, attempted to push the party’s denial agenda by posting what purported to be an official air ministry document showing that temperatures of more than 44C had been recorded at observation stations around Spain as far back as the 1950s.
Spain’s state meteorological office, Aemet, responded on social media by pointing out that the document was a fake.
“We’ve reviewed the data, and all but one station’s data are false,” said Aemet. “If they were true, they wouldn’t deny climate change: there were heatwaves before, but now they’re more frequent and intense.”
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/aug/02/climate-change-kills-pedro-sanchez-speaks-plain-truth-to-spains-deniers
The Guardian’s own article demonstrates opposition accusations of gross negligence by the current Spanish government may hold merit.
“… another man there fatally burned after the excavator he was using to try to dig a firebreak to protect his town was swallowed up by the flames …” – why wasn’t the firebreak already excavated?
The obvious explanation is official negligence – a failure to prepare. This may not be the right explanation, maybe a second emergency firebreak was being dug because the fire jumped the first break. But even if this is the case, it does make you wonder why fire defences were so inadequate.
The repeated mantra of “rural abandonment” being the reason for fuel buildup shouldn’t have prevented forestry work in those regions, if that work could help prevent fires becoming so severe – even easier to maintain forests if there is nobody around to complain.
I’m so fed up with negligent left wing governments blaming climate change for their own failures. I see it all the time in my native Australia, so the apparent effort by Prime Minister Sanchez to deflect blame for his green incompetence by blaming climate change seems all too familiar.
