While Donald Trump, president of the United States, has decided to abandon the Paris Agreement, the effects of climate change continue to be felt around the world. In Spain we will have many problems to adapt if the global average temperature continues to increase.
You might think that the rise in the level of evil or the melting of glaciers have nothing to do with the country, but we would be wrong as warned by the report »Facts and figures for a Law on Climate Change and Energy Transition» prepared by he Sustainability Observatory.
Spain is a country very vulnerable to climate change. Its effects are testing a large number of animal and plant species, such as the ptarmigan, chameleon or grouse, which have a reduced movement and are demanding with the conditions of their ecological niche.
On the other hand, the country is one of the few territories in the European Union in which scientific evidence offers a reduction of agricultural productivity.
With the increase in temperatures and the melting of glaciers, the rise in sea level is another of the great challenges of the Spanish territory. A report from the Ministry of the Environment foresees that water will invade 8% of the north face of the peninsular coast and the Alboran Sea in the next three decades, which is a rise of 20 centimeters.
Is anything being done to tackle climate change? Not too much. The latest data available from the European Environment Agency reveals that between 1990 and 2014 total carbon dioxide emissions increased by 17,5%, while in the whole of the European Union they fell by 23%. In 2015, 40,4% of total CO2 emissions came from power generating plants or the oil industry.
Thus, it is the European country that needs to buy more emission rights in proportion to its emissions. At the stroke of the check book, it can "offset" the 65 million tons it sent into the atmosphere in 2015 alone. It is a pity that it has not yet been understood that a clean and living nature cannot be bought.
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