The director of the Ecology and Global Change Group of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Fernando Valladares, was yesterday the focus of the conference ‘Eco Vision 2022’ for climate change organized at the Club Diario de Ibiza by Sant Josep en Transició and Jesús en Transició. The ecologist visited with this newspaper at the Hotel Ses Figueres, where he is staying, on the seafront. A few minutes before the interview, he was enjoying the terrace watching the small promenade next to the shore that connects with Talamanca beach.
Does this bay have an expiration date?
It has no future with the rising sea level and we are talking about three decades at the most. The storms, which are going to increase, will also eat up infrastructures close to the sea and promenades. In addition to the rise in sea level itself, there is the concept of sea overflow, which is the number of days per year that the sea is out of place. The relationship between the two phenomena is exponentially accentuated by climate change.
Is there still time to correct climate change?
There is always time to act, but the longer we delay taking courageous decisions, the less solutions we will have at our disposal or the less time we will have. If more heed had been paid to the first serious alarm bells about climate change 40 years ago, we would be in a better position. Having postponed decisions affecting fossil fuels and energy use for so long, we find ourselves in an awkward position with climte change. It is the same with Agenda 2030, which has made very little progress in these seven years on the climate change aspects, which is moving faster than the measures taken to combat it.
What would you have thought if you were told two years ago that the European Union was going to propose a return to the use of coal?
I would never have imagined it. I have believed in Europe as a project and I have now received a couple reality checks. The first one was with the economic crisis, when the northern countries started to talk about the pigs [Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain] and to show this pejorative treatment towards the south. It was already a warning that friends are lost when money is involved. Europe boasted of being very green on energy, but now it is leading the way back to coal and creating a new taxonomy for nuclear and gas to be considered clean. This is a complete fraud based on putting economics before politics and people. The Community Agricultural Policy is another scam, because it is incompatible with the emission reductions of the Paris Agreement. The Energy Charter Treaty is a great shame for Humanity and a blank check for the energy sector, because it incapacitates the urgent energy transitions that must be undertaken.
What solutions are feasible to mitigate the effects of climate change on islands like Ibiza and Formentera?
Many times there is posturing and ‘greenwashing’ to mask growth. In this case, the economic model should be put on the table, based on tourism that is not very sustainable despite the ecotax. Being islands, their connectivity depends mostly on airplanes, whose days are also numbered for tourist use to which we are accustomed with cheap tickets. It is an uncomfortable truth, but it will end up happening and there are only two options: wait for it to arrive and pretend that nothing is happening or plan a staggered transition, which is the most reasonable thing to do even if it is not done. It is enough to see how our own government, which should reduce the use of fossil fuels, indiscriminately lowers 20 cents a liter of gasoline.
For the full article, please visit Diario de Ibiza website here.