“Climate change kills more and more. It has claimed more than 20,000 lives in Spain in five years.” The President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, wanted to specify the seriousness of the climate emergency with this information, during his speech at the meeting of leaders of the climate summit, in Belém, in the Brazilian Amazon. Specifically, he recalled the dana, the deadly torrential rains that killed more than 200 people in Valencia, and the endless heat waves.
“To those who believe in science: you can count on Spain,” added the president, who has proclaimed that climate change “not only kills, but impoverishes.” In three years it has caused 44 billion losses in the European Union. Faced with this reality, President Sánchez has defended that we should not be on the defensive against denialist speeches.
Sánchez landed last night in Belém, in the Brazilian Amazon, to participate this Thursday in the event organized by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as a prelude to COP30. Sánchez will be one of the first to intervene on this second day. He will do so after the family photo and the first speaker, who is the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin. The Spaniard will be followed by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and dozens of leaders or government emissaries, including those from Russia and India.
Along with the national speeches, the summit hosts two parallel sessions, in which some 40 leaders participate and which are held behind closed doors. The first will be dedicated to the energy transition and the intervention of President Sánchez is scheduled, who will then give a press conference.
Spain arrives in Belém with the idea of presenting its energy transition model which, it emphasizes, meets climate objectives while contributing to economic growth and generating jobs. The Sánchez Government would have liked the emissions goals, agreed by the European Union this week after a tough negotiation, to have been more ambitious. The Twenty-Seven by 2040 in relation to half a century earlier, but with concessions to the most reluctant countries in order to close the agreement. This binding objective will mark the EU’s environmental and economic policy for 15 years.
After the Amazon summit, President Sánchez travels to Santa Marta (Colombia) to participate on Saturday in the summit between the EU and CELAC (The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States), in which Lula will also be present. The Brazilian made his participation conditional on those gathered discussing the large military deployment of the United States against Venezuela.
