Eduardo González
The President of the Government of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, participated this Friday in the summit of Heads of State and Government of the thirtieth United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP30) in Belém, Brazil, where he announced a new Spanish contribution of €45 million to climate multilateralism. This contribution will be distributed among the Adaptation Fund, the Loss and Damage Response Fund, and the Financial Mechanism for Systematic Observations of the World Meteorological Organization.
“In times of climate denial,” it is necessary “to stand on the side of reason and science, and not on the side of denial and, therefore, of imposture,” Sánchez declared at the press conference following COP30, where he addressed the General Plenary of Leaders and attended the second thematic session of the Summit, dedicated to the “Energy Transition.”
According to Sánchez, “Spain, in the last twelve months, has experienced numerous climate emergencies: floods, a devastating DANA storm, wildfires, and unprecedented heat waves. In the last decade, this emergency has already claimed more than 20,000 lives in our country.”
For this reason, the Prime Minister reaffirmed the importance of the State Pact to address the Climate Emergency, formulated by the Government in September, which “I want to reiterate here at COP today, because we must rise to the occasion and achieve a positive future for our children and grandchildren.”
“Spain will continue to be at the forefront, both nationally and internationally,” and in this context, it is necessary “to continue making progress on three priorities of this COP,” Pedro Sánchez continued.
First, Sánchez referred to “mitigation, because we need to agree on how we will achieve our greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets.” “This week, after months of very complex negotiations, we have helped to secure a commitment from the European Union itself to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 90 percent by 2040, a goal that Spain has firmly defended from the outset. With this, we have achieved something important: our country and the EU have reaffirmed their leadership, while demonstrating our commitment to the other countries at this COP,” he declared.
The second priority, he continued, is “adaptation” to the impacts of climate change, “one of the fundamental challenges for our country.” “We must give new impetus to the climate change adaptation agenda, agreeing on a new set of global indicators that will allow us to measure and calibrate the effectiveness of the policies we are implementing to achieve our commitments,” he warned. “Both Spain and the EU maintain that adaptation should have the same political weight as mitigation policies and therefore advocate that the set of indicators agreed here in Belém should be limited, globally applicable and avoid a division between developed and developing countries,” he added.
Financing
Finally, Sánchez cited “financing” as the third priority. “What we hope is that, in the coming weeks, and the Third Vice President and Minister for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (Sara Aagesen) will be present to help achieve this agreement, the Baku-Belém Roadmap will be adopted” so that the “so-called New Collective Quantified Target” of $300 billion annually to support climate action in developing countries can be met globally.
“I am especially proud to be able to convey to other countries, and undoubtedly also to Spanish society that may be unaware of this, that Spain is indeed meeting these financing targets,” he asserted. “We have exceeded our international climate finance target ahead of schedule,” surpassing “€1.7 billion in 2024” (as he explained previously to the COP30 plenary session), and “we are committed to pursuing this target,” he affirmed.
In this regard, Pedro Sánchez announced before the plenary session and reiterated at the press conference that Spain will reaffirm “its commitment to climate multilateralism” through “new contributions totaling 45 million euros, distributed among the Adaptation Fund, the Loss and Damage Response Fund, and the Financial Mechanism for Systematic Observations of the World Meteorological Organization.” “In short, we will continue with this commitment and this climate finance roadmap,” he insisted.
In his address to the plenary session, the Prime Minister also asserted that Spain, along with other countries, has succeeded in “eliminating international financing of fossil fuel projects with public funds” and is making progress “to tax premium-class flights and private jets: it is only fair: those who have more and pollute more should pay their fair share,” he stated.