The red-hot issue in the Spanish elections should be climate, not culture wars

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Luckily, the weather cooled down for last Sunday’s Spanish elections. With the third heatwave of summer over, temperatures in the hottest regions had dropped from the low 40s to a mere 39C or so. Still, voting itself was dangerous. Polling stations in boiling La Rambla, near Córdoba in the south, were kitted out with traditional earthenware drinking jugs. Elsewhere, voting booths were moved to air-conditioned spaces.

The election ended in a stalemate between the right and the left. More than that, though, the results offered an interesting insight into how voting changes once climate change becomes a “now” problem. The answer: it doesn’t.

I spent last year in Madrid, had a lovely time and left feeling that Spain’s biggest problem was obviously climate change rather than, say, what percentage of lessons in Catalan schools are taught in Spanish. A hot, dry country keeps getting hotter and drier. Parts of Spain are the driest they have been in over a millennium.

A hot, dry country keeps getting hotter and dryer. Some farmers didn’t even bother to sow this spring

The Spanish climate crisis could become existential, but is already hurting a low-productivity economy that monetises its natural endowment in the form of agriculture and tourism. Take olive oil, a Spanish export since well before the birth of Christ. Spain typically produces half the world’s supply. This year, its expected harvest has halved. Exports of strawberries and raspberries increasingly rely on farmers sinking illegal wells in places like the Doñana wetlands, which are fast becoming the Doñana drylands. Some Spanish farmers didn’t even bother to sow this spring, which was the hottest on record. About one-fifth of Spain has desertified. That could rise to three-quarters.

And in what was, pre-Covid 19, the world’s second-most visited country, beach tourism looks doomed. Once you’ve attempted a beach holiday in 40C heat, or watched other people attempt one, you won’t try another. If Spain were a company, the consultants would say: “Your business model no longer works. Either pivot or close the thing down.”

Yet climate barely came up in this election, except in the far-right Vox party’s performative denial. In a pre-election poll by Ipsos for La Vanguardia newspaper, 31 per cent of respondents said “the most urgent issue” was the economy. Two per cent named immigration. One per cent named climate change.

Instead of climate, the campaign was dominated by two culture wars. One is centuries old: unitary Spain versus rebellious regions. The other, around gender, feminism and LGBTQ+, has come up the rails fast. Most foreign attention had focused on the expected entry into government of the provocateurs of Vox, until it lost 19 of its 52 seats and slumped into irrelevance with 12 per cent of the vote. Even had the party become a junior coalition partner, it would have spent more energy making symbolic statements (for instance, removing Catalan-language children’s magazines from libraries) than changing policy.

This should be called the Don’t Look Up election, after the 2021 movie about ignoring climate change. Spanish voters aren’t alone in missing the point. Elections everywhere tend to be more about “Who am I and who do I hate?” than “How should we change our country?” But if the election is rerun soon, as many expect it will be, let’s hope that second question gets an airing. Voters need to decide how Spain handles its permanent climate emergency. It should keep advocating for climate action in ineffectual international forums, but that won’t make the difference. Spain isn’t China, the US or even Saudi Arabia. It can’t change the world. It can only change Spain.

Most urgently, the country needs a plan to save its south, where tourism and agriculture will fade. Spain has to cool down its cities by filling them with trees, but even then, Andalucía in particular might become too hot to live in during summer. With average annual incomes of €10,703, most Andalucíans cannot afford to adapt. Spain needs to prepare for internal migration to the cooler north. (Tourists will migrate too. Here’s a free idea for entrepreneurs: open hotels on Spain’s lovely northern coast.)

Spain’s most promising future is as a renewables superpower. The country’s sunny, windy, depopulated interior — “España vacía”, or “empty Spain”— is filling with solar panels and wind turbines. Longer term, they could produce green hydrogen for export.

The country also needs to brace for the arrival of climate refugees from north and west Africa. But Spain is already generating its own climate refugees, starting with its fish, who have begun voting with their fins, abandoning their warming habitats for cooler climes. Spanish humans may eventually follow.

Follow Simon on Twitter @KuperSimon and email him at [email protected]

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