The effects of the climate emergency (desiccation of Doñana, drought…) have suddenly burst into Spanish political life, although for many years scientists have been warning about the vulnerability of extensive Spanish territories to of climate change.
Doñana has opened Pandora’s box, because she synthesizes the contradictions that exist between the passions unleashed by water and the veneration generated by a mythical space with a conservation that depends on water resources.
In Spain there are other Doñanas of unequal intensity. The complaint to the TC of the Valencian Community against the Tagus hydrological plan (which fixes the ecological flow in this river and will reduce its transfers to the Spanish southeast) or the frustrated water pact in Catalonia show that the wars of the water and solidarity follow each other in cyclical periods of alternating tension. The drought brings new challenges, such as the traumatic situation of the irrigators of the Canal d’Urgell (Segre), who cut off the irrigation, and are forced to remove the fruits and to give up the harvest so that the stressed and thirsty trees can survive in the future .
The municipal and regional elections will make it possible to measure the footprint of the Greta generation, the degree of young people’s demand for more climate action or the popular judgment that the response to heat waves deserves. The role of the private car in the city, air pollution, the definition of low-emission urban areas, green spaces and super-islands will be matters that will be on the table in the local elections. And in the same way, the rapid implementation of wind farms raises the voice of those who want a clean and participative energy model.
But all these views will be reflected in the mirror of the dry lagoons of Doñana, where the two major actors (PSOE and PP) have entered into a loop and have dragged even the respective political families, the popular and social democrats into the Eurochamber.
Even so, the debates on forestry threaten to become a vicious circle if a previous premise is not accepted, which is not political, but physical: now it is a question of assuming the limits imposed by the availability of water. Electoral campaigns are lavish in promises of all kinds (including the idea of ​​transferring water that does not exist, as with the PP and Vox proposal on Doñana), but the pre-electoral agitation will also have to adapt to climate change , especially when it conditions hydrological plans with diminishing resources.
But despite the evidence of the climate crisis, the mantra of water for everyone still persists. For this reason, in this dispute, two opposing models are confronted. On the one hand, the historical and political inertia in Andalusia continues to emphasize continuing to offer water to the agricultural industry (even turning a blind eye to the hundreds of illegal wells), as if it were an infinite good, and to on the other side are the defenders of the new water culture (savings, efficiency, reuse, brake on unsustainable irrigation demand…), convinced that water is no longer the property of irrigators alone. It is key to remember that it was the WWF organization that denounced the illegal extraction of water, the judgment of the Court of Justice of the EU against Spain (June 2021) for the overexploitation of the aquifer began of Doñana and has activated this tsunami that travels from Huelva to Lithuania via Brussels.
The court decision forces the European Commission to be the guarantor of community environmental law, guardian of the protection measures required to save the wetland and put an end to the FarWestal law around Doñana.
Goaded by Vox in its eagerness to dispute the political space of certain farmers, the PP has presented a proposal to legitimize the illegal irrigation systems around Doñana blinded by an inopportune calculation in its assault on the Provincial Council of Huelva. His plan comes when the national park is in a “critical” situation and avoiding that the priority response is to comply with the European ruling that obliges to put an end to that overexploitation in order to avoid that the infringement file (which continues open) result in a painful fine in Spain.
Although they are moved by the panic of suffering this sanction (if the PP and Vox’s law proposal advances), the PSOE leadership is, despite everything, comfortable in the dialectical battle with the Junta. Thus, he draws a PP cornered by Europe and denier of the climate crisis; and the noise of politics is de-Madridized, removing Ayuso from a stellar role. The PSOE, during years of management in Andalusia, let the problem fester (as shown by the lack of cash in the Guadalquivir Confederation to control illegal wells). Now, the state leadership is showing its turn in front of the Andalusian PSOE and assumes for the first time that it is necessary to put a limit on new irrigation in the area.
Minister Teresa Ribera rejects the dialogue with the Board, since “we do not negotiate on illegal proposals”, but she knows that she will have to speak if she wants to redevelop the Doñana region with a comprehensive plan beyond the framework of actions that has launched under the powers of the State in matters of water.
The agreement is also pending in Catalonia, where the drought decree of the Government of the Generalitat obliges the councils to apply an emergency plan, with the threat of heavy penalties if they exceed the set water allocations. Many municipalities have obsolete supply networks (leaks through a pipe), but the socialists do not want to be pointed out as wasteful. And less with an election to play. At present, combating the drought requires better distribution of water and savings, especially in Catalonia and Andalusia to delay possible restrictions for essential domestic uses, waiting for the prayers in the churches to bear fruit. President Pere Aragonès proposes to the Central Government to co-finance the modernization of the Urgell canal. Irrigators already know what the limits are when planning comes late.