The UN designation for Barcelona to host the World Drought Summit in 2024, advanced earlier by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has been enthusiastically appreciated by the city’s mayor, Jaume Collboni, and the third vice president. of the Government and Minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera.
“There are three aspects in the lives of our fellow citizens in which the immediate effects of climate change are already noticeable: the water we drink, the air we breathe and the food we eat. It is necessary to take measures to mitigate the consequences of change climate in terms of rainfall and in terms of having water available,” the Barcelona councilor said during a meeting that both leaders held this Saturday within the framework of the UN World Summit on Climate Change COP28 that is taking place in Dubai. .
Collboni has highlighted Barcelona’s work on the matter, highlighting the efforts to have one of the lowest water consumption per inhabitant, the projects for water desalination, and the reuse of groundwater as “necessary measures, but not sufficient in future scenarios”. “That is why the announcement of this summit is great news, which will guide what we should do and where we can get the resources we need, especially city councils, to face the investments and infrastructure that make us more resilient in droughts,” the mayor has stressed.
The high-level international meeting (RAN) of the International Drought Resilience Alliance (IDRA) is an initiative launched a year ago by Senegal and Spain to which some 60 countries have joined.
After revealing the choice of Barcelona, ??Sánchez referred to the drought in Catalonia: “The Garraf forests are dying after three years of scarcity,” he said and then recalled the situation in Andalusia and the threat to Doñana.
For his part, the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, defended the incorporation of climate rules into the World Trade Organization. “We invest to green our industries on a national and regional scale, but we continue to liberalize imports of polluting products,” he continued.
