Spain's Sánchez climate pact: shelters, expert panel, no forest clearing

Sánchez's climate pact: shelters, scientists and uncleared forests

The Spanish government has put forward its State Pact on the Climate Emergency. The initiative promises to respond to the increasingly extreme impacts of climate change with a national network of climate shelters, water supply through technology, rural employment plans and decision-making based on a National Panel of Scientists. So far, so good.

The problem is that the official document, published by the Ministry for the Ecological Transition, devotes much of its text to communication and the creation of new bodies. Point 12.1, for example, talks about "climate literacy" campaigns and spreading official protocols. Chainsaws, brush cutters and forestry crews? Not a trace.

How many forests will be cleared? Not a single figure

The question running through political and economic analysis is direct: how many forests will be cleared? There is no answer in the text. No hectares, no budget line, and no urgent law to force the clearing of riverbeds and woodland. Critics point out that the pact was unveiled amid wildfires, yet without a single operational prevention measure.

There is a structural explanation that weighs more than political will. Forests used to be cleared by the people who lived in and off them. With subsistence farming and herding gone, undergrowth grows unchecked. Incentivising work brigades through tax breaks and payment for collected firewood has even been floated as an alternative, but even that has not made it into the official draft.

The PP is wary and the pact stays mere propaganda

The political negotiation does not help either. The PP (Spain's main opposition party) peine up to the pact with evident mistrust, while the prime minister lashed out at climate denialism and others' inaction. For one school of analysis, it all boils down to yet another make-work scheme: observatories, expert panels and advisory posts for loyalists while taxes rise. Others go further and already talk of green taxes on meat, fuel and flights, with a hypothetical climate bond tied to the digital euro as the next step. These are interpretations, not official texts, but they shape any possible agreement.

The final paradox is that the same government calling for a climate emergency pact keeps the Almaraz nuclear plant running and has not moved a single law to clear the forests. Spain, it is rightly said, has spent 40 years preparing this fire. And the forest is still waiting.