Valencia, the symbolic city of Spain that invests in the ecological transition, was hit by a devastating flood, triggered by torrential rains that brought the city to its knees, causing the death of over 60 people and leaving behind a trail of destruction and pain. The images of streets transformed into raging rivers, cars dragged by the current and houses submerged in water went around the world.
As rescuers continue to dig through the rubble in search of missing people, many of us are wondering how this could have happened. How is it possible that even a city awarded the title of European Green Capital 2024 was hit so hard by the fury of this extreme weather event?
We may have the answer, however painful it may be: commitment to the environment, while fundamental, is not enough if we do not intervene directly, united and decisively on the causes of climate change. Valencia, with its sustainable mobility policies and the increase in green spaces, has shown great attention to environmental sustainability, but this was not enough to protect it from the unprecedented violence of the event. The flood that hit the city is a tragic warning that reminds us that adaptation alone is not enough.
“We can’t think of adapting to everything,” he explained to GreenMe Antonello Pasiniclimate physicist at the Cnr. “If we don’t do mitigation, that is, if we don’t reduce greenhouse gas emissions, extreme events will be increasingly frequent and intense, and adaptation will no longer be sufficient.”
But what does “mitigation” actually mean? It means acting at the root of the problem, drastically reducing greenhouse gas emissions that alter the planet’s climate. And this requires a global commitment, involving governments, businesses and citizens. It means rethinking our development model, abandon fossil fuels and invest in renewable energy.
“My Spanish climatologist colleagues tell me that weather phenomena like those in Valencia have already occurred, but such violence has never been seen in a hundred years. We researchers do not yet know whether extreme weather events have become more frequent due to global warming. But we are sure that they have become more violent“.
“The flood in Valencia – explains Pasini – it was due to what we call a ‘cold drop’: a depression with cold air inside, which detaches itself from the flow of air currents going from west to east and descends to the latitude of Spain. It is not a very rare phenomenon, but with global warming it becomes more intense.”
From the information gathered, it appears that the violence was concentrated in a short period of time. Spanish authorities say the amount of rain that falls in a year fell in Valencia in eight hours. As the Spanish newspaper El Pais reported, theState meteorological agency (Aemet) had raised the alert level from orange to red yesterday at 8am for the southern coast of Valencia, where 90 liters had accumulated in just an hour. It was estimated that rainfall could have been 150 to 180 liters per square meter, but in the end more than 445 were detected, according to provisional data.
The Interior Ministry’s Integrated Operational Coordination Center confirmed over 62 victims as of midday. The Ministry of Defense has made mobile morgues available, fearing that the number of deaths could increase as rescue operations continue. “Once the mud that floods many Valencian locations is removed, more bodies could be found,” a ministry spokesperson said. The Defense has mobilized air resources, military psychologists and trained dogs to locate the bodies.
The President of the Government, Pedro Sanchezinvited the population to “not let their guard down” because the “gota fría” continues to cause devastation. Dozens of people spent the night in Valencia atop trucks or cars, on the roofs of shops or petrol stations, or trapped in their vehicles on clogged roads until they were rescued. The rains caused blackouts that affected 155,000 peopleroad closures in several provinces in the east and south-east, and high-speed rail service between Madrid and the Valencian Community and the Mediterranean corridor to Barcelona remained suspended throughout the day. The storm moved this morning to the north of the community, especially in the provinces of Castellón, Cuenca and Teruel.
“Humanity has opened the gates to hell,” he warned António GuterresSecretary General of the United Nations, a year ago before the United Nations General Assembly in New York. He said this to highlight the effects of climate change after the terrible fires in North America and other powerful storms in the Mediterranean.
The south of Valencia was the area most affected by the “gota fría” in the last 24 hours, with the highest number of incidents reported by residents. Chiva station recorded the highest rainfall accumulation. The Spanish insurance sector is preparing for respond to the most serious weather-climatic accident experienced in Spain in the last 40 years.
While the Valencian Community deals with the consequences of this tragedy, other areas of Spain are on alert. The meteorological service of Catalonia, Meteocat, declared a maximum alert level in Barcelona for forecasts of hail with stones greater than 2 centimeters in diameterstrong winds and the possibility of tornadoes. The newspaper The Vanguard writes that the alert provides for the preventive closure of the beaches to protect citizens.
“Mitigation is an investment in the future“, underlines Pasini. “The longer we delay in addressing it, the higher the costs of adaptation and damage caused by extreme events will be“.
The Valencia flood is a wake-up call that we cannot ignore. It reminds us that the ecological transition is a complex challenge, which requires a 360-degree approach. It is not enough to adapt to the impacts of climate change, we must also prevent them by acting on the causes.
“We must act on two fronts,” explains Pasini. “On the one hand, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and on the other, adapt to the impacts of climate change that are already underway”.
And adaptation, Pasini underlines, must be managed intelligently: “We must also adapt with measures that do not aggravate the future situation. We always talk about adaptation, we no longer talk about mitigation. This thing is harmful, because if we reach extreme situations – I’m not saying the business as usual (which provides for no improvement in the reduction of climate-changing emissions), but even three degrees of increase in global temperature by the end of the century is enough – we will no longer be able to manage a situation like this”.
