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'We Are Being Cooked Alive': Wildfires Driven by Climate Crisis Ravage Europe
Fire-related deaths were reported in Turkey, Spain, Montenegro, and Albania.
Aug 13, 2025
With firefighters in southern Europe battling blazes that have killed people in multiple countries and forced thousands to evacuate, Spain's environment minister on Wednesday called the wildfires a "clear warning" of the climate emergency driven by the fossil fuel industry.
While authorities have cited a variety of causes for current fires across the continent, from arson to "careless farming practices, improperly maintained power cables, and summer lightning storms," scientists have long stressed that wildfires are getting worse as humanity heats the planet with fossil fuels.
The Spanish minister, Sara Aagesen, told the radio network Cadena SER that "the fires are one of the parts of the impact of that climate change, which is why we have to do all we can when it comes to prevention."
"Our country is especially vulnerable to climate change. We have resources now but, given that the scientific evidence and the general expectation point to it having an ever greater impact, we need to work to reinforce and professionalize those resources," Aagesen added in remarks translated by The Guardian.
The Spanish meteorological agency, AEMET, said on social media Wednesday that "the danger of wildfires continues at very high or extreme levels in most of Spain, despite the likelihood of showers in many areas," and urged residents to "take extreme precautions!"
The heatwave impacting Spain "peaked on Tuesday with temperatures as high as 45°C (113°F)," according to Reuters. AEMET warned that "starting Thursday, the heat will intensify again," and is likely to continue through Monday.
The heatwave is also a sign of climate change, Akshay Deoras, a research scientist in the Meteorology Department at the U.K.'s University of Reading, told Agence France-Presse this week.
"Thanks to climate change, we now live in a significantly warmer world," Deoras said, adding that "many still underestimate the danger."
There have been at least two fire-related deaths in Spain this week: a man working at a horse stable on the outskirts of the Spanish capital Madrid, and a 35-year-old volunteer firefighter trying to make firebreaks near the town of Nogarejas, in the Castile and León region.
Acknowledging the firefighter's death on social media Tuesday, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez sent his "deepest condolences to their family, friends, and colleagues," and wished "much strength and a speedy recovery to the people injured in that same fire."
According to The New York Times, deaths tied to the fires were also reported in Turkey, Montenegro, and Albania. Additionally, The Guardian noted, "a 4-year-old boy who was found unconscious in his family's car in Sardinia died in Rome on Monday after suffering irreversible brain damage caused by heatstroke."
There are also fires in Greece, France, and Portugal, where the mayor of Vila Real, Alexandre Favaios, declared that "we are being cooked alive, this cannot continue."
Reuters on Wednesday highlighted Greenpeace estimates that investing €1 billion, or $1.17 billion, annually in forest management could save 9.9 million hectares or 24.5 million acres—an area bigger than Portugal—and tens of billions of euros spent on firefighting and restoration work.
The European fires are raging roughly three months out from the next United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP30, which is scheduled to begin on November 10 in Belém, Brazil.
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Stop the Corporate Arsonists Torching Portugal and the Planet
Company managers knew they were condemning people to death, devastation, and extinction through climate and social collapse with their actions. That didn’t stop them.
Oct 04, 2024
In just six days, 121,000 hectares burned, seven people died, and over a hundred were injured in the fires that ravaged Portugal. Luís Montenegro, the country’s prime minister, faced with this calamity, promised to go “after those responsible” who, “in the name of private interests, are capable of jeopardizing the rights, freedoms, and guarantees, and the very lives” of citizens. This is a bold statement. Arson and blame in the face of the fires that annually devastate the country are a permanent reality.
We speak of arson when referring to the intentional and deliberate act of igniting a fire. For example, it is considered arson if someone sets fire to a forested area, whether motivated by malice, economic reasons, or merely for fun. In Portugal, arson is a variable that is far from explaining the devastating fires that destroy lives each year. Like in other Mediterranean countries, about one-third of the fires have a criminal, deliberate origin. However, the final outcome of these ignitions in Portugal is significantly different from that of countries that can be compared to ours.
The atmospheric conditions, increasingly characteristic of the Mediterranean territory—extreme drought and heat—combined with strong winds, low humidity, and nighttime heat, along with abandoned lands and extensive eucalyptus monocultures, create the perfect conditions for fires to ignite with the proportions and impacts of those that killed 66 people in Pedrogão Grande in 2017, 45 people on October 15 of the same year, and seven people in the fires of mid-September this year.
We can be certain that for these companies, the destruction of our lives will not lead to a reduction in profitability—at least until there is nothing left to destroy.
These conditions are neither “natural” nor mere coincidence. They derive from intentional acts, the consequences of which were known and taken into account by companies and governments. For decades, major emitting companies have been aware of the impacts of burning fossil fuels and the greenhouse gas emissions from their economic activities. They knew that these impacts would lead to loss of life on a global scale and could culminate in the extinction of the human species. Despite this, they continued to invest in these activities, expand them, and profit from them. For decades, governments have received warnings from the scientific community, and they even acknowledged this problem with weak laws that pretend to address the issue. But even today they continue to subsidize fossil fuels and emitting industries, facilitating projects that increase emissions. Government leaders and company managers knew they were condemning people to death, devastation, and extinction through climate and social collapse.
Cellulose companies, such as Navigator and Altri, supported and assisted by successive national governments, have turned Portugal into the perfect ground for chaos to ignite. Portugal has the largest relative area of eucalyptus in the world and, in absolute terms, competes with giants like Australia, Brazil, China, and India. These companies profit from the export of paste and paper, fully aware of the impacts of their activities on the territories and populations where they operate. It is relevant to remember that the cellulose business is highly emission-intensive, and Navigator is the company responsible for the most greenhouse gas emissions in Portugal. In addition to being aware that they are driving the planet toward chaos, they simultaneously invest in bioenergy, biomass, and green hydrogen businesses, allowing them to enhance their propaganda through new ventures masked as green, even monetizing the burned raw materials, further maximizing their profits. We can be certain that for these companies, the destruction of our lives will not lead to a reduction in profitability—at least until there is nothing left to destroy.
These companies effectively “in the name of private interests are capable of jeopardizing the rights, freedoms, and guarantees, and the very lives” of all living people, and also of those yet to be born. Together with other emitting companies and the governments that support them, they are setting fire to all people and the planet. Montenegro’s promises and words are empty, coinciding with a state budget that adds more fire to society and is also a reiteration of violence against ordinary people. It is in our hands to stop normalizing these attacks and to halt them, united and with strength.
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EU Crisis Official Warns of 'Climate Breakdown' Amid Deadly Wildfires and Flooding
"These extreme weather events that used to be once in a lifetime are now an almost annual occurrence," said Janez Lenarčič.
Sep 18, 2024
With the Portuguese government declaring a "state of calamity" over wildfires that have killed at least seven people, and the daily lives of hundreds of thousands of people in Central and Eastern Europe upended by deadly flooding, the European Union's top crisis official said the bloc must face the reality made evident by the disasters: "This is fast becoming the norm for our shared future."
A year after Europe was found to be the world's fastest-warming continent in an analysis by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the E.U.'s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), crisis management commissioner Janez Lenarčič told the European Parliament on Wednesday that "the global reality of the climate breakdown has moved into the everyday lives of Europeans."
"Make no mistake. This tragedy is not an anomaly," said Lenarčič. "We face a Europe that is simultaneously flooding and burning. These extreme weather events that used to be once in a lifetime are now an almost annual occurrence."
As countries including Poland, Romania, Austria, and the Czech Republic were reeling from flooding caused by Storm Boris in recent days, more than 478 square miles in Portugal's northern region were torched by fast-moving wildfires that started over the weekend.
Dozens of homes have been destroyed by more than 100 separate wildfires as officials deployed 5,000 firefighters to try to control the blazes on Wednesday. Spain, France, and Italy—which is now also preparing for heavy rainfall like the torrential downpour that inundated Central and Eastern Europe—contributed waterbombing aircraft.
Lenarčič focused his address largely on the need to ramp up disaster preparedness, noting that the rise in costs for repairing infrastructure destroyed by storms and fires has ballooned in recent decades.
"The average cost of disasters in the 1980s was 8 billion euros per year," said Lenarčič. "Meanwhile in 2022 alone, the damages surpassed 50 billion euros per year... The cost of inaction is far greater than the cost of action."
Lenarčič called on the European Commission to work closely with E.U. member states to implement the bloc's Floods Directive and a robust water resilience strategy to tackle catastrophic flooding and water shortages.
"Such challenges cannot be tackled solely through the limited portfolio of civil protection," the commissioner said.
The Left in the European Parliament, a coalition of progressive parties, echoed Lenarčič's call to strengthen civil protection, but also emphasized the need to tackle "climate change and its impacts."
Progressives in Parliament have pushed member states to meet the goals set by the European Green Deal, a set of climate policies aimed at ensuring net-zero fossil fuel emissions by 2050 and slashing emissions by at least 55% by 2030.
"Our success will depend on how determined we are to combat climate change together in order to reduce emissions," said Terry Reintke, a German lawmaker who is co-president of the Greens/European Free Alliance (EFA) group in the European Parliament.
With right-wing parties making significant gains in the bloc's parliamentary elections in June, analysts have said passing ambitious climate policies and targets will be more difficult.
Following the implementation of parts of the Green Deal, emissions are down by nearly a third from 1990 across the bloc, and member states are building wind and solar infrastructure. But right-wing leaders have pushed to block a ban on new gas- and diesel-powered cars that was set to take effect in 2035.
Far-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said in June that the proposed ban "was an ideological folly, which absolutely must be corrected."
On Wednesday, Italy's civil protection service issued 50 yellow alerts for the Emilia-Romagna and Marche regions, warning that the areas would face the risk of landslides and flooding as they are expected to see the equivalent of two months of rainfall in the next three days.
The heavy rains have moved across Central Europe from parts of the Czech Republic, Austria, Romania, and other countries, with at least 21 people killed by flooding.
"The E.U. must do everything in its power to help those affected by the devastating floods in many different E.U. countries," said the Greens/EFA. "These floods show that more than ever our fight against climate change is a common social and economic challenge we must tackle together."
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Portuguese Climate Activists on Trial Represent the True Spirit of April 25
On the eve of the anniversary of the 1974 revolution, 11 climate activists will be tried for actions in which they denounced the war carried out by governments and companies against humanity as a whole.
Apr 23, 2024
In the coming days we will see many celebrations of April 25, the 50th anniversary of the Portuguese revolution. They will be fiercer in the face of the rise of a far-right project in Portugal, but will still far removed both from the revolt against the burden that dragged the people down until 1974, and from the profound transformation achieved at that time. On the eve of the 50th anniversary, 11 climate activists from Climáximo will be in court for standing up to stop the war on society that is the climate crisis. What and how will we celebrate?
"April 25 always, fascism never again," is the slogan most often hurled in recent times, both at the authoritarianism of a police force now intertwined with the far right and at the parliamentary manifestation of the international far right in Portugal called Chega ("enough"). It would be inspiring if these words were more aspiration than remembrance, but it is more part of a ceremony than a collective yearning for the future. On the 50th anniversary of the revolution that overthrew Europe's longest dictatorship, fear of the future dominates those who claim to be part of the revolutionary tradition. And that's why all we hear about is defending the April Constitution, the promises of April, the achievements of April. Because in 2024 wanting and having the courage to set out to conquer much more than in 1974 is considered something for half a dozen dreamers.
On the eve of the anniversary, 11 climate activists will be tried for actions in which they denounced the war carried out by governments and companies against humanity as a whole. The climate crisis is a deliberate act by the capitalist elite in government and companies, whose effects are the death of thousands of people today and hundreds of millions in the future. Our economic system today lives in the death throes of accumulating wealth and power against the viability of society in the future.
A revolution is not, and can never be, about anything other than the future, so there is a contradiction in passively "celebrating" a revolution of the past.
The revolution in Portugal was made in a historical counter-cycle, violently ripped away from a decrepit elite that was killing a generation in a war to pretend that Portugal was still what it had never been: a project by elites who exploited slaves and raw materials from the territories they plundered, while hiring out fables of epic history, paintings and statues by talented artists who needed to not starve to death and would deliver the fantasy. After the revolution, while European countries were beginning to take the first stabs of neoliberalism, Portugal was building the welfare state at full speed to try to cure the social hemorrhages left by 48 years of a fascism so archaic that it would have been fine in the 19th century. In just a few years, public health, public education, and some essential sectors were nationalized, but soon afterward history caught up with us. Reaganism and Thatcherism would arrive a decade later through former President Aníbal Cavaco Silva, who reversed the upward redistribution of wealth and power through privatizations and liberalizations, camouflaged by the influx of the first millions from the European Union.
The romantic notion that April 25 was a non-violent revolution clashes with essential information: dozens of tanks, military vehicles, and armed soldiers on the streets of Lisbon; dozens of uprising military units across the country. They captured the regime's leading figures and dismantled the main tools of power of the Estado Novo, Marcello Caetano's dictatorship, at gunpoint. The brute force at the disposal of the military insurgents, the momentary imbalance of forces, and the decision to take risks worked in such a way that the spilling of large amounts of blood wasn't even necessary. In the few places where there wasn't an abundance of military personnel, such as the dictatorship's secret police headquarters in Lisbon, the regime counterattacked by targeting and killing the civilians who were mobilizing outside. But popular disobedience was the key factor in transforming what could only have been a well-executed coup d'état into a social and popular revolution. Those who had spent almost a lifetime obeying a dictatorship decided that enough was enough. The people disobeyed the military, didn't stay home, took to the streets, and pushed the revolution forward, much further forward than the military of the Armed Forces Movement had ever planned.
April 25 was a revolution against a war. It was a revolution against the barbarity and savagery that was killing people in Portugal and independent revolutionaries in Angola, Guinea, and Mozambique. In order to maintain this barbarity, the fascist regime from the 1920s had to resort to all the weapons of repression, keeping entire generations in line. It used the regime's incessant propaganda apparatus, imposing racist, eugenic, and conservative values to justify continued colonialism, even after the end of slavery and the rise global capitalism's demand for more markets to exploit. Years of war eroded the narrative and coercive capacity of the Portuguese fascist apparatus, and the action of the Captains' movement began what was the final blow. The future was no longer written, and what happened next was not the plan of the military or the political forces that claimed to be part of the revolution.
Once the war was over, the people set out to achieve much more than just ending a war and a regime that existed to prevent them from being free. Over the next year and a half, in the typical confusion that any revolution entails, the Portuguese people leapt 60 years in history, moving faster than ever toward a better future. It fell at the wrong time to improve people's lives, as the global capitalist elite was about to launch the biggest assault on society in its history, which has led to an even more unequal world and the first stages of environmental collapse.
The social mobilization against the war today is taking place in a context that is as adverse, if not more so, than in 1974. The dictatorship is inside our heads. Passivity and respect, obedience, cynicism and hypocrisy are inculcated incessantly, and the main argument, even from the "heirs" of the revolution, is that there are no conditions for moving forward, only for staying on the defensive. Who knew in 1974 that there were? Other attempts, such as the military-civilian Beja Revolt in 1962, had failed to topple the regime. But who even knows if there would have been a 1974 revolution without the bravery and martyrdom of 1962? Or the years of resistance by anti-fascist and anti-war militants, killed and persecuted by Salazar's dictatorship?
The legacy of the revolution can not be to dwell on what was and complain about what is. A revolution is not, and can never be, about anything other than the future, so there is a contradiction in passively "celebrating" a revolution of the past. In April 1974 everything was about the future, the doors to the new were open, while the anchors of the past were being lifted. In the enthusiasm and eagerness to move forward, many of these anchors were not picked up. That is why a far-right project can exist in Portugal today.
Fifty years later, on the eve of the anniversary of the revolution, the April Eleven, climate activists from Climáximo arrested for actions in recent months to stop a war declared by governments and companies on the whole of society, leading to climate catastrophe, are to stand trial and face jail time for disruption a war waging government and regime. It's an important political signal, not about the past, but about the future.
How will we remember 2024 in 2074? As the moment when the impossible once again became reality? Passively celebrating the revolution, or, as Zé Mário Branco used to sing, "going out into the street with a carnation in our hand without realizing that we go out into the street with a carnation in our hand at the right time," is contributing to the revolution not being part of the future?
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In 'Landmark' Ruling, Top EU Court Rules Swiss Climate Inaction Violates Human Rights
"This ruling is a call to action for the climate movement—we will not stop demanding action from governments on their clear obligations, set out in this ruling, to prevent climate catastrophe," said one attorney.
Apr 09, 2024
A decision handed down by one of the European Union's top courts on Tuesday should signal to governments across the bloc and beyond that their time may soon be up when it comes to delaying climate action, as the panel ruled the Swiss government has violated the human rights of its senior citizens by refusing to abide by scientists' warnings and swiftly phase out fossil fuel production.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) announced its decisions in three separate climate cases, including one brought by the KlimaSeniorinnen, or Senior Women for Climate Protection, in Switzerland.
The group of about 2,400 women aged 64 and up argued last year that the Swiss government has violated their rights by failing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough to stop intensifying heatwaves and other climate impacts from affecting citizens.
The plaintiffs cited research showing that older women are particularly vulnerable to heat-related illnesses and death.
Switzerland has pledged to cut planet-heating fossil fuel emissions by 50% from 1990 levels by the end of the decade. In 2021 voters rejected a proposal to tax airline tickets and fuel to help the country meet its goal.
According to the Swiss Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology, Switzerland is warming at twice the rate of the global average.
The Climate Action Tracker has classified Swiss climate policies and actions as "insufficient," partially because it has implemented agreements with other countries to offset its domestic emissions in an attempt to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
Gerry Liston, an attorney representing another group of litigants from Portugal, told The New York Times that the ECHR's acknowledgment that Switzerland's policies are not based in science was especially significant.
"No European government's climate policies are aligned with anything near" the Paris climate agreement's goal of limiting planetary heating to 1.5°C, Liston said, "so it will be clear to those working on climate litigation in those countries that there is now a clear basis to bring a case in their national courts."
Joie Chowdhury, senior attorney for the Center for International Environmental Law, said the ruling—the first by an international human rights court on governments' climate inaction—is likely "to influence climate action and climate litigation across Europe and far beyond."
"Today's historic judgment... leaves no doubt: The climate crisis is a human rights crisis, and states have human rights obligations to act urgently and effectively and in line with the best available science to prevent further devastation and harm to people and the environment," said Chowdhury. "The ruling reinforces the vital role of courts—both international and domestic—in holding governments to their legal obligations to protect human rights from environmental harm. It also affirms the power and courage of those who speak out and dare to demand a livable future for all."
The other two cases on which the ECHR ruled Tuesday, finding them "inadmissable," were brought by a former mayor of a town in France and a group of six Portuguese children and young people, ranging in age from 12-25.
Damien Carême, former mayor of Grande-Synthe and now a member of the European Parliament for the Green Party, argued France had taken insufficient steps to protect the coastal town from flooding. The ECHR ruled that the case was not admissible because Carême no longer lives in Grande-Synthe.
The six Portuguese plaintiffs had argued that the effects of fossil fuel-driven planetary heating—including heatwaves and wildfires—have and will continue to affect their lives and wellbeing. The court ruled the group had not exhausted all its legal options in Portugal.
The Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), which represented the Portuguese group, said the court's decision was still "a win for all generations," because the court made clear that "government failure to rapidly cut emissions is a violation of human rights."
"This ruling is a call to action for the climate movement—we will not stop demanding action from governments on their clear obligations, set out in this ruling, to prevent climate catastrophe," said GLAN.
The Council of Europe's 46 members, which includes all 27 E.U. countries, are bound by the ECHR's rulings, and the verdict opens the countries up to similar cases in national courts.
Delta Merner, lead scientist at the Science Hub for Climate Litigation at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the court's mixed rulings "underscore how difficult it can be for impacted communities to demonstrate in a legal setting what science has clearly shown for decades: the direct connection between heat-trapping emissions, climate change, and the extreme weather impacts they are experiencing such as heatwaves and wildfires."
"The uphill battle for climate accountability persists as vulnerable communities bravely challenge entrenched political, economic, and legal systems that have historically prioritized the fossil fuel industry and private interests," said Merner. "The courts still have a critical role to play in holding high-emitting entities accountable for their role in the climate crisis, helping to address historical responsibility for the release of heat-trapping emissions resulting in climate injustice, and protecting human rights for current and future generations."
The ECHR has had six other climate cases on hold pending the decisions handed down Tuesday, including one against the Norwegian government. Plaintiffs in that case argue Norway violated human rights by issuing new licenses for oil and gas drilling in the Barents Sea beyond 2035.
Scientists and the International Energy Agency have said in recent years that there's no place for new fossil fuel production on a pathway to limiting planetary heating to 1.5°C.
Courts in Australia, Brazil, Peru, and South Korea are also considering human rights-based climate cases.
Despite the ECHR's mixed rulings, Merner called the decision regarding Switzerland "groundbreaking."
"This ruling highlights the undeniable link between government climate policies and the fundamental rights to life and family," said Merner. "With extreme weather events like heatwaves becoming more frequent and intense due to fossil fuel exacerbated climate change, this landmark judgment sends a clear message: Governments must strengthen their efforts to combat climate change, not just as a matter of environmental policy, but as a crucial aspect of protecting human rights."
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What Do You Do When Avoiding the Climate Crisis Isn't On the Ballot?
In the run-up to recent Portuguese elections, the climate justice collective Climáximo carried out a series of actions to bring the climate crisis to the center of debate; what can other countries learn from their experience?
Mar 29, 2024
In the last weeks Climáximo, a climate justice collective in Portugal, carried out actions related to the Portuguese elections: gluing messages to the billboards of all major political parties to point out the lack of plans to stop the climate crisis; interrupting the big television debate between parties with parliamentary seats to say that "stopping the climate crisis is not on the polling station;" and painting the building where the right-wing party (that narrowly won the election) was celebrating, to say that "there is no victory in guaranteeing climate chaos."
The actions were different and had different reactions, but one thing was common: They sought to bring the climate crisis to the center of debate. The defensive and diverting reactions to them failed to deny that no party had a plan to halt the collapse of civilization.
2023 was the hottest year on record and the year with the highest global emissions. By now, all parties that believe in the existence of climate change know that the only way to stay below 1.5ºC to 2ºC of warming is to cut global emissions in half by 2030. All Portuguese parties that recognize principles of global justice know that Portugal must cut at least 85% of its emissions by 2030. However, in the run up to the elections, which elect a government to run the country until 2028—a year in which Portugal must already be very close to achieving carbon neutrality, if we care about the future—no party presented a plan to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030.
Regardless of who you vote for, what are you going to do to stop the climate crisis and achieve climate justice when all political parties have demonstrated that they won't?
If you know there is a climate crisis and you look at reality and see that no party has targets compatible with the emissions cuts necessary to safeguard the basic living conditions of millions of people, you can decide to discuss whether Climáximo's actions were proportionate to the seriousness of the situation—climatic and political—in which we find ourselves. In the light of analysing the reality we find ourselves in, it is easy to rebuke any criticism.
No, the portuguese political parties are not all the same. Yet, the plans of all parties lead to climate collapse. There are parties that admit that climate change exists, and others that don't. Within the parties that admit there is climate change, there are parties proposing more measures to reduce the asymmetry of the consequences of the climate crisis on the population. Some have plans for 4°C of warming by 2100, and others have plans for perhaps 3°C of warming. However, no party has a plan that is compatible with staying below 1.5°C to 2°C of warming. Factually, no party proposes a programme adequate to the task of avoiding climate collapse, none proposes the necessary emissions cuts, none avoids current and new projects that will lead to increases in emissions, none manages to tell us that if we vote for them we will comply with what the climate crisis demands of us.
The shocking thing here is not that Climáximo made this reality visible, the shocking thing is that this is the reality we are in. In particular, it's shocking that parties that claim to defend the interests of the population ignore science and climate, social and global justice, thus giving up the fight for the basic conditions of life without which the struggles for housing, workers' rights, equality, dignity, and so many others are impossible. The parties that should be pushing ahead with the most ambitious measures to confront the current system that is leading us towards climate chaos refuse to face up to the greatest challenge humanity ever met: to stop increasing emissions and end fossil fuels by 2030 through a just transition. Is all this necessary? Yes, if we want to avoid climate collapse and if we believe that Portugal must cut emissions more than Mozambique. And is that difficult? Yes. Is it incompatible with capitalism? Yes. Is it impossible? No. Should it be an obstacle for anticapitalist parties to put forward measures that involve doing away with capitalism? No.
However, while the level of ambition should increase because we are running out of time, the left-wing parties refused to take on this historic task, presenting plans that are less and less ambitious and closer to the status quo. This happened, according to them, to prevent the rise of the far right. How are we going to stop the far right in a context of worsening economic conditions? How are we going to stop the far right in a context of worsening migratory crises, drought, fires, or crop failures that we are already experiencing today? If stopping the climate crisis isn't on the table, neither is stopping the collapse of civilization as we know it. And certainly not stopping the rise of the far right.
Climáximo did not call on people not to vote. The question Climáximo asked to society as a whole was: regardless of who you vote for, what are you going to do to stop the climate crisis and achieve climate justice when all political parties have demonstrated that they won't? This was not a call to give up on democracy, quite the opposite. It was a call for everyone to fight for their right—and that of others—to thrive on a viable planet. It was a call for radical democracy via public disruption. Fighting for democracy—both in Portugal and in the other countries from which Portuguese companies continue to extract fossil fuels—means refusing new projects that increase emissions and cutting 85% of emissions through a just transition, even if that option was not up for debate and not on the ballots.
Whether before or after the elections, the fight for climate justice will always be legitimate, relevant, and indispensable. When faced with the greatest threat humanity has ever faced, inaction and complacency are illegitimate, undemocratic, and incomprehensible. Every day—especially during the days that should be decisive in dictating what any country's next four years will be like—we urgently need to show that another world is possible.
In the end, despite the moderation of left-wing parties, the far right had 18%, over a million votes, when six years ago it had zero, and the right-wing party won by a slim margin.
Regardless of the results of these elections, we face two options: The next four years could go down in history as the period in which everyone knew for decades about the existence of the climate crisis, and the associated social collapse, and still decided to continue heading towards climate hell; or as the turning point years in which society had the courage—that current politicians still lack—to accept the historic responsibility that falls to those alive in 2024: to resist the collapse of civilisation as we know it and fight for our lives and those of the next generations. That has nothing to do with electoral cycles and everything to do with revolutionary action. Knowing what you know about the climate crisis, and knowing that probably there will be an election in your country this year, what are you going to do?
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'This Is Terrible': Eco Emergency in Spain as Plastic Pellets Invade Coast
The countless beads of plastic, which experts fear are toxic and harmful to marine life and people, are believed to have spilled from a cargo ship.
Jan 10, 2024
Millions, or perhaps billions, of plastic pellets continue to wash up on the shores of Spain, leading local governments to declare an environmental emergency and launch a criminal probe after a cargo ship off the coast of Portugal lost six containers overboard last month.
"These little balls of plastic are an environmental problem because fish confuse them with fish eggs and eat them and they enter the food chain … and end up on our dinner tables," Cristobal López, a spokesperson for the Spanish environmental group Ecologistas en Acción, explained to the Associated Press from a cleanup site in Galicia.
According to BBC, "The tiny plastic balls—used to manufacture common goods such as plastic bottles—are less than 5mm wide, making cleaning up extremely difficult. Volunteers have been combing through sand and sieving water to find the plastic pellets."
The spillage at sea is believed to have occurred on Dec. 8, but it took time for the plastic pellets to make their way to shore.
As The Guardian reports:
In the weeks since the spill, millions of the pellets have washed up on beaches in north-west Spain, prompting a clean-up operation by regional workers and volunteers.
On Tuesday, the regional governments of Galicia and neighbouring Asturias issued level 2 alerts, which will allow more personnel and resources to be assigned to the task as well as logistical assistance from the Spanish government's environment and transport ministries.
Alfonso Rueda, the regional president of Galicia, said there was still time to stop more pellets washing up on the shoreline. "There are hundreds of sacks right now that have not reached the coast," he said on Tuesday. "The time to collect them, or at least to try, is now that they are at sea. It seems there will be currents these days that will make it a little easier."
Prosecutors in Galicia have started a criminal investigation into the episode, while environmental campaigners and government officials have said the spill is just the latest example of the harmful impacts of the plastics industry.
"The contamination of the oceans and ecosystems with plastics is one of the biggest problems faced by humanity," said Teresa Ribera, Spain's environmental minister. "So the spilling of such an important quantity of plastics requires close oversight and to determine if the transport company and shipping company exercised the proper precautions."
Greenpeace Spain has launched a petition demanding the harms of plastics be addressed.
"Plastic has invaded our planet and we can already find it in seas, forests, and rivers around the world," states the petition, which calls on the government "to take measures to reduce the production and consumption of plastics that suffocate our environment."
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Corrupting the Future: The Sines 4.0 Data Center That Collapsed Portugal's Government
Sines 4.0 will be a monumental consumer of energy with no return for society.
Dec 18, 2023
A month has passed since the lightning resignation of António Costa and the Portuguese Socialist Party government. While accusations of formal corruption seem to have faded, it has become clear that the megaproject that was at the base of the resignation, Sines 4.0, ia part of a group of sterile and opportunistic initiatives that hold back the energy transition and absorb renewable energy capacity to serve the interests of investment funds. If it came to fruition, Sines 4.0 would consume almost as much energy as that produced in all Portuguese dams in 2022, and much more than all the solar energy produced in the same year.
It's useful to look at "Operation Influencer" (which led to the arrest of several politicians, searches of the Prime Minister's official residence and, finally, the resignation of Portugal's Prime Minister) and see what's left. The Public Prosecutor's Office arrested several people, who were released shortly afterwards, some of whom have not even been charged. So far, the main charge that has emerged is influence peddling and the scandal is that António Costa's chief of staff had 75,000 euros in cash in his office. There are very obvious signs of judicial overreach and a growing politicization (in the worst sense) of the judicial branch. But there is clear evidence that the project is as pointless as it is megalomaniacal.
A few days after resigning, the former Prime Minister spoke publicly to explain that despite his resignation, this business model is the one most desired by Portuguese capitalism: on November 11, he guaranteed that mega-projects like Sines 4.0 are to go ahead, whatever the cost. Like the other strategies of the Portuguese elite, the Data Center is a perversion of the energy transformation and the effective corruption of the public interest when it comes to decarbonization and combating the climate crisis.
The press and politicians confirm that the interest is unequivocal, even declaring the project a PIN - Project of National Interest - creating a green light for bureaucratic approval. PINs are government protected projects because they will make money for a few investors and shareholders. On top of the PIN, there is also an "Environmental Simplex", which makes it easier to circumvent legislation to protect natural values such as habitats and dangerous areas (like areas of maximum infiltration or steep slopes). But it's not formal corruption, because it's all legal. There's no problem with social impact or impact on future generations, because as there is no legislation to effectively protect these values, it's all legal, there's never any crime. This is transversally true "advanced democracies".
So what would this now famous Data Center be used for? To increase data storage capacity in the Cloud, for streaming movies and series, for mining and circulating cryptocurrencies, for NFTs, for social networks, for "eCommerce", online gaming, for videoconferencing, to accumulate more data for ChatGPT and other advanced programming tools, among others. We can discuss whether some of these services are useful, but many of them are not. Computing "needs" are never questioned, as there seems to be no accountability and only infinity as a limit. But this decision is never in our hands, only in those of the entrepreneurs and shareholders who want to make a profit, however they get there, and the politicians who have to sanction them.
In order for the Data Center to function, a large amount of water will be needed (which is why the vast majority of Data Centers around the world are on the water's edge), which in periods of drought and heat (the future, therefore) will increase. But focusing on annual energy consumption, it's easy to see that it's monumental: 4,769.8 GWh/year. All green, they say. But how much renewable energy does Portugal produce? According to APREN, the national private renewables agency, in 2022 it was around 25,000 GWh. This project aims to absorb 20% of all the renewable energy produced? Twice as much as all the solar energy produced in 2022? Almost all the hydroelectric energy produced in 2022? Half of Portugal's energy imports in 2022?
Where will this energy come from? Will it come from new renewable power plants? From projects like EDP Renováveis' Morgavel wind farm, for which the government has approved the felling of 1,800 cork oaks? Or hydrogen production? Others? Or will Sines 4.0 get its energy directly from the grid, as in the exceptional procedure created by the government to allocate grid connections to PIN projects? We're told that we don't have enough renewable energy to supply the entire system, but can we take 20% of all renewables for a project that has no public interest? Won't that serve as a justification for keeping fossil gas in the system? It will.
In Ireland, the data center frenzy already means that 18% of all electricity in the country is used to supply the interests of Facebook, Google, and Microsoft. In this summer's heatwave, there was a real risk of having to disconnect the population's electricity supply to keep them running. The Sines 4.0 project would have an electricity consumption close to the sum of all 75 data centers in Ireland. Megalomania.
What does a project like this promote? What is the real and tangible interest of the service provided to society? Apart from the 700 to 1200 jobs in logistics, security, and cleaning, probably brokered by some temporary employment company, what does it bring? Investment of 3.5 billion euros in what? Where will it end up? Sines 4.0 promotes income for investment funds. That's all.
Sines 4.0 will be a monumental consumer of energy with no return for society. Betting on projects like this will take energy away from the grid as a whole and occupy territories with gigantic renewable energy projects that only serve to guarantee profits from useless investments. Projects like these and the renewables model guided by the fossil industries and copying their coal, oil and gas monopolies will only deepen resistance to the installation of renewables. Decarbonization? No. It's just business painted green, while the fossil industry continues. They guarantee the continuation of the war declared on society.
Sines 4.0 benefits from a system and a government that is 100% committed to guaranteeing a course towards social and environmental catastrophe, squandering investment, resources, and territories on projects that are useless for society, but profitable for shareholders and politicians who can hold inaugurations and be photographed for future elections.
Meanwhile, we know that the investigation into hydrogen and lithium has been separated from that into the data center, but not closed. Nothing is known about formal corruption. The projects are no different from what happened in Sines 4.0: they are the corruption of the future and of any transition.
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How Green Capitalism Blocked a Just Transition and Crashed the Government in Portugal
The power of false renewable energy promises to bring down a government.
Nov 09, 2023
Many were caught by surprise in the blitz of raids, arrests, and resignations that stormed Portugal on November 7th. In a few hours, one of the longest-lasting leaderships in Europe fell under the weight of its political contradictions, its tight connections to big oil, gas, and energy companies and the subservient politicians.
Just a few weeks ago, the establishment and media in Portugal decried Fridays for Future Lisbon activists for targeting the minister of climate action with green paint in an “energy transition” event sponsored by oil, gas, and coal giants Galp and EDP. The activists accused the minister of being in collusion with big companies that are extending their fossil business while taking over investment in renewables. Less than a month after that, the minister would become one of the suspects (together with the previous minister of the environment, the current minister of infrastructures, the chief of staff and the main advisor of the Prime Minister, the head of the environmental protection agency, the mayor of the Sines municipality, a former director from Galp, heads of private companies, among others) of a corruption case involving lithium mines, hydrogen projects, and data centers. The consequences are not just legal. António Costa, Portuguese prime minister since 2015, resigned this week after he was announced as a suspect in the same investigation.
The case for official corruption will now have to be proven in the courts, the corruption of a new energy model that is actually off the hands of those who created the climate crisis seems to be untouched.
The Portuguese government had been selling itself as a “climate action” champion for years now. Yet, like all other European countries, it has no plan for actually fulfilling its commitment of the necessary cuts of emissions under the Paris Agreement, that is, it plans an increase of temperature well above 1.5ºC. That doesn’t mean that the Portuguese capitalist establishment hasn’t been reaping the profits of the European and international focus on new extractivism, energy forms and technologies—the bulk of green capitalism. The promise of European funds, in particular for energy connections, for critical materials’ extraction, and hydrogen as a way to counterbalance Chinese battery development, has been massively profitable for the companies that most contributed to the climate crisis in the country. In 2022, Galp, EDP, and REN have all had the biggest profits in their history, and 2023 promises to go the same way. REN was also one of the places visited by the police during investigative searches.
Climate activists have long decried the Portuguese energy transition policy as both unjust and no transition at all. EDP shut down its coal power plants without any plans for its workers, who simply became unemployed. Galp shut down its Matosinhos refinery and simply transferred its production to another refinery in Sines, with no impact on emissions and the destruction of over 100 jobs in the northern city. Some of these actions were actually funded by the “Fund for Just Transition” that never reached the workers who were supposed to be the object of said transition. The only groups of people benefiting from these funds were the shareholders of big companies. EDP and Galp have kept on investing in fossil energy in Portugal and abroad. They have further positioned themselves as frontrunners in renewable auctions, whether in wind, solar, hydrogen, or lithium projects around the country.
The government’s choice to reproduce the fossil model with renewable energy, with massive areas of production and massive distribution circuits and losses, has been a gift that derives from the direct contact of the companies with the decision-makers. The hydrogen strategy came out only after dozens of meetings between the government and the companies that would benefit from them. Spinoffs from the main energy companies, such as EDP Renováveis, Galp New Energy, or TrustWind are the frequent bidders of new energy auctions. The centralized, monopolized, and gigantic nature of these projects is leading to growing objection by local populations due to their negative environmental impacts, namely the need to remove tens of thousands of protected trees. The idea of decentralized small-scale production of electricity is directly opposed by the big companies as it would render them close to useless.
A huge amount of public money being overtly offered to big companies could hardly have been a better scenario for mass-scale corruption. In the wake of the austerity years, when large patches of the country were offered for oil and gas exploration, other areas were offered for mining concessions, and the lithium projects in protected areas have been scandalous since the beginning (Galp, the oil and gas company, was also involved in the lithium projects). On the other hand, the “green hydrogen” frenzy, largely pushed by German interests to replace Russian gas reduced since the invasion of the Ukraine, has proven to be little more than a cover for gas expansion, through European and other public funding.
The leadership of the Socialist Party in Portugal (a regular liberal party, despite the name) has long been on the corrupting renewables’ bandwagon. For years now, they have made an uncontroversial alliance of interests with the big oil, gas, and coal companies, even if they're also investing in other areas. This alliance began well before any talks of renewables and also expanded to other political parties in the country, with permanent revolving doors between industry and governments since the 1980’s. Although the case for official corruption will now have to be proven in the courts, the corruption of a new energy model that is actually off the hands of those who created the climate crisis seems to be untouched.
With the exit of the Socialist Party, it is now quite conceivable that the right and the far-right will campaign on dismantling renewables. They will certainly not promote a democratic and decentralized energy model, but either insist on this corrupt model or push for a return to full fossil energy, as the climate crisis is turned into a cultural issue that will reap discontentment votes. The green capitalist model of energy is nothing but a fraud on just transition, and only a public and democratic energy system can deliver both the emission cuts and the just transitions we all need.
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'Truly Historic' Youth-Led Climate Case Arrives at European Human Rights Court
Six Portuguese young people are suing the governments of 33 countries, arguing their human rights have been violated by a widespread failure to mitigate the climate crisis.
Sep 27, 2023
Lawyers for six Portuguese children and young adults on Wednesday expressed hope that their unprecedented climate case, brought to the European Court of Human Rights three years after it was first filed, will ultimately be a "game-changer" that forces governments in Europe and across the globe to take decisive action to address the climate emergency.
Ranging in age from 11 to 24, the six plaintiffs sat on Wednesday before nearly two dozen human rights judges and attorneys representing nearly three dozen nations, determined to prove to the court that countries across Europe have violated their fundamental rights by allowing greenhouse gas emissions to continue heating the planet despite warnings from energy experts and scientists.
In Duarte Agostinho v. Portugal and 32 Others, the plaintiffs are seeking not financial relief but a ruling from the court that would compel the governments of the 27 E.U. member-nations as well as Russia, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, and Turkey to speed up their efforts to keep planetary heating below 1.5°C above preindustrial levels.
Because the human rights court's rulings are legally binding for E.U. members, a decision in favor of the young plaintiffs "would act like a binding treaty imposed by the court on the respondents, requiring them to rapidly accelerate their climate mitigation efforts," Gerry Liston of the U.K.-based Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), told the Associated Press.
"In legal terms, it would be a game-changer," Liston told the outlet.
Four of the plaintiffs live in central Portugal, where wildfires killed at least 66 people in 2017. The country faced more blazes this summer—the hottest on record—as well as a record-breaking heatwave which saw the temperature in the central region of the country rise to 46.4°C (115.5°F), which at least one plaintiff said had interfered with schoolwork, and which climate scientists said would not have happened without planetary heating and fossil fuel extraction.
"Without urgent action to cut emissions, [the place] where I live will soon become an unbearable furnace," 20-year-old Martim Agostinho, one of the plaintiffs, said in a statement.
Lawyers for the defendants claimed the group should have litigated the case in the domestic court system, with Belgian legal expert Isabelle Niedlispacher arguing before the court that the plaintiffs did not make an attempt "to invoke, let alone exhaust domestic remedies."
But GLAN, which says it "pursues innovative legal actions across borders," dismissed the claims, noting that the fossil-fueled climate emergency and the extreme weather it's causing have no respect for countries' boundaries and are placing the entire planet at risk.
"It cannot be within a state's discretion whether or not to act to prevent catastrophic climate destruction," said Alison MacDonald, another attorney representing the young people.
Sébastien Duyck, a senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law, called the case "truly historic" because the governments of dozens of countries have been compelled to respond.
"These governments are forced to lay out a legal defense justifying the gap between their climate policies and what science says is needed to avoid climate breakdown," said Duyck. "In the broader context of global litigation, this case wields remarkable influence, given that the European Court of Human Rights holds a prominent role in setting legal precedents within Europe and beyond."
The case was brought to the court a month after a state judge in Montana sided with 16 young residents who argued that the state had violated their rights by promoting fossil fuel extraction. The United Nations Environment Program released a report in July showing that climate litigation has emerged as an important driver of far-reaching, concrete action by governments to reduce emissions.
Gearoid O'Cuinn, another lawyer for GLAN, said defendants resorted to "climate denialism" when they argued, as Greece did, that the "effects of climate change, as recorded so far, do not seem to directly affect human life or human health."
Greece has faced both deadly wildfires and flooding in recent weeks.
"European governments' climate policies are consistent with a catastrophic 3° of global heating this century," said Liston. "For the brave youth-applicants, that is a life sentence of heat extremes which are unimaginable even by today's rapidly deteriorating standards."
"The European Court of Human Rights was set up following the horrors of World War II to hold European governments to account for failing to protect human rights," Liston added. "Never has there been as urgent a need for the court to do so than in this case."
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