The Minister of Health, Mónica García, has presented this campaign whose purpose is to ensure that “the population adopts self-protection and care habits that reduce the impact of heat on their health.”
The hottest areas of Spain already have a certain culture of heat that must be reinforced and renewed, she said, “and that we have to transfer to areas that traditionally were not so hot in summer and that now, due to climate change, are going to become so.”
Last summer was the hottest ever recorded on the planet, and in Spain more than half of the month of August was under heatwave warnings. The European Copernicus satellite system has already warned that there is a high probability (above 70%) that this summer will once again be warmer than normal.
According to estimates from the daily all-cause mortality monitoring system (MoMo), last year there were 3,009 deaths attributable to excess heat.
In this context, Mónica García recalled, “it is essential to be clear and forceful: climate denialism is harmful to health. Climate denialism, but also the political positions that whitewash it. Denying the reality of climate change is putting the health of the population, so the first step to confront this climate emergency is to forcefully reject those speeches that support it.”
“The Government of Spain and this Ministry are firmly committed to the fight against climate change and its effects on health. We have already said many times that there are no healthy people on a sick planet. Therefore, we are working intensely from the Observatory of Health and Climate Change”, a joint initiative with the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge and the Ministry of Science and Innovation.
We want, she insisted, “for the Observatory to be a pioneering and reference centre for research, monitoring and the formulation of public policies based on scientific evidence to protect the health of our population against the impacts of climate change.”
In this framework, on May 16, the Ministry of Health activated the National Plan for Preventive Actions due to High Temperatures or “Heat Plan”, which is the instrument through which the Ministry will try to reduce the impact of excess temperatures in the health of the population, defining when, where and at what level the warnings are given.
The Action Plan contains a series of recommendations in the form of a decalogue that are the basis on which the “A Summer of Care” campaign has been designed. Because “we know that in Spain heat is the main health problem associated with climate change and that in the coming years an increase in extreme temperatures is expected due to global warming,” she highlights.
The person responsible for Health and Climate Change in the Minister’s Cabinet, Héctor Tejero, has explained the objectives of the campaign and has spoken of the need to develop the culture of heat, with continuous and intergenerational communication and from all areas, in areas where it was traditionally warmer, but now also in areas that suffer more heat due to climate change.
The campaign has three objectives:
Develop a culture of heat: Promote individual and collective habits of self-protection and care to reduce the impacts of heat on health.
Communicate advice effectively: Transmit prevention and protection measures against high temperatures clearly and concisely.
Highlight the community dimension: Emphasise the importance of mutual care and collective responsibility in protection against heat.
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