Climate change has a direct cost to insurance companiesThe figures are clear: in 2025, insurance companies in Spain paid €492 million for claims directly related to climate change; specifically, 628,800 claims, according to data released this Monday by the industry association, Unespa. However, this figure is below the average of recent years, which amounts to around €800 million annually. According to the association, last year the equivalent of 1,723 incidents and €1.34 million in costs were recorded every day, with an average cost per incident of €783, according to data collected by Unespa. Various institutions participate in managing damages caused by natural phenomena. Most claims—such as those resulting from snow, hail, rain, or winds below 120 km/h—are covered by private insurers. For its part, the Insurance Compensation Consortium intervenes when floods, storm surges, sustained winds exceeding 120 km/h – known as atypical cyclonic storms (ACS) – or geological events such as earthquakes or volcanic eruptions occur. These events are considered "extraordinary phenomena." Unespa's data refers exclusively to weather-related claims that correspond to insurance payouts. The breakdown by insurance sector indicates that homes were the most affected, accounting for two-thirds of weather-related claims (407,885 incidents), followed by homeowners' associations (123,024 claims) and automobiles (43,265). Households also accounted for the largest share of payouts, with €213 million (43.3% of the total), followed by industries, with €114 million, and automobiles, with another €77 million. Although multi-risk insurance has the highest volume of policies for homes, the most expensive claims, from an economic standpoint, were registered in industries, according to Unespa. In this sector, the average cost amounted to €3,532 per claim, compared to an average of €523 for households. If the comparison is made based on the natural phenomenon causing the damage, hail stands out—with an average cost of €1,814—and wind, with an average of €739. In absolute terms, however, the impact of rain is significant. This atmospheric phenomenon accounted for more than 58% of all claims and more than 36% of total payouts (€178 million). Hail damage was also significant, representing 17.7% of claims and 41.1% of payouts (€202 million). Wind, meanwhile, accounted for slightly less than a quarter of claims and payouts (€111 million). The impact of snow was minimal in 2025.

Pregnancy is a very important stage in a woman's life. Many changes occur on different levels—physical, emotional, social, etc.—and, especially, self-care becomes crucial. Some aspects of this attention to personal well-being are within the control of the pregnant woman and her immediate environment, but others, in many cases, are beyond their reach. This is the case with the effects of climate change and pollution, especially relevant in urban contexts, which can affect pregnancy and early childhood, and which are of increasing concern to these groups.

The loss of glaciers worldwide is usually calculated in terms of square kilometers or ice volume. But each individual glacier, however small, is unique. "It might be a historical and cultural site, a tourist attraction, or a symbol of regional identity. Its loss might not impact sea levels or water resources, but it can have a very significant local impact," says researcher Lander Van Tricht of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich). Some studies suggest that We have already lost 10% of the world's glaciers due to the climate crisisNow Van Tricht is leading a study, published this Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change, which predicts the number of glaciers that will be lost this century based on various degrees of global warming.

This Thursday will be a key day for Catalonia to take steps forward in mitigating the climate emergency. Five years late, the Catalan Parliament will vote on its first carbon budget, which establishes the amount of greenhouse gases that each economic sector can emit in the coming years. Government spokesperson Silvia Paneque explained in the special plenary session on this issue that in 2023 Catalonia emitted 38.36 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (Mt CO₂) and, for the first time in more than 30 years, fell below 1990 levels. The aim is to set "clear course" until 2030. However, despite the progress this milestone may represent, the document that will reach the plenary session is far from resembling the study drafted by the Committee of Experts on Climate Change (CECC), whose members claim it violates scientific criteria.

Eighty-two countries are calling for a global roadmap to phase out oil, gas, and coal. Representatives from all these governments have joined forces to lobby at the UN Climate Summit. COP30, which is being held these days in the Brazilian Amazonand have demanded that the final text of the meeting include this commitment. A first draft of the summit's final text, called Mutirão (what does it mean community effort (in Portuguese), which includes a possible commitment to the phase-out of fossil fuels, but is still too open-ended.

Deforestation is a striking image when seen from the air. The continuous green of the forest ends abruptly, severed by a cruelly straight cut, leaving only barren land. From a bird's-eye view, the visual impact is devastating and helps to capture the tragedy of the destruction of tropical forests. Drones used by Reuters photographers Adriano Machado and Ueslei Marcelino have revealed this deforestation in a southern region. from the AmazonIn the Brazilian state of Rondônia, the destruction even affects part of a protected indigenous territory, that of the Kaxarari people.

The European Union and the United States have burned more fossil fuels in 2025 than the previous year and have increased their CO₂ emissions, contrary to the downward trend of the last two decades. This is revealed in the annual Global Carbon Budget 2025 report, an analysis of CO₂ emissions prepared by the Global Carbon Project, which is being presented on the occasion of the Brazil climate summit, COP30, and which, for the first time, projects emissions for 2025. According to the study, the world as a whole will emit 1.1% more CO₂ in 2025 than in 2024, continuing the upward trend in global emissions, which are expected to reach at its peak before 2030 if we want to keep global warming below 1.5°C as called for by the Paris Agreement.

The climate crisis exacerbates inequalities because it disproportionately affects the most vulnerable, who have fewer adaptation strategies. This is also evident in Spain, according to a report published by Oxfam Intermón this Wednesday on the occasion of the UN COP30 climate summit being held in Brazil. According to this research, entitled Climate inequality in Spain: An opportunity for a just transitionThe wealthiest 0.1% of the population in Spain pollutes up to 55 times more annually than a person in the poorest 50%, according to 2022 data. The study also reveals that 70% of the Spanish population lives in municipalities where the temperature has already increased by 1.5°C since 2019, and that per capita household income is lower than the average. In total, more than 33 million people in Spain already live in areas that have exceeded this threshold (which is not the Paris Agreement threshold, as that is a global average), which entails significant changes in weather and biodiversity. The top 1% of earners consume 45 times more of their carbon budget than they would need to keep global warming within the 1.5°C limit. "The ecological transition will only be just if those who emit the most assume their responsibility. Climate action is needed that combines social justice and climate ambition," says Lourdes Benavides, head of climate justice at Oxfam Intermón. According to the Oxfam study, Companies listed on the Ibex 35 are responsible for 30% of direct CO₂ emissions in Spain And just five—four from the energy sector and one from air transport, Oxfam details—generate more than a quarter of Spain's total.

Ten years ago in France, the world celebrated one of the most hopeful moments in recent diplomacy: the approval of theParis Agreementthe great global pact to curb planet warmingToday, however, optimism has faded, and reality imposes itself with the starkness of the data. The global average temperature is dangerously approaching the threshold of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, and the national climate commitments—Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)—that each country submits to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions remain insufficient. Wars and geopolitical tensions between the major global powers, along with instability and a lack of funding, have diminished the ambition of an international community that seems to have abandoned multilateralism. Besides the United States, which has yet to decide whether or not to send a delegation to Brazil, a notable absence at COP30 will be that of Israel, which has already announced its withdrawal due to its ongoing conflict with the UN.

The climate emergency has tripled deaths due to the heat of this summer in Europe: Without this phenomenon caused by the burning of fossil fuels, 68% of the deaths caused by extreme heat this summer on the Old Continent would not have occurred. This is the conclusion of a study led by scientists from Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, which estimates that at least 24,400 people died between June and August 2025 in 850 European cities due to high temperatures. The study also estimates that if there were no climate change, 16,500 of these deaths would not have occurred and the number of heat-related deaths would have been 7,900.

The reservoirs that supply water to Tehran, the capital of Iran, are on the verge of drying up. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian warned in July that the capital could run out of reserves by September or October if water consumption is not drastically reduced. The situation is critical in a city of more than 9 million inhabitants, the capital of a province totaling nearly 14 million.

The unstoppable deforestation and the climate crisis threaten the great green lung that is still the Amazon rainforest and take her to the dreaded point of no return in recovery andpush towards savannization. That is to say, there is a danger that the rich diversity of vegetation and climate in the American region will become a vast expanse of semi-arid land filled with scrubland. In a new study published this Tuesday by the journal Nature Communication, an international team of researchers has found that there is another factor to consider when adding more concern about the future of the Amazon: rainfall.

From the renewable energy community, we eagerly awaited an agreement on Decree Law 12/25 on renewables. We desperately wanted it because we are aware ofthe great lack in which we find ourselves after years of immobility. Surprisingly and with great sadness, we have discovered that there is no agreement, and that we are once again returning to what, on a practical level, is a moratorium on renewable energy. A colossal disaster, in short.

The investigation teams continue working this Wednesday to find some of the 170 people who remain missing after the Severe flooding last weekend in Texas, which left at least 119 dead, including many children. In addition to the 119 people killed in Texas, the floods also killed three more in the neighboring state of New Mexico. Mystic, a Christian summer camp for girls built on the banks of the river. A total of 27 people from the camp, including girls and counselors, died in the flooding, according to Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha. Historic floods this July in Texas.

June was the warmest month on record, with temperatures four degrees above the 1991-2020 climate average, surpassing the previous record, set in June 2023. Nights reached 30°C in the Catalan capital.

The winter and spring rains have been a double-edged sword. Although they favored the growth of crops such as cereals, the high temperatures in June have turned these fields into flammable areas. This is how David Borrell, head of the Generalitat's Fire Department, explained to ARA, stating that Catalonia is under threat of "very violent" agricultural fires. The most recent cases are those on Tuesday in Sanaüja and Torrefeta and Florejacs (La Segarra), which were declared under control on Wednesday night, but ended with two fatalities and more than 5,500 hectares burned.

Well into the early hours of Sunday morning, the UN summit against the climate crisis, COP29, has reached an agreement that seemed almost impossible, but which has disappointed almost everyone. The text approved in Baku (Azerbaijan) provides for rich countries to contribute $300 billion annually by 2035 to help poor countries cope with the climate emergency. A figure "scandalously low," as the Gambian minister said, within an agreement that is generally "disappointing," according to climate NGOs such as Greenpeace, but one that poor countries have had no choice but to accept in order to have some aid to work with. It falls far short of the trillion dollars requested by the most vulnerable states and NGOs, leaving the door open to aid of many types, "public and private," or even in the form of credit.

The Indigenous and Anomami people have a word for global warming: motokari"It's already happening in many places in the jungle," says Yanomami shaman Davi Kopenawa, who visited Barcelona this week at the invitation of the Barcelona Center for Contemporary Culture (CCCB). motokari "It has come down to dry up the land," he warns, and asks us "to fight together, Indigenous and non-Indigenous," to protect the Amazon from destruction: "If the land dies, we will die too, and the forest is already beginning to die."

The new IPCC-UN report on the climate crisis reflects, like previous ones, the best science of the moment incorporating advances in observational and analytical capacity. It is forceful, but at the same time considered. It aims to alarm but avoids demoralising catastrophism. The spirit is well captured in the ARA's interview with Josep Canadell, one of those responsible for the report, published on Tuesday 10 August (in Spanish).