Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida, the Spanish capital’s mayor, experienced a brief – but widely publicised – moment of embarrassment when he was reprimanded by Mario Agreda, a representative of the Indian Movement of America, at the COP25 UN Climate Change Conference here in Madrid on Tuesday.
A long-term resident of the city, Agreda was upset Martinez-Almeida had recently told a group of school children he would prefer to donate money for repairs to the fire-damaged Notre Dame cathedral in Paris than to the Amazon rainforest – because “Notre Dame is a symbol of Europe”.
“Children have to breathe; the Amazon matters more than a church,” Agreda told Martinez-Almeida in what he called a spirit of “constructive criticism”.
On paper – and to judge by the proliferation of banners and posters around the city, too, and even on the sides of its postal trolleys – Spain’s decision to host COP25 at less than a month’s notice following Chile’s withdrawal represents a major boost to the capital’s green credentials.
But as COP25 delegates themselves found out on Tuesday when operators of Madrid’s creaking public transport system went on the first of several strikes to protest against what they see as the council’s running-down of services, Martinez-Almeida has since taking power last summer had to contend with widespread criticism from his fellow Madrilenos over the council’s new environmental policies.
COP25 had barely got under way, in fact, when the metre-high letters of the sign in the central Puerto de Alcala square reading “Madrid Green Capital” – part of the council’s publicity campaign for the summit – were amended by Greenpeace activists so it read “Madrid Grey Capital” instead.
Greenpeace also issued a press release slamming the “city council’s inaction against contamination and to fight climate change”, amid accusations that Madrid’s COP25 slogan was overly similar to the EU’s coveted “European Green Capital” award, so far only ever awarded in Spain to the northern city of Vitoria, seat of government of the Basque Autonomous Community. Next year, it will be awarded to neighbouring capital Lisbon, in Portugal.
2019 Al Jazeera Media Network