Spain Faces Critical Climate Change Threats in 2025: Record Wildfire Emissions and Urgent Adaptation Needs
Spain's 2025 wildfires have emitted record CO₂, while a major climate risk report stresses urgent adaptation actions across health, water, biodiversity, and cities sectors.
- • 2025 wildfires in Spain emitted nearly 19 million tons of CO₂, exceeding national aviation emissions fivefold.
- • Spain identified 141 climate risks with 13 requiring immediate action, emphasizing health, water, biodiversity, and urban vulnerabilities.
- • Wildfire emissions constitute 7% of Spain's total 2024 emissions, marking a dramatic increase over past decades.
- • The comprehensive ERICC-2025 report underpins the National Climate Change Adaptation Plan 2021-2030.
- • Experts call for enhanced forest management and systemic adaptation strategies to address cascading climate risks.
Key details
Spain is confronting a dual climate crisis in 2025, grappling with severe wildfire emissions and a comprehensive assessment revealing urgent climate risks demanding immediate action. The wildfires that ravaged the country in 2025 produced nearly 19 million tons of CO, marking the highest wildfire-related emissions since 2003. This staggering figure accounts for about 7% of Spain's total emissions in 2024, surpassing five times the CO output of the national aviation sector and doubling emissions from the refining industry. These fires burned between 351,347 and 393,048 hectares, intensified by extreme heat and dryness, and represent a significant contribution to Europe's overall carbon emissions from fires, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) of Copernicus.
Laurence Rouil, director of Copernicus' Atmospheric Monitoring Service, noted the urgency of improving forest management to mitigate further fires and emphasized the health risks posed by pollutants released during these events. Research from the Center for Ecological Research and Forest Applications (CREAF) also signals a shifting pattern of wildfire risks in Europe, closely tied to extreme weather episodes.
Complementing these environmental challenges, Spain has identified and prioritized 141 climate risks across 14 socio-economic sectors through the Evaluation of Risks and Impacts from Climate Change in Spain (ERICC-2025). Notably, 36% of these risks are complex, involving cascading effects. Thirteen risks have been classified as "maximum urgency," calling for immediate intervention in critical areas such as health, water resources, biodiversity, urban infrastructure, and social cohesion.
Elena Pita, Director General of the Spanish Office of Climate Change, highlighted the importance of this 1,500-page evaluation for developing Spain's National Climate Change Adaptation Plan 2021-2030. Key issues include heat-related health impacts, extreme droughts and floods, biodiversity loss, urban vulnerabilities to severe weather, and interruptions in essential services. Coastal zones, river corridors, agricultural areas, and major urban centers face particularly high exposure to these risks.
Together, these developments underscore Spain's urgent need for systemic, integrated adaptation strategies to ensure resilience against a rapidly changing climate environment that threatens public health, ecosystems, and economic stability.
This article was synthesized and translated from native language sources to provide English-speaking readers with local perspectives.
