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uring his intervention, "De-energizing Earth's Climate," at the Barcelona New Economy Week (BNEW), Picazo placed climate change at the center of the debate, assuring that the next decade will be vital for future generations. Thus, he pointed to renewable energies, especially solar and wind, as the main way to curb climate change.
To do this, he emphasized the need to "make cities smarter and more sustainable," since "they contribute 70% to global warming." Picazo explained that humans generate too much energy for the Earth, which leads to increasingly extreme and long-lasting weather phenomena. For this reason, he insisted on clean energies as a way to stabilize global warming. Furthermore, he assured that "seven to ten years after their implementation," renewable energies generate more jobs and, in general, a greater economic impact than fossil fuels.
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For Picazo, the phenomenon currently having the most impact on the planet are heat waves, which are increasingly frequent and are turning Spain into a place of "extreme weather phenomena." Similarly, he pointed out the need to "decarbonize" the planet and use fewer and fewer fossil fuels. Picazo stressed that "never in the last 800 thousand years has there been as much CO2 as now," which makes it increasingly necessary to find sustainable formulas for generating energy. In this regard, he recalled the importance of the "circular economy" to allow cities to move towards more sustainable models.
Precisely greenhouse gases have a direct impact on the water of our planet, another of the great problems that Picazo foresees for the near future. Thus, the melting of the poles has several direct consequences. On the one hand, polar surfaces "function as mirrors that reflect solar radiation, decreasing the global temperature." If they disappear, radiation will reach the earth, increasing the planet's temperature.
On the other hand, the rise in sea level causes coastal areas to flood and saltwater to contaminate freshwater, forcing thousands of families to relocate in order to continue living. In fact, it is already estimated that islands like the Maldives or Kiribati will disappear in about 15 years. For all this, Picazo has assured that this crisis must serve as an incentive to act, because "it is an emergency and what we do in the next ten years will affect the next millennium."