Mismanaged climate disasters are fuelling support for far-right parties that exploit anger directed at political leaders even as they deny humans are causing climate change, a Spanish minister has warned.
As the authorities face a backlash over fatal floods in Valencia last year, Óscar Puente, Spain’s transport minister, said there was a “visceral” reaction to disasters in which fury at the authorities eclipsed analysis of the underlying climate causes.
In Spain, the far-right Vox party has gained support since the October floods by capitalising on the perceived failures of both mainstream parties — conservatives who lead the regional government and the Socialist-led national government.
Asked about the trend, Puente told the Financial Times in an interview in London: “There is a visceral component to citizens’ analysis of things. It is not entirely rational. A component that is more to do with emotions than data.”
After wildfires in Los Angeles this month killed at least 28 people and forced tens of thousands from their homes, rightwingers accused the city and Californian authorities of failing people. Elon Musk, the billionaire and close confidant of President Donald Trump, has amplified claims that the LA fire department’s investments in diversity and inclusion programmes cost lives by wasting money and distracting leaders.
When Spain’s King Felipe and Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez were pelted with mud by angry locals on a visit to the disaster zone, Sánchez’s government pinned the blame on far-right extremists. The floods killed more than 220 people.
Vox, which questions the reality of climate change, helped cancel the creation of a new emergency unit approved by a previous administration when it was in a regional coalition government in 2023-24. It also drew scorn for appointing a former bullfighter as Valencia’s top culture official.
Puente said: “If Vox’s solution is to replace scientists and emergency managers with bullfighters then, well, I don’t really know how it’s possible for the Valencian people to look to Vox.”
Vox’s national support has climbed from 10.5 per cent before the floods to 13.8 per cent this month, according to polls by 40dB. Its vote share is still much lower than far-right parties in France and Germany.
Valencia’s regional government, now run by the conservative People’s party, sparked widespread fury by failing to warn people of the flood risks after torrential rain. Carlos Mázon, the regional president, was infamously at a three-hour lunch when water began to engulf urban streets.
In the wake of the floods anger spread to Sánchez’s central government as it bore the brunt of the blame for a slow rescue and recovery effort.
Several groups with far-right links were quick to send activists to the disaster zone, helping to clean up or deliver food and bottled water under the slogan “only the people can save the people”.
Pepa Millán, Vox’s spokesperson in the lower house of parliament, on Friday said: “When the failed regional government and a negligent [central] government abandoned Valencians, then the nation appeared, the best Spain, a selfless one, represented especially by young people. This is the Spain we defend.”
Puente said: “With a tragedy of these dimensions it’s very hard for the state to respond, however strong it might be. People expect an immediate response, they expect immediate solutions. But the magnitude of the damage in Valencia was so great that no state would be in a position to provide them.”
The Socialist party and the PP have also been held responsible for the failure of successive governments to implement engineering plans to reduce flood risks in the area.
There has been far less public debate in Spain over the role of climate change, which scientists say fuelled intense downpours by warming the Mediterranean Sea to record temperatures and turning it into what Puente called “a bomb”.
“I think we have to give it time,” he said. “The next few months are going to be decisive. I hope that we will be able to revive Valencia and then with the benefit of time, as the viscerality decreases and more rationality emerges, I believe that things will be seen in a true light.”
Following 2021 floods in Germany, which left at least 180 people dead and 30,000 homeless, police accused far-right extremists and conspiracy theorists of seeking to exploit the disaster.
The authorities said far-right supporters were posing as volunteers and using vehicles with loudspeakers to spread the false claim that emergency services and rescue teams were reducing their help.
Puente was in London earlier this month to pitch the expertise of Spanish train companies to the UK government. Spain’s world-class high-speed train network was so sturdy, he noted, that it had survived the floods intact bar a 1.2km stretch.
Many roads and local train lines, however, were wrecked, requiring extensive repair work overseen by the transport ministry. “Let’s not fool ourselves,” Puente said. “Adapting our infrastructure and our world to the reality of climate change will not be possible in the short term and will require a lot of investment.”
The national government says it has made €16.6bn in aid available to individuals and businesses recovering from the floods, receiving 363,000 requests for assistance so far.
Additional reporting by Laura Pitel in Berlin and Christopher Grimes in Los Angeles
