As a network of centers and units of research excellence, the Alliance of Severo Ochoa Centers of Excellence and María de Maeztu Units of Excellence (SOMMa) wishes to make an urgent appeal and offer our support to address the climate emergency with a national policy grounded in scientific knowledge and evidence. This call is directed at all actors responsible for governance, political representatives, and society as a whole. We emphasize that science is essential for tackling such a complex issue, one with such significant impacts and many facets, like climate change.

Thanks to scientific research, we now have the knowledge and tools needed to understand the problem, anticipate its consequences, and design effective and sustainable solutions from a social, economic, and environmental perspective. The prolonged heatwave this summer—which fueled a devastating wave of wildfires and put public health at risk in Spain and much of Europe—is just one of many manifestations of the effects of climate change.

The available scientific knowledge shows that climate change is mainly caused by greenhouse gas emissions resulting from human activity. It also allows us to establish links between these processes and the increasing, often unprecedented, consequences affecting our ecosystems and society in the past decade. Without science, we would not be able to distinguish between natural variability and human-induced changes in the composition of our atmosphere, nor understand how these changes disrupt the balance of physical, chemical, and biological processes, ultimately leading to global changes in atmospheric and marine patterns—and, in turn, major impacts on societies and ecosystems.

For all these reasons, scientific knowledge is essential for:

• Planning climate change mitigation and adaptation policies, based on sound scientific diagnosis, forecasting, and solutions.
• Determining how climate change will affect sectors such as health, agriculture, biodiversity, the economy, and cities.
• Developing technological solutions such as renewable energy, carbon capture systems, energy efficiency, sustainable mobility, resilient agriculture, and cities better adapted to climate change. Scientific advances and technological innovation in these areas open new pathways to reduce emissions and adapt more rapidly to climate change.
• Communicating the urgency of the issue to society, with verifiable data, and highlighting the effectiveness of the measures to be taken, while countering misinformation.

The reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), over its six cycles since its establishment in the late 1980s, along with national and international scientific communities' assessments of existing knowledge, have made it clear that we have enough information to affirm that the Climate Emergency requires urgent action, which in turn demands:

1. Long-term political vision

Developing initiatives that go beyond political terms and governments. Effective measures—such as energy transition, infrastructure adaptation, ecosystem restoration, resilient agriculture, and related technological innovations—can only make an impact if planned and sustained over decades.

2. Regulatory and economic stability

Businesses, investors, and citizens need clear and lasting rules, to ensure there are no abrupt changes in direction with every government change. Only this will generate the trust necessary to boost investment in areas like clean energy, sustainable mobility, and energy efficiency.

3. Unity in the face of the problem

We need social and political consensus, based on the best available knowledge, to act collectively and fairly—both in a just economic and social transition to tackle the causes, and in designing adaptation measures to deal with the impacts (heatwaves, droughts, floods, wildfires, biodiversity loss).

4. Multilevel coordination

It is essential to coordinate policies across different levels of government (international, national, regional, and local), avoiding duplication and gaps in action.

In summary, SOMMa considers it urgent to address the climate emergency with a national policy based on scientific knowledge and evidence, ensuring continuity, stability, and social consensus.

>> You can read the statement in Spanish at the SOMMa website: La acción climática: conocimiento científico y consenso social - SOMMa