As a network of research centers and units of excellence, the Severo Ochoa Centers of Excellence and María de Maeztu Units of Excellence Alliance (SOMMa)—of which the Doñana Biological Station – CSIC is a member—would like to make an urgent appeal and offer our help in tackling the climate emergency through a national policy based on knowledge and scientific evidence.

This call is addressed to all governance actors, political representatives, and society as a whole. We stress that science is essential to address such a complex problem, with far-reaching impacts and countless facets, such as climate change.

Thanks to scientific research, we have the knowledge and tools to understand the problem, anticipate its consequences, and design effective and sustainable solutions from social, economic, and environmental perspectives. The prolonged heatwave that this summer has fueled a devastating wave of wildfires and endangered public health in Spain and across much of Europe is just one of many manifestations of climate change. The scientific evidence available shows that climate change is mainly caused by greenhouse gas emissions resulting from human activities. It also allows us to establish links between these processes and the growing, often unprecedented consequences that have been affecting our ecosystems and our society over the past decade. Without science, we could not distinguish between natural variability and human-induced changes in the composition of our atmosphere, nor could we understand how these alterations disrupt the balance of physical, chemical, and biological processes, ultimately driving global changes in atmospheric and oceanic patterns—with corresponding consequences for societies and ecosystems.

For all these reasons, scientific knowledge is essential to:

• Plan climate change adaptation and mitigation policies based on robust scientific diagnoses, forecasts, and solutions.
• Determine how climate change will affect sectors such as health, agriculture, biodiversity, the economy, and cities.
• Develop technological solutions such as renewable energies, carbon capture systems, energy efficiency, sustainable mobility, resilient agriculture, or more sustainable and climate-adapted cities. Scientific progress and technological innovation in these areas open new avenues to reduce emissions and adapt to climate change more rapidly.
• Explain to society, with verifiable data, the urgency of the problem and the effectiveness of the measures to be taken, countering misinformation.

Reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) across its six assessment cycles since its creation in the late 1980s, along with those from national and international scientific communities evaluating existing knowledge, have made it clear that we already have sufficient evidence to affirm that the Climate Emergency requires urgent action. This action must include:

• Long-term political vision: developing initiatives that transcend legislatures and governments. Effective measures (energy transition, infrastructure adaptation, ecosystem restoration, resilient agriculture, and related technological innovations) can only have an impact if planned and sustained over decades.
• Regulatory and economic stability: businesses, investors, and citizens need clear and lasting rules to ensure there are no abrupt changes of direction with each change of government. Only then can the necessary confidence be generated to drive investment in, for example, clean energy, sustainable mobility, and energy efficiency.
• Unity in addressing the problem: broad social and political consensus is needed, grounded in the best available knowledge, to act jointly and fairly both in the economic and social transition to tackle the root causes, and in the design of measures to adapt to impacts (heatwaves, droughts, floods, wildfires, biodiversity loss).
• Multilevel coordination: coordination across different levels of government (international, national, regional, and local) is essential to avoid duplication and gaps in action.

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