Barcelona is using a tourist tax to help address the effects of climate change

After a wide range Anti-tourism protests over the summerBarcelona is trying to turn a negative into a positive by spending some of the money raised from the city’s visitor tax to address issues caused by climate change.

Barcelona is one of the most visited cities in Europe, and for many of Barcelona’s 1.6 million residents, tourism is seen as the cause of a growing number of problems, such as housing shortages, rising prices and changing neighbourhoods.

“The entire urban fabric has been destroyed,” Barcelona resident Fernando told CBS News. He lives in a neighborhood that is very popular with tourists because of its restaurants and bars.

“This area in particular, you know, I’ve lived here for over 20 years and it’s slowly becoming soulless. I would say 50% of the buildings are here just for temporary use, you know, for rent.” He said.

“If it’s like interesting cultural artifacts and that type of clientele, it will be much better for everyone,” Barcelona resident Elisabeth, who works at a hotel, told CBS News. “But people who come just to party, drink and don’t care about the city. That’s the problem.”

But Barcelona is among a number of southern European cities facing another problem: the increasingly severe impacts of climate change. In recent years, the weather has become drier and warmer, and it has Severe and dangerous heat waves And drafts.

High temperatures have become a problem for the city’s infrastructure, such as public schools, many of which do not have air conditioning, as the intense summer heat extends into the school year.

At a public school in Barcelona, ​​11-year-old student Mia told CBS News that she finds it difficult to concentrate when it’s hot.

“It’s very difficult,” she said.

Her colleague Theo agreed.

“Sometimes, when you’re in class, and you just went outside to play soccer, it’s so hot,” Theo said.

But this year, for the first time, Mia and Theo have air conditioning at school, after installing the system over the summer. It was paid for using money collected from Barcelona’s tourism tax, a small fee charged to visitors.

“The tourist tax is what tourists who visit our city pay when they are in a hotel or in a tourist apartment,” Barcelona Vice Mayor Laia Bonet told CBS News. “The possibility of using this revenue, the tourism tax, for such a project is very important so that we can embrace tourism in our city and the role that tourism plays.”

Barcelona City Hall has launched a program to install energy-efficient heat pumps and solar panels in all of the city’s 170 public schools over six years. The goal is to provide air conditioning while also removing carbon by replacing old gas-fired heating systems. It is investing the equivalent of about $100 million in the project, and says it all comes from the tourism tax.

“I think it’s the best way to connect tourism to… the necessary fight against climate change,” Bonnett said, adding that tourism tax funding for the program “is a very important help.”

“It makes a difference,” Bonnett said.

But anti-tourism activist Agnes Rodriguez says the city is missing the point by using money collected from tourists.

“The government has to do this without relying on tourism,” Rodriguez told CBS News. “It’s public health.” “If you’re coming to Barcelona tonight, or to Chicago, or to New York, and you’re staying in a tourist apartment where a family should live, you’re part of this changing city. You’re impacting the lives of the people who live there.”

Rodriguez says Barcelona residents, not tourists, should be at the heart of the city’s fight against climate change.

“We’re not a theme park. We’re not Disney World. So we want to continue to be a city and be able to live here,” she said.