Barcelona uses its tourist tax to tackle the effects of climate change

||| FROM CBS NEWS |||

After wide scale anti-tourism protests over the summer, Barcelona is trying to turn a negative into a positive by spending some of the money raised from the city’s tax on visitors to tackle 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 reason for a growing number of problems, like a housing shortage, rising prices and changing neighborhoods.

“The urban fabric is completely destroyed,” Barcelona resident Fernando told CBS News. He lives in a neighborhood that is popular among tourists for its restaurants and bars. 

“This area particularly, you know, I’ve lived here for over 20 years and it’s just, slowly getting, like, soulless. I would say 50% of the buildings are here just for temporary use, you know, for rentals,” he said.

“If it was like interesting cultural artistic and these kinds of clients, that would be much better for everybody,” Barcelona resident Elizabeth, who works at a hotel, told CBS News. “But people who come only for party, drink and just not taking care of the city. That is the problem.”

But Barcelona is among a number of southern European cities facing another problem: the increasingly extreme effects of climate change. In recent years, it has become dryer and warmer, and there have been intense and dangerous heat waves and draughts.

The rising temperatures have become a problem for city infrastructure like public schools, many of which do not have air conditioning, as the extreme heat of summer extends into the school year.

At one Barcelona public school, 11-year-old student Mia told CBS News that she struggles to concentrate when it’s hot.

“It’s very hard,” she said.

Her classmate Theo agreed.

“Sometimes when you’re like, in the class, and you just came out playing football, it’s very hot,” Theo said.

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

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