PS: Gov't Should Begin Implementing Measures to Alleviate Drought Immediately

    Bratislava, 20 July (TASR) - Climate change - which Environment Minister Tomas Taraba (a Slovak National Party/SNS nominee) and the entire government have long disputed - is resulting in a drought that is having a devastating impact on the country, representatives of the opposition Progressive Slovakia (PS) party stated at a press conference on Monday, presenting a study called Regioclim on scenarios for the possible development of drought in Slovakia over the coming decades.
        They called on the government to begin implementing measures to mitigate the effects of drought as soon as possible.
        "The message from the climatologists' study is clear. The warmer it gets, the more severe the droughts will be in Slovakia. And this isn't caused by less rainfall, but by increased evaporation. The second message is also very important - there will be a huge difference depending on how well we manage to keep climate change under control," said MEP Martin Hojsik (PS), adding that it's important for the state, as well as local authorities and farmers, to begin implementing adaptation measures as soon as possible.
        "We know from estimates that in the EU alone, drought and its direct damage result in a loss of €9 billion annually. For example, the heatwave in June was responsible for approximately 12,000 premature deaths in the EU. These are simply impacts that even the most cynical deniers can no longer downplay, but instead of taking action and trying to mitigate the effects of drought and climate change, our government is doing exactly the opposite," added PS MP Tamara Stohlova.
        According to her, government politicians reject climate policies and have even been trying to polarise society over them for a long time. "And Environment Minister Taraba, the person best qualified for the job - the one who bears the greatest responsibility for this issue - has botched everything he could have," she said.
        Stohlova noted that there's no single miracle solution that will resolve Slovakia's drought problems, no technological innovation. "Our country needs to be thoroughly restored; we need to restore its water cycles and water processes. Concrete reservoirs - which minister Taraba loves to talk about - won't save us; they merely address the consequences of a problem that we're already facing. What we need is a comprehensive set of measures in our rivers, our fields, our forests and our towns," she stated.
        "We need to retain water in our country, but under this government, the focus seems to be on handing out money for water-retention measures to oligarchs for ponds at golf resorts. Real measures will help to retain water - ideally right where it falls. If we want to retain water in the forests, we first and foremost need to protect the forests located in protected areas - primarily in national parks - and let nature take its course there. "We need to transform forests that are managed for commercial purposes or have been heavily altered by human activity into forests that are more resilient to drought, but also, for example, to potential wildfires," added Stohlova.
        The Environment Ministry's communications department has responded to PS's statements. "This is yet another failed marketing attempt by Progressive Slovakia to raise its profile and cover up its incompetence, just as was the case with the lost dispute over Malinec [the Malinec-Latky pumped storage power plant project] before the Constitutional Court or the fiasco at UVO [the Public Procurement Office] regarding the removal of tar in Predajna," it told TASR.