The leader of Spain's conservative party was blasted Tuesday for downplaying the threat from climate change at a conference attended by Al Gore, winner of this year's Nobel Peace Prize for raising awareness of the issue.
When asked about climate change at a meeting in Palma de Mallorca late Monday, Popular Party leader Mariano Rajoy said that it was "a subject we all have to be aware of but we can't make it into a big global problem."
Rajoy, who is leading his party in a general election set for March 2008, said he knew "very little" about the subject but cited his cousin who is a physics professor to back his opinion.
"He told me: 'I've brought ten of the most important scientists in the world here and not one is able to guarantee what the weather will be like in Seville tomorrow'," Rajoy said.
"So, how can anyone claim to know what will happen to the world in 300 years' time?" he added.
Gore spoke at the same conference shortly after Rajoy but did not directly address his comments, saying only that "right-wing idealogues" had a responsibility to back initiatives to fight climate change.
The former US vice-president was jointly awarded the Nobel prize with the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on October 12.
On Friday he will receive Spain's prestigious Prince of Asturias award for International Cooperation for his efforts to combat climate change at a ceremony in the northern town of Oviedo.
Speaking at a reception in Madrid shortly after Rajoy made his comments, Spain's King Juan Carlos called climate change one of the planet's "greatest challenges".
Environment Minister Cristina Narbona meanwhile called Rajoy's statements "eccentric and incredible".
"I didn't think that there were any right- or left-wing leaders left capable of speaking so dismissively about the climate change threat," she added.
Five environmental organizations -- Friends of The Earth, Ecologists in Action, Greenpeace, SEO-BirdLife and WWW Adena -- issued a joint statement condemning Rajoy's words.
"For our five organisations, these comments are an insult to those countries and peoples at most risk, who are already suffering directly the dramatic effects of climate change," it read.
Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth," which won two Academy Awards last year, is to be shown in Spanish schools as part of the Socialist government's effort to raise awareness about global warming.
