In a parliamentary hearing with the working group of the Basic Law on Climate, Ricardo Serrão Santos stressed that the synthesis of the eight bills under discussion should "express objectively the need to maintain the system of regional climate monitoring and forecasting developed by IPMA in collaboration with the academic community and the Portuguese Environment Agency.
IPMA, he said, is the "national authority" on climate and "represents Portugal in the World Meteorological Organisation and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change", two United Nations bodies.
Ricardo Serrão Santos argued that the link between the oceans and the climate should be enshrined in law, due to its capacity to be a sink for carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
The ocean absorbs "30 percent" of the world's carbon emissions, as well as the ecosystems that depend on it, such as marine prairies and salt marshes.
In the final version of the law, there is a need for "more assertive references to policies on the sea and the relevance of the Portuguese sea", he advocated, without forgetting "the climate migrants who die tragically at sea on their way to safety".
Ricardo Serrão Santos also pointed out the lack of references to the National Strategy for the Sea in the projects under discussion, although this instrument is already in its second edition and enshrines the so-called blue economy as a way to ensure prosperity from healthy ecosystems.