After a wide scale protests against tourism during 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 tackle the problems caused by climate change.

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

“The urban fabric has been 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 in particular, you know, I’ve lived here for over 20 years and it’s slowly becoming, like, soulless. I’d say 50% of the buildings here are just temporary, you know, rental,” he said.

“If it was like interesting cultural art and clients like this, it would be a lot better for everyone,” Barcelona resident Elizabeth, who works at the hotel, told CBS News. “But people who come just to party, drink and just don’t care about the city. That’s the problem.”

But Barcelona is among the many southern European cities facing another problem: the increasingly extreme effects of climate change. In recent years, it has been drier and warmer, and there were some intense and dangerous heat waves and drafts.

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

At a public school in Barcelona, ​​11-year-old student Mia told CBS News she has trouble concentrating when it’s hot.

– It is very difficult – she said.

Her classmate Theo agreed.

“Sometimes when you’re in class and you just come out to play football, it’s really hot,” Theo said.

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

“The tourist tax is what tourists who visit our city pay when they stay in a hotel or tourist apartment,” Barcelona Deputy Mayor Laia Bonet told CBS News. “The possibility of using these revenues, the residence tax, for a project like this is very important in order to accept 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 170 public schools in the city over six years. The goal is to provide air conditioning with decarbonization by replacing old heating systems with gas. He is investing the equivalent of about 100 million dollars in the project, all of which, he says, comes from the residence tax.

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

“It makes a difference,” Bonet said.

But anti-tourism activist Agnes Rodriguez says the city is not using the money collected from tourists.

“The government should be doing this without depending on tourism … it’s about public health,” Rodriguez told CBS News. “If you come tonight to Barcelona, ​​Chicago or New York, and stay in a tourist apartment where a family should live, you are part of this changing city. You are influencing the lives of the people who live there.”

Rodriguez says Barcelona residents, not tourists, should be at the center 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.