The five main environmental NGO’s of Spain (Friends of the Earth, Ecologists in Action, Greenpeace, SEO/BirdLife and WWF) want a law of climate change and energy transition more ambitious. Demanding that the Ministry for the Ecological Transition, which last week presented the draft of the future standard, which set a global goal stronger for the coming decades.
MORE INFORMATION The Government proposes to veto the sales of petrol cars and diesel in 2040, Spain must reduce one third of its greenhouse gas emissions in little more than a decade
The draft of the ministry (that will be agreed upon with the political parties in order to move forward in the Congress) establishes as a goal that by 2030, global emissions of greenhouse gases in Spain are 20% lower than in 1990. That means trimming a third of the current emissions of the country in little more than a decade.
The NGOS themselves applaud that the draft has “almost all the main tools necessary to be at the height of other standards” adopted in other countries in the past 10 years. But consider that the 20% objective is “clearly insufficient”. Do not set a percentage as an alternative, but remember that the European Mariobet Parliament has just adopted a resolution that aims for a reduction of 55% for the Union as a whole in 2030. For its part, the Commission has already set a 40% reduction and it is expected that at the end of this year it may go up that commitment with up to 45%.
But those percentages are overall objectives for the entire EU. Then, each country has goals more or less individualized in function of their circumstances of departure. And the Spanish Government argues that the 20% target is more ambitious than what we would have to cut it to implement all european standards of combating climate change.
Regarding the concrete measures of the draft law, the environmentalists are applauding the bans of fracking or drilling. Or the removal of incentives for fossil fuels. But a lack of the “prohibition” of technologies that “capture and storage of industrial CO2.” Or a calendar of “scheduled closing of coal plants and nuclear before 2025”. Predictably, that calendar of close (although not by 2025, but later) is presented in brief in the framework of the energy plan and climate that Spain must submit to the Commission.
Car combustion
One of the measures that most impact had in the draft that the ministry presented last week is that of the veto to the sale of passenger cars and vans which emit CO2 from 2040 onwards. The environmental groups believe that such a ban (that other EU countries are also putting on the table) it must advance a lot more, to 2028.
Also proposed by the NGOS that 100% of the electric power system is renewable in 2030 and not 2040 as indicated in the draft. And they demand a tax on CO2 emissions and other specific measures of ecofiscalidad” in the draft are left aside.