The Spanish Office for Climate Change will have 24.5 million euros

The budget forecasts of the Secretary of State for the Environment for the year 2021 estimate a total allocation of 24.5 million euros for the Spanish Office of Climate Change with the aim of implementing the regulatory package.

This was announced on Thursday by the Secretary of State for the Environment, Hugo Morán, during his appearance in the Senate Budget Committee, noting that “they represent a qualitative and quantitative leap in relation to the last available budgetary tool.”

The Spanish Office of Climate Change has defined the scope of the strategic framework of Energy and Climate and with it, the main lines that “must allow the modernization of our economy to the climate scenarios that science projects for the coming decades,” said Morán.

Regarding the State Meteorological Agency, “as a support instrument in the observation of the climate”, in addition to its work of weather forecasting, a modernization plan will be addressed with more than 140 million euros of which, 20 million will go to the new generation surveillance network.

In the new Directorate of Biodiversity, Forests and Desertification, a total of 778 million euros are budgeted for the year 2021, which “will allow the implementation of the measures of the recently approved green infrastructure strategy aligned in turn with the European biodiversity strategy”.

This package of programs includes for the improvement of the knowledge of the natural heritage a total of 37 million euros, in addition to 20 million euros for the conservation of marine biodiversity and 134 million for the conservation of terrestrial biodiversity.

For the control of international trade in species, a budget of 5 million euros is contemplated, plus a total of 60 million for the recovery of wetlands and for the restoration of ecosystems, 137 million euros.

For interventions in the field of green and urban infrastructure, EUR 90 million is budgeted; for the recovery of spaces affected by mining about 131 million, a total of 30 million for the improvement of forest masses and for the defense of ecosystems against fires, 121 million euros.

This package complements the budget of the Autonomous Agency of National Parks that amounts to a total of 40 million euros, which is “11% more than the previous budget”.

The Directorate-General for the Coast and the Sea, which seeks to increase the resilience of the coast in the face of the effect of sea level rise and the increasing impacts of storms and extreme events, will be endowed with a budget of 214 million euros.

The Directorate-General for Water has a budget amounting to 724 million euros including hydrographic confederations as well as state companies, “which represents a growth of 24%”.

Next year, the General Directorate of Quality and Environmental Assessment will have a budget of 514 million euros for the implementation of the Spain Circular 2030 strategy and the implementation “of which we hope will be in force in the coming year”, announced Morán, the future Law on waste and contaminated soils.

The Secretary of State for the Environment recalled that the draft law on climate change and energy transition, “is already going through its parliamentary journey for its entry into force next year, which will complete the entire strategic framework” and of which the Integrated National Energy and Climate Plan, the National Plan for Adaptation to Climate Change and the Long-term Strategy 2050 are part.

Morán has pointed to the Paris Agreement and the European Green Deal as the two “main axes of action that must preside over our environmental policy with a vocation to transversality to all policies” aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Source: El Diario