States in climatic emergency… only some. Elvira Carles, July 2019

On June 27, the French National Assembly approved a new law on energy and climate in which in its first articles it set more ambitious objectives to reduce the impact on global warming, warning about “the ecological and climatic urgency”.

The new French law sets the goal of reducing the energy consumption of fossil fuels by 40%, by 2030 instead of 30%. To achieve this, measures such as the closure of coal plants in three years and others to promote renewables will be implemented. On nuclear energy, which in France accounts for around 75% of electricity production, the first article moderates ambitions, although the French government has designed a plan for the progressive shutdown of 14 of the 58 atomic reactors currently in service by 2035.

The French have followed in the wake of the United Kingdom and Ireland who last May took the first step as states declaring a “climate emergency”. An independent body, the Commission on Climate Change, will advise the executive and regional parliaments. Among its recommendations are to ban diesel and gasoline vehicles by 2030 and replace them with electric cars. Change the natural gas heating for electric in the new house by 2025, reduce meat consumption by 20% and reforest when necessary.
The decision of the British Parliament is also a consequence of the pressure exerted during the last months by dozens of cities such as Manchester, Bristol or London, which last April introduced the first ultra-low emission zone in the world with strict vehicle emission standards. The regional governments of Scotland and Wales had previously declared a climate emergency.
However, the main pressure factor on the London and Dublin governments was the protests of the climate action group Extinction Rebellion, the social movement created in the United Kingdom that aims to influence local environmental policies through non-peaceful resistance. Thousands of activists blocked roads and bridges in London for more than two weeks, regrettable actions that resulted in more than a thousand detainees.
States, regional governments, cities, universities and educational centers – up to 7,000 worldwide – and organizations of all kinds are declaring the “climate emergency” and beginning to plan how they will reach “neutral” emissions between 2030 and 2050 and what series of measures they will take to achieve it. The pressure of the media and social movements known to all are making it the people on the street who decide to act in the face of global warming.

In our country, at the moment, and probably because we have been half a year with a government in office and the break that this implies, the speed to face these challenges is not being the same. Fortunately, there are no non-peaceful movements and the popular initiatives, commendable, are having little impact and influence on the political leaders who are the ones who must lead.

No one should question the enormous amount of work he has done in these almost 14 months, held since June 5, 2018, the Minister for the Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera and her team. But the absence of adequate policies to accelerate the energy transition towards a model based entirely on renewable energies has led Spain to be the European country in which greenhouse gas emissions grew the most in absolute terms since 1990.

As entrepreneurs, but above all as responsible citizens, we urgently need a government that promotes a Law on Climate Change and Energy Transition and also an Integrated National Energy and Climate Plan. Two critical tools that will mark the transition of an entire country towards a green economy over the next few years.

Elvira Carles Brescolí
Director of the Private Foundation For Business and Climate