The Climate Change Law celebrates a year with criticism of lack of ambition

One year after the approval of the Law on Climate Change and Energy Transition, the environmental movement values some “great advances”, especially in the renewable impulse, but they dislike the “lack of ambition” of the text and the delay in the processing of concrete measures to achieve the objectives.

This has been assured to EFE by various conservation voices, which although they mostly celebrate that there is a law with which to demand that political institutions combat the climate crisis, denounce that it has remained in “empty promises”, in the words of the spokesman of Youth for climate, Sergio Aires.

For this activist, the law encourages “green growth”, without questioning “extractivism” and the level of consumption and life that are part of the climate problem.

The sources consulted by EFE agree in criticizing that the normative text was born unambitious, by proposing objectives to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions – 23% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels – much lower than the 55% recommended by the scientific community and proposed by the EU.

The president of the Ecological Transition Commission of the Congress of Deputies, Juantxo López de Uralde, considers that “a year is too early a period to judge the effectiveness of a law”, and defends that, although “much remains to be done”, it is a “very relevant” measure in the promotion of the energy transition.

From WWF, its head of climate and energy, Mar Asunción, also recognizes the steps forward, for example, in the field of energy efficiency, but alleges that “we do not know that there has been progress” in the development of other measures that should have been adopted before the first anniversary.

Among these unfulfilled obligations, Asunción mentions the proposal to reform the regulatory framework of the electricity sector that promotes citizen participation, the measures of coordination, monitoring, evaluation and publicity of the GHG inventory data or the water strategy for the ecological transition.

From Verdes Equo they argue that “the penetration of renewable energies is being very high and clearly the objectives fell short”, because “only in 2021 the percentage of penetration of renewables rose more than 10%”, they recall, so they judge that “we could have been more ambitious”.

They specify that to achieve these goals “it is urgent to promote the Local Energy Communities and not to make a deployment of renewables that destroys the territory”.

The head of Climate Justice and Energy of Friends of the Earth, Cristina Alonso, believes that the law “was born obsolete in objective terms and climate ambition for the year 2030”, goals that should be reviewed in 2023, according to the standard, “but for now there seems to be no progress”.

Javier Andaluz, coordinator of climate change and energy of Ecologists in Action, stresses that from the beginning they were “very critical”, because “it sins of being too open” by leaving to “subsequent developments of royal decrees and regulations the implementation of the measures”.

“The Government is trying to get many of these regulations out,” admits Andaluz, but argues that some of those that have already been approved “are not as ambitious as they should be” and “we have serious doubts that it is for the benefit of the change of model that we need for the energy transition,” he says.

CITIZENS’ ASSEMBLY FOR THE CLIMATE

One of the main sources of joy and disappointment among environmentalists has been the Citizens’ Assembly for the Climate that has been launched in Spain, following the example of the United Kingdom and France, and which is currently in its last phase: that of proposing recommendations for climate action.

In Greenpeace, which in general has been very critical of the law, they applaud the citizen assembly, because “it is being a multilevel learning process for all of us who participate in one way or another in it.”

For Ecologists in Action, however, the Citizens’ Assembly for the Climate of Spain “leaves much to be desired regarding the oecd criteria” to consider the processes of citizen deliberation as effective, since its conclusions will not be binding and the event “has hardly had public, political and media significance”,laments Andaluz.

From WWF they agree that “it has not served for now to promote a broad debate in society”, an opinion that they subscribe to in the Youth for Climate movement and in Greens Equo, who add that “the pandemic was used as an excuse not to hold the assembly in person, something that would have greatly improved the debate”.

LOW EMISSION ZONES

Another great promise of the climate change law was the obligation for cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants to establish low emission zones (ZBE) – as Barcelona or Madrid have already done – in their municipal terms before 2023, something that environmental NGOs consider “unlikely” at this point in 2022.

“In the absence of a few months, the Royal Decree that establishes the requirements that these areas must have is still being processed, as well as the aid for their implementation through the Recovery Funds,” they emphasize from Greenpeace.

“It was one of the most important improvements of the law, but the characteristics or parameters that defined them were not included in it,” criticizes the deputy of More Country-Greens Equo Inés Sabanés.

“The Ministry has delayed too much the approval of these clear guidelines on what is and what is not a low-emission zone, so we are seeing projects that do not really reduce the number of cars circulating in cities and that, therefore, have no impact on the way of moving through them or on emissions, “- ” apostille.

“The cities have not done their homework,” says the coordinator of Transport of Ecologists in Action, Carmen Duce, who adds that, those that have done so, such as Vitoria, Logroño or Pontevedra, “now face being asked to restrict access based on labels (those of the DGT) that do not work.”

For her part, the director of the NGO SEO/BirdLife, Asunción Ruiz, underlines the importance of the policies developed within the framework of the law taking into account biodiversity, “one of the issues that must be taken out of the drawer”, along with taxation.

“We cannot afford politics and economic sectors to continue to falter. With their doubts and tactics to obtain short-term benefits, they endanger our present and the future of the generations to come,” concludes Ruiz.

Source: The Vanguard