The Climate Change Law that the PSOE promised “maximum consensus” unleashes 758 amendments from all parties

The draft Climate Change Law, which Vice President Teresa Ribera sent to Parliament last May for a theoretical military walk through the general agreement that the ecological transition is necessary, has encountered an increasingly difficult process. The ultimate goal of Spain not emitting greenhouse gases by 2050 is not discussed, but the way to achieve this and the damage it can do along the way to industry and employment are discussed.

Although the PSOE promised in its electoral campaign that it would only present a law with “maximum social and political consensus”, Ribera’s text has ended up receiving 758 amendments, according to which this newspaper has been able to review after the closing this week of the deadline for presentation. All the parties have objected, from PP, Ciudadanos and Vox, to the independentists or even usual partners of the Government such as the PNV, Nueva Canarias, Más País or Teruel exists. “I am spokesman for the PP in the parliamentary committee and no one has yet called me for any consensus. The law is necessary, but it can be improved. It lacks ambition and vision of innovation on the one hand and has caused concern in all sectors at a time of crisis, from large industries to small livestock farms, “summarizes the popular deputy Diego Gago.

When Ribera sent the law to Congress, he stressed that the text had already been “enriched” in its previous stage of draft “with the contributions of different social and economic agents, the autonomous communities and local entities”, but it has not been enough.

Even PSOE and Podemos have taken advantage of the procedure to introduce 25 amendments, including the one that obliges all non-residential buildings to enable electric car charging points in their car parks before 2023 or the ban on manufacturing uranium in Spain. The Berkeley company rose yesterday by 17% in the Stock Exchange after the doubts that produces that PSOE and Podemos manage to move forward with the amendment in the stuck processing of the law.

The deadline for tabling amendments to the bill has been extended up to ten times since last May despite the fact that it is the instrument of the so-called “climate emergency” of the country. The 20 amendments presented by the PNV, a key parliamentary partner of the Government of Pedro Sánchez, are particularly striking, because several of them are of importance due to the fear of dogmatism that will further damage the industry after the pandemic crisis.

An example is that the PNV requires that, among the guiding principles of the standard in Article 2, the added of “technological neutrality”. “In a transition process of at least 30 years it seems premature to close the door to certain technologies. Especially when there is great uncertainty associated with technological evolution and that it will surely be necessary to have a mix of technologies and energies to meet the different energy needs, “explains its spokesman Aitor Esteban.

It also pours water on one of the standard’s flagship measures: the 2040 ban on new vehicles that emit carbon dioxide so that they are all electric. The PNV, like other parliamentary groups including PP and Citizens and companies in the automotive sector, defends the ban but for vehicles with “net zero emissions”, which is more lax and still allows other energies to survive

In general, the PNV defends that Ribera does not legislate without taking more into account the industry and calls for “linking the ecological transition to industrial policy and R & D”. It even demands that the Ministry of Industry be obliged to pronounce itself “in advance” to any future plan launched by the Government under the new law in case they generate a risk of industrial relocation.

“The bill does not talk about hydrogen, rail transport, offshore wind energy, to give examples of lack of innovation,” says Gago, promoter of one hundred amendments. Citizens has presented more than 50 and, Esquerra, 70 criticizing for its part invasion of competences, in what coincides with the PNV. The intended consensus is complicated.

Source: El Mundo