The court’s interim charging order – meaning it is not yet final and can be objected to by the debtor – was issued on Wednesday but made public on Friday.

The judgement was issued under the controversial energy charter treaty (ECT) which protects investments in both clean and polluting types of energy.

The Spanish state-owned land that can be seized by the foreign investors – Infrastructure Services Luxembourg and Energia Termosolar – houses the an international private school located in a former Dominican convent.

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Nick Cherryman, one of the lawyers representing the investors, said the step was “only necessary because Spain, a recalcitrant debtor, refuses to honour the judgment against it”.

The investors took Spain to arbitration under the ECT nearly 10 years ago for withdrawing subsidies for renewable energy.

Spain, which relies heavily on foreign energy sources, tried in the early 2000s to lure renewables investors with a programme combining subsidies, tax breaks and guaranteed fixed feed-in tariffs.

But after the 2008 financial crisis, it started altering the framework under which renewables could receive support, which some investors saw as a violation of their legitimate expectations.

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The World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) awarded the investors 101 million euros plus interest in 2018, with the award later being registered at London’s High Court.

Spain tried to overturn the award citing sovereign immunity, but the High Court dismissed Madrid’s application in May.

Alongside other European countries, Spain has announced its intention to leave the treaty – although both renewable and fossil fuel investments will remain protected for 20 years under the treaty’s  so-called sunset clause.

The European Commission negotiated reforms to the ECT last year which allowed countries to stop protecting fossil fuel investments while continuing to protect renewables.

But these reforms were rejected by Spain and other EU countries, who decided to leave under the unreformed treaty and try to limit the effects of the sunset clause through agreements with other EU member states.

The post Court says renewable firms can seize Spain’s property after subsidy cuts appeared first on Climate Home News.

It published a draft version of an updated climate and energy plan yesterday, which toughens the 2030 emissions target from the previous 23% to the new 32% compared with 1990.

It has tougher targets too for increasing energy efficiency and renewables and new measures to boost green hydrogen and biomethane.

However, campaigners do not think this is ambitious enough and say it doesn’t represent a “fair share” of the country’s global responsibility for climate change. They are calling for at least 55%.

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Greenpeace Espana, Ecologistas en Acción and Oxfam Spain first challenged the government on its climate measures in 2020, filing a lawsuit because it had not approved a national climate and energy plan that covered the period to the end of 2030. Such a plan was required under EU law by the end of 2019.

While the case was going through the courts, Spain agreed a long-term decarbonisation strategy and passed its first climate law – a decade after it was first called for – which included a net zero target for 2050. It also finally approved a national energy and climate plan in March 2021.

Campaigners dropped part of their claim about the existence of the plan, saying it “represented an important advance compared to the policies of previous governments”.

But they continued to argue that the plan was too weak and that the goal of cutting emissions by “at least” 23% by 2030 compared with 1990 was not consistent with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C global warming threshold. They called instead for a goal of at least 55%, consistent with the wider EU target for that year.

Together with campaigners from Coordinadora de ONG para el Desarrollo they filed a second case making these arguments.

Compromised objectives

The Spanish government, in its responses to the court, stressed that the Paris Agreement did not impose specific levels of emission cuts on state signatories.

It said the EU target of a 55% cut by 2030 was a bloc average, which had to take into account cost efficiency, justice and individual state economies.

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Spain said the 55% EU-level cut had been pushed for by a group of like-minded countries, including Spain, which it described as “ambition leaders”.

It also claimed that the invasion of Ukraine had caused a serious energy crisis which would “undoubtedly” compromise climate objectives.

This has been contracted by the International Energy Agency’s head Fatih Birol who said that “the crisis is set to accelerate the clean energy transition”.

Javier Andaluz, of Ecologistas en Acción, did not expect the latest version of the climate plan to include such a big jump in the 2030 target but said it still falls well short of Spain’s fair share based on climate science and its contribution to global emissions. From a climate justice perspective, he maintains “Spain has to lose at least 55%”.

Spain’s Supreme Court voted on the pair of lawsuits last week, although its decision is not yet public.

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The lawsuits are the first climate litigation against Spain and campaigners hope to build on previous legal successes against European states, including in the Netherlands, Germany and France. In Germany, the landmark ruling led the government to raise its 2030 emissions target to 65%.

But Ana Barreira, founding director of environmental law organisation IIDMA, does not think there is a strong legal case against Spain.

She pointed out that, since the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 governments have generally accepted the principle that they have “common but differentiated responsibilities” to protect the environment, a principle that carried through to the Paris Agreement.

Barreira added that the EU accepted Spain’s original climate plan and its contribution to the bloc’s emission cuts.

The slow pace of developing climate policies in Spain was largely due to deadlocks in parliament where for months no political party held a majority.

The incumbent government has done a substantial amount of work over the past two years. Spain is about to take over presidency of the EU for the next six months, and has made efforts to accelerate the climate transition one of its key priorities.

The government has also been forthright in attributing extreme weather and disasters on the ground to climate change.

More drought

The country is currently in the grip of a long-running drought that threatens its agriculture, industry and domestic water resources. Minister for ecological transition Teresa Ribera recently said climate change was leading to “a much greater incidence of more frequent and intense episodes” of such episodes.

Spain is particularly vulnerable to global warming. This year’s spring was the hottest ever – a record made “almost impossible” without climate change, according to a scientific attribution study. Deaths from heat soared during last summer’s heatwave.

Andaluz said the impacts of climate change were already “quite clear” in Spain, and there was a widespread acceptance of the causes.

However, the issue of water management to tackle drought was an issue during regional and municipal elections earlier this year and is likely to crop up again ahead of a general election in December.

The post Spain proposes improved 2030 climate target as it awaits Supreme Court ruling appeared first on Climate Home News.

Spain’s parliament voted in favour of the long-awaited climate law, which commits the country to cut emissions 23% by 2030, compared with 1990 levels. 

The law bans all new coal, gas and oil exploration and production permits with immediate effect, prohibits the sale of fossil fuel vehicles by 2040 and enshrines a goal to generate 74% of the country’s electricity with renewable sources by 2030.

Lawmakers agreed that production of fossil fuels must end on Spanish territory by 31 December 2042 and restricted the use of fossil fuel subsidies by mandating that they be “duly justified by social, economic or social interest”.

“For the planet, for our future and for the next generations. From today, Spain has a climate law on which to build a green, sustainable, fair and prosperous future for all,” prime minister Pedro Sanchez tweeted following the vote on Thursday. 

Spain’s energy and environment minister Teresa Ribera described the legislation as “an essential law we must continue to build on”. In an interview with Spanish newspaper El Pais, Ribera acknowledged it “should have been put in place 10 years ago”.

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Spain’s 2030 emission reduction target is significantly lower than goals set by other major European emitters. Germany announced last week it would cut emissions 65% between 1990 and 2030 and the UK committed to 68% cuts during the same period. The EU finalised discussions to raise the bloc’s 2030 target from 40% to at least 55% last month. 

But unlike the UK and Germany, Spain’s emissions rose between 1990 and 2007, and are currently at levels seen in the late 1990s. Spain failed to meet its targets under the Kyoto Protocol, exceeding its emissions cap.

This is one argument the Spanish government uses to justify its lower target for 2030. When compared with a 2020 baseline, the new target is among the most ambitious in Europe.

“The argument is if you take present-day emissions as your baseline and look forward, then Spain is in line with that EU commitment and is among the highest,” David Howell, head of environmental governance at NGO SEO Birdlife, told Climate Home News.

But when compared against a 1990 baseline, the targets are far less ambitious. “Spain has only just dropped down below 1990 levels,” Howell said. 

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Howell said Spain would have to make a “huge effort” to catch up with other EU nations that have been on a decarbonisation pathway for a long time. “We think 55% is what Spain should be setting out to achieve as an industrialised nation with historic responsibility,” he said.

The law states that climate goals should be reviewed periodically, with the first consultation scheduled for 2023. Campaigners hope the government will choose to raise its ambition then. 

“Only by increasing its emission reduction targets will Spain be able to decisively combat the climate emergency,” Greenpeace said in a statement.

Campaigners have called on the government to establish an independent climate committee that would advise on enhancing Spain’s climate goal from 2023. 

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“I do regret that the Spanish climate law doesn’t have an independent science expert committee, nor carbon budgets like the UK does,” said Peter Sweatman, CEO of consultancy climate strategy and partners in Madrid.

Despite these omissions, the law “is a step in the right direction,” Sweatman told Climate Home News.

The law is the first in the world requiring all companies to set out clear climate action plans with emissions reduction targets that must be achieved over a period of five years. “This is a win for leading firms, and Spanish listed businesses in reducing climate risks,” said Sweatman.

For Romain Ioualalen, senior campaigner at Oil Change International, the decision to end fossil fuel production in less than 12 years is “a welcome development”.

“It is further proof that the escalating climate crisis means that no country can claim to be a climate leader if they don’t put an end to fossil fuel expansion and commit to phasing out production,” he said.

The post Spain to end fossil fuel production by 2042 under new climate law appeared first on Climate Home News.

Spain joins a handful of countries to have set out a legal binding strategy to end their contribution to global heating in the next 30 years.

The draft text, which follows a public consultation started in February 2019, sets the direction of economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

“We would like to have presented this law in other conditions, several weeks ago,” said Spain’s vice president Teresa Ribera, who serves as the minister for the ecological transition, adding the draft bill had to be “a useful guide” to shape the recovery effort.

“This law offers us an incredible opportunity to debate about the country that we want to be,” she said.

Under the law, which still needs to be approved by Parliament, the government is pledging to make Spain’s electricity system 100% renewable by the middle of the century, ban all new coal, oil and gas extraction projects with immediate effect, end direct fossil fuel subsidies and make all new vehicles emission-free by 2040.

To reach its 2050 goal, the government has proposed interim targets through its national energy and climate plans to 2030.

By 2030, the government pledged to reduce emissions 23% from 1990 levels and double the proportion of renewable sources in total energy consumption to 35-42% — an objective it described as consistent with the EU bloc-wide target to cut emissions 50%-55% by 2030.

To do so, clean energy sources will need to make up at least 70% — striving for 74% — of the electricity mix in the next 10 years and efficiency measures will need to reduce energy consumption by at least 35%, primarily through the renovation of buildings and homes.

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The government forecast the plan would generate more than €200,000 million ($219,000 million) of investments in the next decade and create up to 350,000 new jobs every year.

In a briefing paper, it claimed these carbon-cutting measures would boost the country’s economic growth by 1.8% by 2030 compared with business as usual.

The proposed law establishes a commission of experts on climate change and the energy transition to evaluate progress and make recommendations for improvement. The commission will also coordinate climate change policies across communities from December 2021.

The law is expected to shape the recovery from Covid-19. More than 27,500 people have died of the virus in Spain, according to the World Health Organisation – making it one of the worst affected countries in the world.

The draft law “finally provides an institutional framework for the action that science and people are asking for, and it comes at a time when it is more necessary than ever,” Ribera said. “We need a country that thinks about the future opportunities for young people, we can’t leave them a mortgage.”

“At a time when we have to address the Covid-19 recovery process, the energy transition is going to become an important driving force for generating economic activity and employment in the short term and in a manner consistent with what we will need as a country in the medium and long term,” she said.

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In the short term, the government identified energy efficiency measures and renewable deployment as leverage for economic recovery.

Specific measures such as the promotion of hybrid energy generation, incorporating both solar and wind energy in the same installation for example, are being considered to upscale renewable capacity. Reversible hydroelectric power plants have also been made a priority.

Spain’s draft climate law: 

• Bans new research permits and exploration concessions for all hydrocarbons with immediate effect. Existing mines and wells would be required to submit a plan to repurpose the site, for example to generate geothermal energy, five years before the end of their licence.
• Provides for a percentage of the general budget to contribute to the energy transition goals. The percentage will be mirrored on the climate contributions in the next EU budget and revised upwards before 2025. The European Commission has proposed for 25% of expenditure to contribute to climate objectives.
• Ensures all new vehicles are zero carbon by 2040, promotes electric charging points infrastructure and introduces low-emissions zones in cities of more than 50,000 inhabitants.
• Establishes annual biofuel and other alternative fuel targets for air transport.
• Introduces measures for state-owned ports to be carbon neutral by 2050.
• Requires financial institutions to publish specific decarbonisation objectives of their loan and investment portfolios from 2023, in line with the Paris Agreement.
• Integrates climate risks in coastal planning and management, transport infrastructure and land use development.
• Sets out a biodiversity strategy to protect and restore Spain’s wildlife and ecosystems.
• Requires the approval of a transition strategy for communities dependent on fossil fuel industries for their livelihood every five years. Specific transition agreements to promote alternative economic activities should be developed in affected areas.
• Introduces climate change to the school curriculum and promotes professional training in new low-carbon skills and technologies.

The post Spain unveils climate law to cut emissions to net zero by 2050 appeared first on Climate Home News.

In France and the UK, citizens’ assemblies set up to make climate policy recommendations have moved online to continue their work amid restrictions to contain the spread of the virus.

Both countries are among the worst affected by the pandemic. More than 15,700 people have died in France and 12,100 in the UK as of Thursday, according to the World Health Organisation.

France’s citizens’ assembly was launched following “yellow vest” protests that were sparked by a 2018 hike in fuel tax. It was tasked to come up with measures to reduce the country’s emissions at least 40% by 2030 from 1990 levels “in a spirit of social justice”.

Its 150 members, drawn from a cross-section of society, met in person over five weekends starting in October 2019. Then Covid-19 hit and the authorities ordered people to stay home and avoid non-essential journeys.

Undeterred, the citizens assembly took its penultimate session online over two days at the start of April. The agenda was adapted to discuss the economic and social consequences of the coronavirus pandemic and how recovery measures could support climate action.

C’est parti pour une première journée de travail en ligne avec les 150 membres de la #ConventionCitoyenne pour le #climat

Heureux de les retrouver dans cet hémicycle virtuel

De retour dès que possible au @lecese pour la session #7, session finale de la Convention pic.twitter.com/UMs4TLDQyI

— Ivassenko Thomas (@ThomasIvassenko) April 3, 2020

Following its online session, the assembly decided to send 50 of the 150 propositions it is working on to the French government, in the hope of influencing the Covid-19 recovery plan.

The propositions, obtained by Climate Home News, were not made public as they still need to be voted on at one last session.

Some of the French assembly’s draft proposals

• An investment plan for public transport: encouraging ride-sharing and cycling, modernising railway infrastructure, reducing VAT on train tickets, banning the sales of new private vehicles emitting more than 110 gCO2/km from 2025 and more than 90 gCO2/km from 2030, and creating more incentives for electric, hybrid and hydrogen vehicles
• An investment plan for agriculture: promoting local food networks, ensuring 50% of agricultural land is developed according to agro-ecology practices by 2040
• Reducing the carbon footprint of manufacturing and production by encouraging local distribution networks, reducing pollution and incentivising sustainable approaches
• Scaling up the recycling sector by 2023 and promoting the repair of products
• Improving the energy efficiency of 20 million homes and making energy efficiency renovation on buildings compulsory by 2040
• Promoting renewable energy production of small units to ensure all citizens, businesses and local authorities can contribute to green electricity production from 2023
• Containing urban sprawl
• Banning advertising for the most polluting products based on a CO2 rating score and encouraging public messaging against excessive consumption
• Ensuring public support for innovation is aligned with goals to reduce emissions and boost clean technologies by 2025
• Reforming the EU’s commercial politics to promote local distribution networks and avoid over-consumption

The assembly warned the French government not to repeat the mistakes made after the 2008 financial crisis, which saw investments in carbon-intensive and fossil fuel industries.

Instead, it urged the government to ensure investments made as part of the recovery effort are “socially acceptable” and benefit green solutions and the energy transition.

It called for recovery measures to prepare for “a different social and economic model, that is more human and more resilient in the face of future crisis” by reducing France’s dependence on imports, boosting jobs and reducing emissions.

Laurence Tubiana, co-president of the assembly’s governance committee and a key architect of the Paris Agreement, praised the assembly members for their patience in taking their work online.

“Sometimes the organisation of our citizens’ assembly for the climate is like crossing the Amazon without a map,” she said.

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The UK’s assembly is also moving online to continue its work to draw up measures for the UK to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.

The last of four weekends due to be held at the end of March was cancelled following the coronavirus outbreak. Instead the 110-member assembly will split its final work across three weekends of virtual Zoom meetings, starting 18/19 April and finishing 16/17 May.

Sarah Allan, of Involve, a public participation charity commissioned by the UK Parliament to facilitate the assembly, said members were keen to finalise their work despite Covid-19 restrictions.

Test calls were held with all participants to ensure everyone was able to navigate the online meeting software. Two people had to take a break after being affected by coronavirus. One other member has been suffering from medical issues not related to Covid-19.

“But nobody has dropped out or doesn’t want to take part anymore,” Allan said.

The UK assembly’s final sessions will focus on electricity generation, negative emissions technologies to remove carbon from the atmosphere and finalising its recommendations. Speakers and experts have pre-recorded presentations to be discussed in smaller break-out groups.

Assembly members will also be given the opportunity to discuss the impact of the pandemic. Allan said the assembly’s experts were still discussing how best to approach the issue.

“We are talking almost weekly with the French assembly,” she said.

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According to a survey by pollsters Opinium, 48% of the British public agrees the government should respond “with the same urgency to climate change as it has with Covid-19” – 28% of respondents said it shouldn’t.

The model for holding citizens’ assemblies, even at times of crisis, has gathered international interest.

“I have emails in my inbox from Canada and Australia wanting to talk about how we are holding the assembly online,” said Allan.

But the pandemic has also stopped some assemblies in their tracks.

Teresa Ribera, Spain’s vice prime minister and minister for the ecological transition, told Climate Home News the launch of the country’s citizens’ assembly on climate change had had to be postponed.

“We realised that it didn’t make much sense to start working on this in a moment when we have stated the importance of social distancing,” she said. “But all the preparatory work was done so we will be in a position to launch it as soon as the general circumstances allow us to do so.”

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Speaking to the World Economic Forum meeting in the ski-resort of Davos, Switzerland, Pedro Sanchez said that in the face of “global and cross-cutting” climate change, “every government” must embrace “ecological responses”.

“The ecological transition, which has started to be known in many forums as the Green New Deal, should not instil fear,” Sanchez said, adding that energy reform would create, rather than destroy jobs.

He said Spain, Europe’s fifth largest economy, was “in a privileged position to lead this change. We know what to do, and we are going to do it”.

Can Teresa Ribera transform Spain into a green champion?

The Green New Deal is a term recently brought to the fore of US politics by congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In broad terms, it calls for a huge economic stimulus targeted at the environmental and climate crisis and social inequality.

In Spain, Sanchez’ government has proposed a sweeping climate law he said would mobilise €200bn in green investment over the next decade.

Progressive politics in general was on the ascendant Sanchez said, bringing with it “political concepts that some label as revolutionary, such as redistribution of wealth and universal basic income. And let me tell you something, they are not revolutionary, they are necessary”.

He added: “I have no doubt that they will be the foundation of the new social pact, of the new era.”

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“What has come to an end is the neoliberal model that led us to the great recession. A model that mixes up deregulation and liberalisation and which offers us an increasingly hostile world to those of us who are not powerful,” he said.

Sanchez’s social democratic government, which scraped into power in June with razer-thin majority, has won praise from observers for enacting a series of bold measures to fight climate change. Under environment minister Teresa Ribera, it has buoyed a previously embattled renewables sector by scrapping an emblematic levy on solar energy and committing to install 6,000-7,000MW of renewable power every year until 2030. It has also imposed itself as a model for a socially just transition towards clean energy, having overseen the closure of coal mines in 2018 through a deal with mining unions.

The government now hopes to win support in the Cortes Generales for a legislative package that would mandate 100% renewable power by 2050, ban fossil fuel subsidies, divest from fossil fuels and ban diesel and petrol cars.

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The post Green New Deal should not be feared, says Spanish prime minister appeared first on Climate Home News.

It marks a significant turnaround for one of Europe’s larger coal-mining, gas-importing and auto-manufacturing countries. Fracking would also be banned nationwide.

In a draft of country’s Law on Climate Change and Energy Transition, published on Tuesday, the five-month-old socialist government proposes to reduce Spain’s greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20% by 2030 and 90% by 2050, compared to 1990 levels. The 2030 goal would amount to a 37% reduction from current levels, which Madrid called more ambitious than any other EU country.

This is Spain’s first national law on emissions reduction and clean energy goals.

For background, read this: Can Teresa Ribera transform Spain into a green champion?

“Our proposal is to reduce Spain’s current greenhouse gas emissions by a third in just a decade, which we consider an international milestone and a sign of our firm commitment to the fight against climate change,” said Spain’s ecological transition minister Teresa Ribera, who took office in June as a member of prime minister Pedro Sanchez’s Socialist and Workers’ Party government.

The draft will now be negotiated with other parliamentary parties. The government aims to present a bill to parliament before the end of the year.

Under the plan, all new fossil fuel subsidies would be frozen and a phase out begun on a timetable yet to be agreed. The same freeze and phase out would occur for fossil fuel investments held by the government.

The proposal would give investors and other economic players the “clear and predictable signals” needed to reduce Spain’s emissions, Ribera added. The transition “will generate progress and stable, quality employment, and presents great economic opportunities that Spain must take advantage of”, she said.

The predictability would be aided by the adoption of a UK-style system, under which incremental targets would be set every five years.

As part of its plan to reduce emissions, the proposed law seeks to re-boot Spain’s renewable energy industry, which was paralysed by sudden cuts to government subsidies about five years ago. It would aim to boost the share of renewables in the total energy mix to 35% by 2030, including a 70% share of electricity generation, and to 100% by mid-century. Renewable energy accounted for just over 17% of total Spanish energy use in 2016, according to EU statistics.

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Critics, however, said this was not enough to meet the Paris climate agreement’s lowest goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C.

Based on the UN’s recent scientific report on how to meet the 1.5C goal, a developed country like Spain needs to reduce its emissions to net-zero and have a fully renewable energy system by 2040, not 2050, said José Luis García Ortega from Greenpeace España. “We just can’t afford to wait.”

“We believe that it is possible to have more ambitious and concrete objectives,” said Juantxo López de Uralde, a green party deputy and spokesperson for Unidos Podemos, a left-wing parliamentary group that includes the far-left party Podemos. “For example, we would like to see specific dates for the shutdown of coal and nuclear power plants,” López de Uralde pledged to work with the government in the next weeks to raise the bill’s ambition and climate targets.

The draft law does not set specific end dates for non-renewable power generation. However it does propose to push Europe’s second-largest car manufacturing industry to abandon diesel and petrol in favour of electricity in the next two decades – joining only a handful of other EU countries.

It aims to eliminate direct CO2 emissions from cars and light-duty trucks by 2050. The registration and sale of vehicles that emit carbon would be banned from 2040, and municipalities of more than 50,000 people would be required to create low-emission zones by 2023.

“With these dates, the government sends clear signals to direct the production of vehicles,” the document said, noting that manufacturers are already shifting to electric transport. Volvo plans to sell only electric cars from 2019, while Toyota will end diesel vehicles in Europe this year.

Spain is home to auto manufacturing plants for companies including Daimler, Ford, Nissan, Peugeot Citroen, Renault and Volkswagen.

López de Uralde welcomed the proposals for transport, noting that the sector accounts for 24% of national emissions.

A few Western European countries have announced similar plans since Volkswagen was caught cheating on its diesel emissions tests in 2015. The UK plans to ban the sale of diesel and petrol cars in 2040 and push them off the road in 2050. France, Denmark, Ireland and the Netherlands aim to end combustion car sales in 2030, and Norway is considering a ban for 2025. Cities in Germany, the EU’s largest car manufacturer, are also setting out diesel bans.

The EU is now negotiating bloc-wide emissions reduction targets for vehicles by 2030.

Spain’s shift away from fossil fuels has been choppy. The country was an early EU leader in adding wind and solar energy, until the government unexpectedly cut its generous subsidies about five years ago, paralysing the renewables sector. Utilities Iberdrola and Enel plan to close their coal-fired power plants by 2020, and most of the country’s coal mines will be shuttered this year. However, Spain is also the bloc’s largest importer of liquefied natural gas, along with piped supplies from Algeria.

But as one of the European countries most exposed to climate change, Spain also stands to benefit from the shift, Ribera said. “Spain is a country highly vulnerable to climate change and its citizens are fully aware of the magnitude of the problem.”

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Sworn in on 2 June with a razor-thin majority, one of the first actions of prime minister Pedro Sanchez was to create a ministry for the ecological transition.

The purpose of the new office was dual: at a symbolic level, it put climate at the forefront of the national agenda; at a functional one, it called time on years of tensions between the energy and environment ministries that had crippled climate action by bringing them together.

Also, for the first time in history, a woman was appointed to oversee the country’s energy policy. Teresa Ribera, a former Spanish environment secretary of state, is a fixture of the global green scene. She has been involved in global negotiations on climate change for nearly two decades and left her job as head of the Paris-based Institute of Sustainable Development and International Relations to take up her new role.

Spain joins call to strengthen EU climate targets

So experienced is she that her name was put forward in 2016 as a possible contender to be executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – the UN’s top climate job.

Now she is in charge of her country’s climate agenda. The result, several Spanish environmental NGOs told Climate Home News, is a “180-degree turn” in rhetoric compared with the last eight years under Mariano Rajoy’s conservative government.

Ribera is also beginning to turn words into action. On Tuesday she will outline her proposal for the country’s first climate plan, to be negotiated with other parties and civil society groups. It will aim for carbon-neutrality by 2050 “at the very latest”, she told CHN.

This is all the more pressing in light of Spain’s unique vulnerability. The country is one of the most exposed in Europe, with a 2016 report predicting the south would turn to desert unless global warming was held to 1.5C.

Ahead of the plan’s release, Ribera told CHN, that listed companies and financial institutions will have a duty to report their carbon footprint. The legislation also aims to carry out the energy transition in a way that doesn’t hurt workers and communities reliant on fossil fuels: “So that no one is left behind,” she said.

Ribera has already scored big on that front. In October, the government struck a deal with mining unions to close down most of the country’s coal mines by the end of the year. Overall, €220m will be injected into mining regions over the next decade, boosting retirement schemes and retraining.

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The deal was “applauded by the international community”, Ribera said. Co-leader of the UK Green Party Jonathan Bartley tweeted at the time that the measure showed “we can move away from fossil fuels, protect jobs & restore the natural world”.

Ribera also scrapped the so-called “sun tax” – an unpopular levy on solar power affecting individuals and small businesses – in early October. Ribera slammed the tax as a “great absurdity” and underlined that “a country so rich in sunlight has only 1,000 installations of this kind compared with more than one million in Germany”.

“We’re hopeful,” said Sergio de Otto, president of the Fundación Renovables (Renewables Foundation). He said Ribera was talented, capable and had a strong grasp of policy.

“There is a fundamental change, as the previous energy minister [Álvaro Nadal] obsessively opposed renewables,” he said.

In addition to taxing solar installations, Rajoy and Nadal’s People’s Party government changed the source of renewable subsidies from an electricity tariff to the general budget in 2014. Companies complained that clean energy was being scapegoated for the ballooning Spain public debt. The industry fell off a cliff.

“Once the [policies of the Rajoy government] were implemented, all new renewable projects were virtually dead,” Dirk Hendricks, a senior policy advisor at the European Renewable Energy Federation, said. “Investors avoided Spain completely. Jobs were lost. Everything was put on hold.”

In September, Ribera announced the government would install between 6,000 and 7,000MW of renewable power every year until 2030. This would raise capacity from 99,000 MW to 174,000 MW in 12 years.

“What you see now is people investigating new projects. There is a cautious optimism that there will be a restart of the renewable energy sector in Spain,” de Otto said.

That momentum looks set to extend beyond the country’s borders. “Spain is back and ready to lead climate action in the European Union,” Ribera told CHN. Just four days after she became minister, the country pressed for strong green energy targets at a meeting of energy ministers. Eventually the 2030 renewable goal was raised from 27 to 32% and energy efficiency from 30 to 32.5%. At the same time, she told CHN Spain would join a group of seven EU countries calling for overall emissions targets.

“When it comes to the vote in the European Council, Spain has switched from a member state which normally blocks renewable energy to a promoter of renewable energy,” said Hendricks. “This comes at a very good moment because Germany, which is usually a frontrunner on renewables, is currently terribly unproductive at EU level.”

EU finance ministers call for transparency in climate finance

“Our willingness to lead in climate action,” said Ribera, “is especially necessary at this critical moment in which it is vital to demand and strengthen multilateralism as the basis for cooperation on fundamental issues such as climate change.”

Under Ribera, Spain will push for the EU to revise its commitment to the Paris climate agreement upwards by 2020. It will also lobby for the bloc’s 2050 strategy, a draft of which is expected in the coming months, to be “ambitious”.

https://twitter.com/KarlMathiesen/status/1062022070874374145

The pursuit of a transformative green programme may be jeopardised by the socialist government’s tenuous grip on power. Propped up by left wing movement Podemos and nationalist parties, Sanchez’s Socialist and Workers’ Party of Spain (PSOE) holds just a quarter of seats in parliament.

But de Otto is cautiously optimistic. “When it comes to the energy transition, the PSOE will find a greater majority than in other areas,” he said. A recent package of energy measures, which included the cancellation of the sun tax, passed without opposition. The People’s Party, which created the levy, abstained.

Sara Pizzinato, an energy policy expert at Greenpeace Spain, is more critical of the PSOE. Despite a change in discourse, she said, another package to combat energy poverty had “nothing to do with the ecological transaction.”

By removing a 7% tax on production of electricity, the government had favoured “nuclear power on the one hand and fossil fuels on the other”, she said.

Pizzinato said the government must address the energy oligopoly of the “Big Five”: Endesa, Iberdrola, Gas Natural Fenosa, EDP España and Viesgo. Electricity companies have repeatedly been accused of manipulating prices in the country. Ibedrola was fined €25 million in November 2015.

Contacted by CHN, Juantxo López de Uralde, a green party deputy and spokesperson for an eco-parliamentary group that includes Podemos, said Podemos and the government were working to end windfall profits in the energy sector.

Another notable threat to climate action is the country’s car industry. Spain, which is the EU’s second largest car-manufacturer after Germany, has time and again been timid around targets for electric cars. There was little doubt that the influence of the car lobby was a factor in this, de Otto and Pizzinato told CHN.

Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro is the environmental story of 2018.

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To Ecologists in Action, an umbrella group of local Spanish environmental associations, this explains why Teresa Ribera opted to support a 35% reduction of emissions in newly registered vehicles at EU level. Spain’s position was higher than Germany’s, which had called for 30%, but lower than the 40% voted by the European Parliament.

Ribera denies her position amounted to a compromise, or that she was swayed by the car lobby. She said Spain had defended a 35% target, provided there was an intention to move above that mark during the legislative process.

“Spain played a key role in preventing a deadlock in this agreement,” she said, “which would have been harmful, and managed to move the ambition from 30 to 35%.”

On the future of the electric car industry in Spain, she said the government “believe[s] an ambitious goal of reducing CO2 emissions from new vehicles is an opportunity for innovation and competitiveness of the Spanish car industry.”

Ecologists, from the parliamentary benches to green businesses and NGOs, will be watching closely.

“We like what we’re hearing,” López de Uralde said. “However, we now need to make sure that this translates into concrete measures contributing to the energy transition, because this is urgent and needs to go beyond words.”

“The biggest obstacle in relation to this transition is the perception that we’re not in any hurry. We can’t leave the transition to the last decade,” de Otto insists.

“Can one do more in four months?” Ribera asked. “It’s difficult, but I still have many months ahead of me to do more.”

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Europe dominates the coalition, with 12 EU member states pledging to meet the Paris Agreement’s goal of achieving carbon neutrality “in the second half of the century”.

Four new countries – Canada, Denmark, Spain and the United Kingdom – joined the initial 15 members, meaning Europe is strongly represented, with 12 of 19 members.

“Today, we announce we will develop long-term low-greenhouse gases emission climate resilient development strategies, in line with the agreed long-term temperature increase limit. We will do so well ahead of 2020, and if possible by 2018,” reads the declaration of the Carbon Neutrality Coalition.

Marshall Islands commit to going carbon-neutral by 2050

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At present, the goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the bloc “at least” 40% from 1990 levels by 2030 and 80-95% by 2050.

Seven countries including Germany, France and Portugal are advocating higher ambition, in line with the Paris Agreement.

In a brief phone call from an airport lounge, Ribera told Climate Home News the government formed by Pedro Sánchez this week agrees.

“We intend to increase, to raise ambition on climate and the speed of the energy transition,” she said, noting the pace was set at European level. “So to join forces with the progressive countries will be the key.”

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Under the Paris Agreement, governments agreed to hold global warming to “well below 2C”. Voluntary national carbon cuts are collectively insufficient but the pact creates a framework for increasing action.

Any change to EU climate goals will need to be negotiated between all 27 member states (after the UK leaves). Eastern members like Poland have typically resisted higher ambition, citing concerns about the economic impact.

Great day in #Berl8n #RNE18: #sustainability challenges. Much to do yet! pic.twitter.com/ZZdMyzcrkV

— Teresa Ribera (@Teresaribera) June 4, 2018

Ribera was in Berlin for a sustainable development conference earlier this week, where she met with German chancellor Angela Merkel.

As the minister for energy, environment and climate change, she will attend cabinet in Madrid on Friday before travelling to Luxembourg on Monday for a meeting of the EU energy council to discuss clean energy legislation.

“The first thing is to give the right signal to our European colleagues and of course to the Spanish economy,” Ribera said. “We need Europe to move towards a new energy model.”

Spain gets a third of its electricity from renewable sources, mainly wind, and more than a fifth from nuclear. Coal made up 17% of the mix last year and the previous government resisted utility Iberdrola’s plans to close its last coal plants.

Centre-left leader Sánchez is forming a minority government after Mariano Rajoy was ousted over corruption convictions in his party.

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Spain’s incoming centre-left prime minister Pedro Sánchez named climate hawk Teresa Ribera on Tuesday to lead a new super-ministry spanning energy and environment.

Ribera previously served as secretary of state for climate change 2008-11. Since then, she became director of the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (Iddri) in Paris and sat on the board of several climate-related organisations. She is known as an advocate for clean energy and international cooperation on climate change.

Laurence Tubiana, a key French architect of the Paris Agreement, and former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark were among the first to congratulate her on the appointment.

A great great choice and a big push for Europe ambition! go Teresa go !we will be with you .@Teresaribera https://t.co/e1fDqoZQs8

— Laurence Tubiana (@LaurenceTubiana) June 5, 2018

Adding my congratulations to @Teresaribera who is named as Minister of Environment, Energy & #ClimateChange in new Govt of #Spain . A valued colleague on International Peer Review of German #SusDev Strategy. @RNE_DE @adolfoayuso @JOorthuizen @Africa_activist @MartinezSoliman https://t.co/1f9ZIbjJ7K

— Helen Clark (@HelenClarkNZ) June 5, 2018

Congratulations to @Teresaribera, the new Spanish energy/climate/environment minister. An excellent appointment!

Spain has already been bearing the brunt of climate impacts, and now has the opportunity to be at the front on climate action.https://t.co/XE6ul0KpqP

— Jonathan Gaventa (@jonathangaventa) June 4, 2018

The change of government follows a vote of no confidence in former premier Mariano Rajoy on 1 June, after leading members of his party were convicted of corruption.

Based on her record, Ribera can be expected to promote a faster transition away from coal to clean energy. A member of Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), Ribera has previously criticised Rajoy’s ousted government over its resistance to closing coal plants. “There is still an incredible inertia on the subject of climate,” she told Euractiv in November 2017.

Sánchez does not have a majority in parliament, however, which may constrain his government’s ability to effect change.

Teresa Ribera: World’s vulnerable must be at the heart of a low carbon transition

Meanwhile Giuseppe Conte, the law professor named to lead Italy’s populist coalition, promised in his inaugural speech on Tuesday to speed up the decarbonisation of the economy.

The coalition agreement between the 5-Star Movement and right-wing League parties puts a strong emphasis on the green economy. League’s manifesto states: “Man and environment are two sides of the same coin. Whoever fails to respect the environment fails to respect himself.”

It is short on specific policies to back up the rhetoric, however, noted E3G expert Luca Bergamaschi. “For now we can expect continuity with previous commitments and actions. Unless the new government develops a credible strategy and moves rapidly towards implementation, the government contract and the speech of the new PM will be just words.”

Seven EU member states have launched a campaign for the bloc to increase its 2030 climate target, in line with the Paris Agreement. Backing that initiative could be “a good first step” for the new government to prove its climate credentials, Bergamaschi said.

Caitlin Tilley contributed to this article.

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The support, worth €1 billion a year, is a needless burden on consumers, according to a report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).

It is likely to fall foul of EU state aid guidelines issued earlier this month, author Gerard Wynn told Climate Home.

Following an inquiry into “capacity mechanisms” being brought in by a dozen member states, the European Commission warned they must not be used as “backdoor subsidies” for fossil fuels.

“The Spain scheme fails almost the entire check list of criteria the Commission uses for judging whether a capacity mechanism is necessary, or is instead a scheme for propping up favoured industries,” said Wynn.

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After a period of political instability, Mariano Rajoy in October returned as Spain’s prime minister, leading a minority government. Alvaro Placed leads the energy department, which did not respond to a request for comment.

The new administration must rethink its energy policy, the IEEFA report argues. And other EU countries using similar mechanisms to secure electricity supplies should avoid making the same mistakes.

Spain was one of the first in the bloc to bring in capacity payments, in 1997, to boost investment at a time of rising energy demand.

Now, the power market is oversupplied, with demand having peaked in 2007. Yet aging fossil fuel plants continue to benefit from handouts.

Since 2007, 50GW worth of coal, oil and gas generators – plus hydropower – have been eligible for availability payments. The 26GW gas fleet built since 1997 have benefitted from an extra investment subsidy, while the 11GW coal fleet got various incentives for environmental upgrades or to burn domestically produced coal.

Regulators estimate 80% of gas-fired stations would not be viable without these revenues, the report says.

Analysis: EU reinforces climate plans as Trump preps policy bonfire

With bountiful wind, sun and hydropower resources, Spain generated 43% of its electricity and 16% of total energy from renewables in 2014. It has a target of 20% renewable energy by 2020.

“Spain can go further,” said Wynn. “By cutting over-capacity, allowing the retirement of uneconomic power plants, reducing or eliminating price caps in its power market and reforming its balancing market, Spain can move toward eliminating a capacity mechanism altogether, and save billions of euros which it can spend instead on updating its grid infrastructure.”

Yuri Smishkewych Rey, spokesperson for Instituto Internacional de Derecho y Medio Ambiente in Spain, endorsed the IEEFA report.

“Capacity mechanisms in Spain currently represent a huge financial aid for highly polluting energy sources even when there is no real problem of security of supply,” he said.

“Such aid, in addition to being addressed to solve a non-existing problem, represents a profound distortion of competition that discourages investment in any type of alternative and renewable energy…

“In the future, the current market that keeps benefiting the production of conventional, inflexible and polluting energy should be replaced by a market that allows a fast penetration of renewable energies at the least possible cost.”

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The sticky goo that leaks from the trunks was once used by vintners to seal their amphorae. The resulting turpentine taste, to which Greeks grew accustomed, is still celebrated in retsina long after the practical need for the sealant has passed.

Modern techniques have diminished the amount of resin needed to produce the flavour. Despite the enduring popularity of the wine, production has collapsed to just a third of the 12,000 tonnes collected in 1965.

The first two parts of this series discovered a post-colonial legacy in Australia and Canada, where the loss of traditional land management practices – in those cases indigenous fire farming – was exacerbating the already troubling trends of climate change to put homes and lives at risk.

Collecting pine resin, Greece. Source: Cephas

In the Mediterranean, where the land has been farmed by smallholders for thousands of years, changing land practices are also adding to the danger of climate change.

EU census data shows that in Spain, Greece, Portugal and Italy the number of farms and farmers is falling. Meanwhile the size of farms is increasing as industrialisation drives agriculture to new scales and focuses economic attention on the most fertile land.

After countless generations, families are abandoning the hills. The amount of forest Greeks use for resin tapping has fallen from 327,500 to 147,500 hectares.

When they are worked, the pines, each one owned by a specific family, are fiercely protected. Goats and sheep keep the undergrowth down, staving off the threat of fire when the brutal heat of summer lies like a dream over the Aegean.

Now the shrubs grow tall and wild. Fires, the like of which have not been known in modern times, are being visited on Greece. Around Athens, the villages on Mount Parnitha burned during massive fires in 2007. Two years later, Marathon and Makri – large satellite towns of the capital – were ravaged.

“This is a size of fire we have never experienced before,” says Ioannis Gitas, an associate professor from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki’s forestry and natural environment faculty. “It is climate change, because we didn’t experience mega fires twenty or thirty years ago. Now we experience mega fires in the country.”

But he adds: “In general we have changed the way we deal with the land. That’s a big problem.”

Fire bombs: a city in the path of climate disaster

Once smallholders abandon less productive land, the forests return, less wood is gathered from the understory and fewer domesticated animals graze beneath the trees.

The return of a wilder Europe has been celebrated by advocates of “rewilding”. It has seen the flourishing of wolves, bears and bison in places they were once lost. But in the hot, dry southern countries of Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal, a land full of fuel has lead to the inevitable.

As summer comes to southern Spain, the population doubles as visitors from abroad and other parts of Spain flood toward the sea. Many former farming villages have been transformed into holiday towns, where people have second homes. But all around them, the land is falling back into a wilder, more volatile state.

“The first species to recolonise are shrubs, which are quite flammable,” says professor Emilio Chuvieco from the University of Alcala in Spain.

The picture of how climate change will affect fires in the Mediterranean is complex. In some places, drying out of the landscape could eventually occur to such an extent that plants do not grow. This could limit the fuel available. Other work shows that the amount of land burned could double by 2090.

For now, says professor Emilio Chuvieco from the University of Alcala in Spain, there is a clear trend towards more dangerous and destructive fires.

“Whenever you really have extreme climate conditions, then the likelihood of having very severe seasons is higher than in the past,” he says. “There are fires that affect much larger territories than they used to because there is much less fragmentation.” These larger fires are occurring closer to residential areas than they used to, he adds.

Worst hit in recent times has been Portugal, which accounted for more than half of the burned land in Europe in 2016. More than 200 homes in the Madeira resort town of Funchal were destroyed in August.

In Australia, this series found councils unwilling or unable to convince rate payers to stump up for radical land management techniques beyond periodic fuel reduction burns. In Canada, programmes are in place, but they remain hopelessly underfunded.

So how can economies of the southern Mediterranean, perennially in crisis, hope to combat this threat?

In Spain, the rules of firefighting are being rewritten. Once, says Chuvieco, it would have been anathema to Spanish fire fighters to allow a fire to burn unfought. But now they are simply too ferocious and too many to extinguish.

This may have the unwitting result of positively affecting the size of fires. Forest managers in the US now advocate letting remote fires run their course in order to reduce fuel load and perhaps prevent large fires from moving into inhabited regions in future.

Fire bombs: British Columbia prepares for infernos

One recent study found that adaptation and prevention could reduce the impact of climate change on Mediterranean fires by 74%. But in Greece it is illegal to conduct strategic burns – considered the minimum of fire management in Australia and North America.

Gitas says he has made many representations to government to get in front of this looming crisis. But political ineptitude is as native as retsina at the southern end of the Balkans.

In 1998, the responsibility for fighting forest fires was transferred from the forest service to the metropolitan fire service. But no staff were moved between the departments, says Gitas. This loss of experience led to a lost decade of fire management during the strongest period of economic growth in the country’s recent history.

Now financial crisis has hit, and no-one is interested in handing out money for prevention.

“We have to manage our space better before a disaster, not after. This is common sense, but you know in Europe we are having difficult financial times,” he says. “You talk to the politicians about it. Nobody is going to give you any money for planning. At least in my country. They are going to pay after the fire happens.”

Our dance with the danger of wildfire is getting faster and closer with every season. Talking to fire scientists around the world, you can hear their barely concealed fear as the fuel builds up in the hills.

Lori Daniels, from Vancouver, asked why we delay when we know that acting now will save lives, homes and money in the future?

Looking down on my home town of Hobart in Tasmania, David Bowman described its destruction in appalling detail. Our civilisation’s inability to respond to threat is a pathology, he said: “It’s a fight we have to have with ourselves.”

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Farmlands in the northern state of Aragon (Pic: Andrew Gould/Flickr)

By Tim Radford

The combined forces of climate, economic and social change are leaving Spain increasingly exposed to the damaging and costly effects of wildfires.

A research group reports in the journal Environmental Science and Policy that a mix of factors is behind the rise in both the numbers of forest fires and the areas of land scorched over the last 40 years.

Vanesa Moreno, a researcher in the geography department at the University of Alcalá in Madrid, and colleagues studied the pattern of fires in Spain from 1968 to 2010.

Although Spain, like much of southern Europe, is expected to become more arid with global warming, and although some Mediterranean vegetation is adapted to − and even benefits from − natural fire outbreaks, the picture is not a simple one.

In the moister Atlantic north-west of the country, there are two fire seasons − at the end of winter, and in the summer. In the Mediterranean region, fires are more frequent in the long, hot summer.

Management

Climate change, with more prolonged droughts and rising temperatures, is certainly a driving force, but another factor has been the way the land is now used.

Increasingly, agriculture has intensified and old customs have withered away. Traditional shepherding practices once relied on using fire to keep pastures clear, and, as these practices were abandoned, the risk of accidental scrub and bush and forest fire fell.

But at the same time, like everywhere else in the world, people began to abandon the rural landscape and move to the cities, which in turn means more uncontrolled vegetation growth, more tinder and dried leaves to ignite, and a greater risk of forest fire once more.

Additionally, there have been new reforestation policies, and new plantations for pulp and paper, so that there is more forest to catch fire.

Woodland now covers 37% of the 493,000 square kilometres under study, and the animal population per sq km has fallen from 45 sheep, goats or cattle to a mere 12. So social change, too is fuelling the fire hazard.

Alarming number

Across the Atlantic, from Alaska to California, wildfires are on the increase. Europe, too, has this summer been hit by an alarming number of fires. But knowledge is power, and the Spanish know what to expect.

Moreno says: “Management has evolved and become more effective through the acquisition of fire suppression resources, professional training, research, the introduction of technologies and prevention − something that has got a lot of attention in recent years.” says Moreno.

But that does not mean the fire situation is under control. “The occurrence of several fires at the same time means that resources and personnel have to be split, and extinguishing fires takes more time,” Moreno says.

“In this regard, the economic crisis has caused the workforce to be cut, which could reduce fire extinguishing ability.”

This article was produced by the Climate News Network

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Source: Renewable UK

By Sophie Yeo

Spain generated the largest chunk of its energy from wind in 2013 – the first country to hit this renewables milestone – according to figures from the country’s national wind association.

Asociación Empresarial Eólica (AEE) is set to confirm that wind produced 21.1% of a total 246,166 gigawatt hours of electricity consumed in Spain last year, just edging ahead of nuclear’s 21.0% of the total. This is a 12% increase on the 2012 figure, when wind produced 18.1% of the country’s power.

“Throughout 2013, the all-time highs of wind power production were exceeded,” says the report.

“On February 6, wind power recorded a new maximum of instantaneous power with 17,056 MW at 3:49 pm (2.5% up on the previous record registered in April 2012), and that same day the all-time maximum for hourly energy was also exceeded reaching 16,918 MWh.”

Hydroelectricity also doubled its contribution, adding 14.4% of the total energy in the grid in 213, compared to 7.7% in 2012.

In total, renewable energy sources provided 42.4% of the country’s electricity, up from 10.5% the previous year. According to the report, the large size of the contribution was favoured by the high volume of rainfall that fell in Spain this year.

The added renewable energy in the mix in 2013 is predicted to have reduced the greenhouse gas emissions of Spain’s energy sector by 23.1% on  2012 levels.

Meanwhile the coal industry will have to register another hit to an already turbulent year: the coal-fired power plant share of the energy mix was down to 14.6% in 2013 from 19.3% in 2012, and down to 9.6% from 14.1% for combined cycle power stations.

2013 also marked a strong year for wind power in the UK, which, like Spain, achieved new milestones in renewable power generation. December broke the record for the most energy delivered by wind power in month, when the sector delivered 10% of Britain’s total energy demand.

This is yet one more chapter in the story of the industry’s growth over the last few years. Trade association RenewableUK reports that installed wind capacity increased by 40% between July 2012 and June 2013.

Today, China WindPower Group received the financial support to expand into the solar sector, securing US$ 924million to fund its ‘PV pipeline’. Its forays into the world of solar power is expected to become a “major profit contributor to the group”, according to Yan Zhifeng, the company’s executive director.

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(Pic: Renewable UK)

By Paul Brown

Contrary to claims by critics of wind power, Spanish researchers say, the turbines do reduce carbon dioxide emissions significantly even though the wind does not blow constantly.

One of the most often repeated arguments of the anti-wind lobby is that the turbines produce electricity only intermittently, when there is enough wind to turn them.

This, the critics argue, means that so much gas has to be burnt to provide a reliable supply of electricity that there is no overall benefit to the environment.

But extensive research in Spain means this claim can now definitively be declared a myth. Wind, the researchers found, is a very efficient way of reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

A study of 87 of the country’s coal and gas plants and how they were run alongside Spain’s very large wind industry found that adjustments made to the fossil fuel plants to compensate for variable wind strengths made little difference to their C02 emissions.

The anti-wind campaigners claim that fossil fuel plants have to be kept running at a slow speed, all the time producing CO2, just in case the wind fails. At slow speeds these plants are less efficient and so produce so much CO2 – the opponents of wind say – that they wipe out any gains from having wind power.

But a report published in the journal Energy by researchers at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid says this is simply not true.

There are some small losses, the researchers say, but even if wind produced as much as 50% of Spain’s electricity the CO2 savings would still be 80% of the emissions that would have been produced by the displaced thermal power stations.

At lower penetrations, particularly when the number of wind turbines was small, each megawatt hour produced by wind replaced 100% of the CO2 that would have been produced by each displaced thermal megawatt.

Mutual support

This is the opposite of reports reproduced repeatedly by right-wing think tanks and campaigners opposed to renewables.

The Spanish report adds that even the small losses caused by running thermal power plants at less than maximum efficiency to safeguard the grid if the wind drops can be reduced by better management of renewables. Spain for example has wind, solar and wave power among its portfolio of renewables, each of which can support the others.

The findings are important for governments trying to calculate the amount of CO2 they have saved by the introduction of wind power.

Countries like Spain, which are struggling to meet EU targets on reducing emissions, need to know how much CO2 saved can be credited to their wind industries. This research provides the answers.

The paper says: “The finding has generated the first comprehensive analysis on interaction between wind parks and thermal power plants in Spain and has concluded that the global balance of CO2 reduction is still significant.

“Besides, the study suggests how to enhance the effectiveness of potential sources that can be helpful for promoters of renewable technologies.”

This article was produced by the Climate News Network.

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One toilet flush could power 200,000 cars in Spain

Low cost biofuel from algae grown in wastewater from toilets has been successfully harvested to produce clean energy.

The site where the algae biomass is being produced, based in Ciclana in Southern Spain, is the world’s largest, equivalent in size to ten football pitches. It is owned by the water company FCC Aqualia.

The All-gas project has cost a total of €12 million, with €7.1 million from the European Union.

Frank Rogalla, All-gas project coordinator and FCC Aqualia’s director of innovation and technology said: “This original new approach to bioenergy means that Spain’s 40 million population could power 200,000 vehicles every year with a single toilet flush.

“The All-gas project is going to change the face of wastewater treatment by generating a valuable energy resource from what was previously considered undesirable waste.”

By using wastewater for this €12 million five-year project it avoids the controversy that surrounds other biofuel projects, which are based on large-scale food crops. Food-based biofuels have been criticised for raising food prices as well as having an adverse environmental effect.

The All-gas system is self-sufficient as it runs on the energy it produces. It is part of an integral water management system.

Algae

The biomass obtained from the algae shows a particularly high energy potential relative to its digestibility level.

It has a methane production capacity of around 200-300 litres of gas per kilogram of biomass processed by anaerobic digestion. The microalgae also allow the purification of wastewater to a high standard.

Car manufacturer Rolls Royce has also invested in replacing kerosene with algae as an aviation fuel within the next two decades. The engine has been estimated to be able to produce 75% less carbon dioxide than today’s plane.

Launched in May 2011, the project is expected to have generated enough energy to power 200,000 vehicles by 2016. When the project reaches its demonstration phase, the biogas produced will be used to power public buses and garbage trucks in the region of Cadiz.

In recent years, the European Union has made a decisive commitment to pursue new sources of clean energy. The current aim is that 20% of the energy produced in Europe will come from renewable sources by 2020.

In this context, the €12 million All-gas project, with EU funding of €7.1 million, can be considered a global benchmark.

As Nicolas Aragon, Chiclana’s environmental councillor, explains: “This is not only an R&D project, but also a way of reducing costs and investing in the protection of our natural environment. Chiclana is a worldwide tourist destination and from now on, we will show that along with attracting visitors with our sunshine and beaches, we can also grow sustainable biofuel with our natural resources. ”

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