In June 2023, more than a dozen environmental organizations gathered in Barcelona with the aim of making an urgent appeal under the slogan The Future is Now. A year later, the meeting was repeated with a slight difference: “The future is no longer now, but already.”
In light of the current political scenario in Catalonia, environmental organizations have decided to focus on urgent measures that, in their view, should be implemented within the first 100 days of the new state government’s mandate. “It is urgent to raise the climate emergency to the highest institutional level,” demanded Fernando Fernandez, a member of Greenpeace.
In particular, ecologists put forward three “essential” proposals. First of all, for climate and biodiversity defense policies to be comprehensive, they demand the position of Vice-President of Socio-Environmental Transformation in the General Mandate.
The second measure is a package of 30 measures to accelerate renewable energy sources and decarbonization. “This could be pushed forward through a decree that simplifies administrative procedures to improve public transport networks or ensure carbon budgets,” said Joan Herrera, from OKEA.
The third urgent need is to coordinate the strategy in universities, in order to create a research group focused on responses to climate change.
Energy transmission
Environmental organizations propose this roadmap with a set of measures that the government being formed in Catalonia must develop, if possible with political consensus. Especially after “the few progresses made in the last legislative council.”
Regarding environmental conservation, Andrew Salvat, from the Association Conservació.cat, criticized the poor state of aquatic ecosystems and linked it to water management. He also pointed to three key measures that the last government failed to approve: “We have not approved the Biodiversity Act, we are not making progress on the Natural Heritage Strategy, and the Nature Agency is not a reality.”
Many speakers called for the publication of carbon budgets and the promotion of renewable energy sources, always searching for consensus. “Catalonia represents a planetary exclusivity. India, the country that burns the most coal, contributes more to renewable energy sources than us,” denounced Pere Roura, a member of the Renovem-nos party.
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