Balearic Islands’ new climate change law to reduce reliance on tourism

Spain’s Balear­ic Islands has approved a cli­mate change law that com­mits the pop­u­lar tour­ism des­tin­a­tion to sourcing all its energy from renew­ables by 2050.

Balear­ic Islands pres­id­ent Fran­cina Armen­gol said the new law was “an oppor­tun­ity to rein­force our brand as a sus­tain­able destination”.

Balear­ic Islands energy min­is­ter Marc Pons reck­ons the law is part of a lar­ger strategy to reduce the region’s reli­ance on tour­ism by fos­ter­ing more diver­si­fic­a­tion and less sea­son­al­ity in the economy.

The Balear­ics wel­come 14 mil­lion vis­it­ors annu­ally. Traffic jams and pol­lu­tion peak dur­ing sum­mer, the high season.

Full story by Thom­son Reu­ters Foundation:

Balearic Islands chart green path with climate change law

Spain’s Balear­ic Islands set a course for a green­er future on Tues­day, approv­ing a cli­mate change law that com­mits the tour­ism hot­spot to source all its energy from renew­ables by 2050.

The law includes a phase-out of coal power pro­duced at Es Mur­ter­ar plant on the pop­u­lar hol­i­day island of Mal­lorca by 2025, start­ing in 2020.

Incent­ives and sub­sidies will be provided to boost clean energy gen­er­a­tion on the four main islands — largely sol­ar and some wind power — includ­ing at least 40 mil­lion euros ($45 mil­lion) for photo­vol­ta­ic parks from the cent­ral government.

The law also bans new dies­el cars from cir­cu­lat­ing from 2025 and new pet­rol vehicles from 2035.

Fran­cina Armen­gol, Balear­ic Islands pres­id­ent, described the Cli­mate Change and Energy Trans­ition Act — whose adop­tion received a stand­ing ova­tion in the loc­al par­lia­ment — as “pion­eer­ing”, say­ing the region would set “a bench­mark in the energy transition”.

“We are con­vinced that pro­tect­ing the envir­on­ment also means pro­tect­ing all those who live in the Balear­ic Islands, and we are determ­ined to make the neces­sary changes to our infra­struc­ture and eco­nomy,” she said in a statement.

The law offers “an oppor­tun­ity to rein­force our brand as a sus­tain­able des­tin­a­tion”, she added. 

Cli­mate and energy plans will be estab­lished every five years with bind­ing tar­gets for com­pan­ies and municipalities.

Joan Gro­iz­ard Pay­er­as, dir­ect­or of renew­able energy at IDAE, Spain’s nation­al energy agency, said the polit­ic­al cli­mate had moved on from the eco­nom­ic crisis that gripped Spain for much of the past dec­ade, enabling con­struct­ive debate on green issues.

“Over the past two to three years, the envir­on­ment has come back onto the centre stage of polit­ics,” he told the Thom­son Reu­ters Foundation.

Gro­iz­ard, who was pre­vi­ously energy dir­ect­or for the Balear­ics gov­ern­ment and an archi­tect of the new law, said he hoped it would send a pos­it­ive sig­nal to the rest of Spain, and set an example for oth­er regions to follow.

Mad­rid has yet to pass a delayed nation­al cli­mate change law, draf­ted by the minor­ity Social­ist gov­ern­ment which is strug­gling to get its 2019 budget through parliament.

The pros­per­ous north­ern region of Catalun­ya approved a cli­mate law in 2017, which also aims to trans­ition to 100-per­cent clean energy by 2050.

The inhab­it­ants of the Balear­ics, vis­ited by 14 mil­lion people each year, have grasped the need for a green shift due to traffic jams and pol­lu­tion in the sum­mer, and extreme weath­er such as droughts and storms that have caused water short­ages and washed away beaches, Gro­iz­ard said.

In Octo­ber, heavy rains hit Mal­lorca, caus­ing flash floods that killed at least 12 people.

The law will require all new gov­ern­ment pro­jects — such as schools or water treat­ment facil­it­ies — to adapt to wild weath­er and rising seas, and to take into account how they con­trib­ute to curb­ing plan­et-warm­ing emissions.

Electric opportunity

Some meas­ures in the law, when first pro­posed, sparked oppos­i­tion amid con­cern about jobs at power plants run­ning on fossil fuels.

But on Fri­day, a deal was announced with Endesa, the com­pany that oper­ates Mal­lor­ca’s coal plant, and its work­ers’ uni­on for a gradu­al shut-down that would avoid staff cuts, partly by trans­fer­ring employ­ees to gas plants in the short run.

The clos­ure of coal power capa­city will cut emis­sions from Mal­lor­ca’s elec­tri­city sys­tem by a third.

“It’s… abso­lutely right that they stop import­ing pol­lut­ing coal and start har­vest­ing their abund­ant sun­shine, and the agree­ment to close the power sta­tion with no job losses is exem­plary,” said Laurence Tubi­ana, pres­id­ent and CEO of the European Cli­mate Foundation.

Anoth­er stick­ing point has been fierce cri­ti­cism from the auto industry of the move to shift to elec­tric vehicles.

But Gro­iz­ard said the new reg­u­la­tions were in line with car man­u­fac­tur­ers’ plans.

And as the law only applies to new vehicles, res­id­ents will not be forced to switch to elec­tric until they buy a new car.

Mean­while, a tender worth 12 mil­lion euros has been opened to install a net­work of a thou­sand char­ging points for elec­tric vehicles on the islands.

Car rent­al com­pan­ies will have to incor­por­ate elec­tric vehicles into their fleets from 2020 onwards, while new pub­lic buses will run on nat­ur­al gas or electricity.

The adop­tion of elec­tric vehicles will incentiv­ise the pro­duc­tion of more clean power, “provid­ing for great­er sys­tem effi­cien­cies and lower trans­port­a­tion costs over­all”, said Petar Geor­giev of Eure­lec­tric, a European asso­ci­ation for the elec­tri­city industry.

Marc Pons, the Balear­ic energy min­is­ter, said elec­tric trans­port, renew­ables and energy effi­ciency would open up oppor­tun­it­ies for growth, in line with a push to reduce reli­ance on tourism.

Mal­lorca, for example, is mar­ket­ing itself as a loc­a­tion for green tech firms.

“The Cli­mate Change Act draws a new eco­nomy for our islands, which need more diver­si­fic­a­tion and less sea­son­al­ity,” Pons said.

($1 = 0.8852 euros) 

Source: The Thom­son Reu­ters Found­a­tion, the char­it­able arm of Thom­son Reu­ters. Report­ing by Megan Rowl­ing; edit­ing by Laurie Goering.

Fea­tured image: Cala Anguilla beach, Majorca, Balear­ic Islands, Spain. Image by lap­ping via Pixabay.