Is Spain Paying for Climate Change?

It is end of November and it’s warm, really warm. According to NASA, we had the hottest August on record, the hottest September on record, then the hottest October, and it is likely we are reaching the hottest winter.

In Europe, this summer destroyed the olive production in Italy and Spain, made herbs and flowers re-flourish in October and left torrential rain that destroyed infrastructure and agriculture.

Climate change is starting to appear in conversations: ‘Oh, how nice is to go to beach in November!’.

But we need to realise that something is going wrong.

Who to blame? What to do? As individuals we can decide to change attitudes and shift to more climate-friendly practises: buy local, use your bike and public transport, install renewable energies (if the government allows you), or grow your own food.

On top of that, governments should be leading the fight against climate change, and they present measures to reduce emissions and adapt to the changes of the climate.

In Spain we have national mitigation and adaptation plans, and some of the regions like Andalucía, Catalonia or the Basque Country, are already writing climate Laws. But somehow this is not yet enough, and there is something more that is going terribly wrong.

While the government presents 43 measures to fight climate change to reach its 2020 greenhouse gas reduction targets, it also gives large amounts of money to the fossil fuel industry and protects its interests. According to a report published recently by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), the G20 gives 71 billion euros every year in subsidies for oil, gas and coal exploration. And Spain is not an exception on that, and we are going to explore some examples:

The Castor project – Gas in the Mediterranean Sea

The Castor project is a submarine natural gas storage facility in the east coast of Spain, which aimed to contain 1,3 billion cubic meters of gas to ‘guarantee supply and price stability’, supported by the European Investment Bank. The ‘little’ problem of this project was that the Environmental Impact Assessment did not consider severe issues that were widely criticized by environmental NGOs and professionals.

The storage was planned in an area with geological faults. As sadly expected, when the gas injection started, hundreds of earthquakes began in the surrounding cities and the project was suspended. For this, the Spanish government paid 1.3 billion euros as indemnification to the construction company, which will be paid through the normal gas bills by Spanish gas consumers. It seems that, as many things in Spain, benefits are private, but costs are public.

Our population now has to pay for the decision of a few elites to perpetuate a failing fossil fuel industry.

Petrol prospections in the Canary Islands – protecting elite’s climate inaction

After many years announcing it, the Spanish government has given permission to conduct oil prospections 60km away from the Canary Islands.

Eight points will start to be drilled from this Tuesday to a depth of 3100m. This announcement provoked a huge rejection within the inhabitants of the islands, and concerned the tourism and the environmental sector.

Many protests have been ongoing during the past months, and a referendum has been put in place to ask the citizens ‘Do you think Canary Islands should change its environmental and touristic model for gas and oil prospections?’.

The referendum was immediately banned by the central government, with a majority of the conservative party in favour of the exploration. Meanwhile, the European Commission has accepted some of the complaints of the population and is investigating if the Environmental Impact Assessment complies with European legislation.

While this is going on the Spanish Army has attacked Greenpeace activists attempting to prevent any further damage being done. This video shows the Spanish Army ramming their boats and breaking the leg of one of the protesters, which had to be operated on.

Instead of an apology, the government has punished Greenpeace for piracy and retained their ship. This demonstrates how the government prefers protecting the interests of an oil multinational than working for a more democratic and climate-friendly country.

These are only two examples of actions that the Spanish government is undertaking which accelerate climate change and preserve the interests of a polluting elite.

Believe it or not, the new EU Commissioner for Energy and Climate, who was part of the ruling government in Spain, has also generated a lot of controversy for having oil company shares. But at the same time, of course, he urges greater action on climate change.

There are many solutions to this global climate challenge, and many rely on a new agreement coming in COP21 in Paris, next year.

However, now is the time for civil society and governments to demonstrate which side of the climate crisis they are on: next to the big polluters or alongside those concerned about our global future.