Legislation to address the climate emergency
The Energy Transition and Climate Change Act 1/2024, of 8 February, facilitates the alignment of the Basque Country with all the regulations, policies and plans to which it has adhered and committed, and which seek to achieve neutrality, resilience and a just transition by 2050.
The atmosphere is warming, with serious consequences for our environment and our societies. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) believes that limiting the increase in the global temperature to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and to reduce the negative impacts of climate change will require the world to rapidly reduce their greenhouse gases (GHG) that are warming the climate, in order to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 and of all the other greenhouse gases slightly later in the same century. In the European Climate Act, the European Union establishes the framework to achieve climate neutrality, with a binding target of reducing CO2 emissions by 55% by 2030 on 1990 levels, and to be GHG neutral by 2050.
This global challenge includes the regions and local authorities that adopt over 70% of the climate change impact mitigation measures and up to 90% of the adaptation measures. In short, it is up to the regions to apply 70% of all European Union legislation, which accounts for a third of public spending and two thirds of public investment.
The product of broad socio-political agreement and consensus, the Basque Act 1/24 is the voluntary and steadfast commitment of the Basque Country in an area where the regions do not have obligations, but the States, in contrast, do. Accordingly, climate change is the challenge where this legislation is acting as a driving force to accelerate the mitigation policies by means of cutting emissions and the energy transition, the adaptation of the territory to deal with the possible impacts of climate change and the equity that must guarantee a just transition.
Furthermore, the Act envisages that the necessary effort will be made to be climate neutral by 2045, by deploying all the decarbonisation actions set out in the Act, along with the financing mechanisms that support them. An interim target is likewise established to reduce greenhouse gases by 45% by 2030 on 2005, in other words, the equivalent of a 33% reduction on 1990 emissions.
Savings in final energy consumption of, at least, 12% by 2030 and 37% by 2050, compared to 2021 consumption, are established; along with the share of renewable energies in the final energy mix of, at least, 32% by 2030.
In addition, the legislation envisages:
- Contributing to compliance of the international commitment regarding reducing greenhouse gas emissions and implementing measures to adapt to the effects of climate change.
- Focusing the energy transition process from the perspective of savings and energy efficiency, harnessing renewables and the use of energies for the decarbonisation of the current model, thus guaranteeing the security and affordability of the supply.
- Driving the decarbonisation process using the energy transition in all Basque socio-economic sectors, by bolstering economic activity, business competitiveness, job quality and the well-being of society, in the framework of an inclusive and sustainable development model from the social, economic and environmental perspectives.
- Increasing the adaptation capacity of the territory and its institutions, of companies and society to bolster resilience and reduce vulnerability to climate change.
- Harnessing the opportunities of the energy transition process to drive the competitiveness of Basque industry based on industrial and technological development.
- Fostering business and institutional innovation in areas related to the energy transition, climate change mitigation and adaptation in order to make the Basque economy more competitive and to achieve a more circular economy.
- Encouraging change by driving the transition energies digitalisation and placing consumers as key players within the energy system.
- Boosting the training of society and harmonisation in areas such as financing, taxation or research to guarantee social justice and a just transition.
- Promoting energy democratisation, by furthering citizen access to it and the right to information.
- Driving education, research and the dissemination of the information relating to the scope of this Act.
- Basque Energy Transition and Climate Change Office, which will monitor the goals pursued by the legislation and ensure compliance of regulations, gas inventories, updating climate scenarios, assessing vulnerability, information channels, training and communication, dissemination activities, management of the Basque observation system, and supporting the Scientific Committee and the citizen assembly.
- Energy Transition and Climate Change Scientific Committee is tasked with preparing an annual report to be submitted to the Parliamentary Committee, and will be attached to the Basque Energy Transition and Climate Change Office.
- Energy Transition and Climate Change Citizen Assembly with the goal of encouraging citizen participation.
- The Energy Sustainability Commissions are to be henceforth known as Energy Transition and Climate Change Commissions and will coordinate the exercising of the functions within the jurisdiction of the different public administrations.
- Furthermore, the scope of the existing authorities is extended; they include the Environmental Advisory Council, the participation and relationship body of the Basque public administrations and the representative sectors of knowledge, economic and social interests; the Social Pact for the energy transition and climate change; and citizen assemblies run by local councils.
The planning will include measures, tools, legislative developments, tax and financing mechanisms to achieve the energy transition by supporting supramunicipalities, industrial or economic sectors or population segments. The planning instruments established by the Act are the Long-Term Energy Transition and Climate Change Roadmap, the energy transition and climate change Strategies and the Energy and Climate Plans of the provincial governments and local authorities
Thus, actions are envisaged such as introducing the climate change variable into the spatial planning instruments, identifying and protecting the sensitive and critical infrastructures by analysing their climate risk regarding drought and floods, guaranteeing the implementation of activities in emergency situations, and adapting the emergency, civil protection and security systems to climate change events.
The main key points to understand the importance of the Energy Transition and Climate Change Act are:
- Commitment to decarbonisation
- Commitment to climate change adaptation
- Opportunities for innovation and technological development.
- Divestment from fossil fuel exploitation and extraction
- Use of taxation as incentives for action
- Carbon footprint calculation in companies, administration and public entities
- Efficiency of the governance system and harnessing of existing structures
- Social Pact for the energy transition and climate change
- Co-benefits for health and generation of new jobs
- Gender perspective and just transition
TOOLS
The computer application allows the carbon footprint of the organisation, products and services and the corporate environmental footprint to be calculated; a simplified life-cycle assessment of products and services to be performed; and circular economy indicators to be calculated from an organisation approach; and all in accordance with recognised standards.
WHAT SHOULD I KNOW?
