Sostenibilità sociale e ambientale
Spain: Environment to make it on to electoral
Spain's most influential NGOs are calling on political parties to include a four year sustainability action plan into their electoral agenda's
di Ges
In view of the coming presidential elections set for the 9th March, five environmental NGOs (Amigos de la Tierra, Ecologistas en Acción, Greenpeace, SEO/Bird Life and WWF/Adena) have presented a 4 year plan towards sustainablitlty, A Plan for the Earth, to Spanish political parties urging it to be included in their electoral programmes.
The NGOs, Greenpeace in particular, have criticised politicians for not clearly stating their position as regards nuclear energy. All political parties have stated that climate change is a real and serious problem to be overcome through an efficient use of resources and by investing in renewable energy. But Juan Lòpez de Uralda, Director of Greenpeace Spain, explains that ?none of the election programs are up to scratch when it comes to the urgency and magnitude of the measures and objectives neccessary to take action against climate change?.
The four year plan adresses energy, CO2 emmissions, transport and the rational use of resources, in particular water, the sea and the land. These are the 12 points that they ask political parties to adopt:
- To reduce CO2 emissions so as to meet the targets established by the EU for 2020 and 2050 by passing al Law against Climate Change;
- To systematically reduce energy consumption using all means available including passing a Law for Energy Saving and Efficiency;
- To promote and support the use and creation of clean energy, in particular by passing a Law for Renewable Energy;
- To restrict the use of cars, to foment public transport and oblige the development of Sustainable Mobility Plans by passing a law for Sustainable Mobility;
- To establish effective systems to reduce waste;
- To invest in environmental education programmes in schools and colleges;
- To guarantee that environmental criteria be used when deciding how to spend public funds, for example by ensuring that wood form illegal sources not be bought;
- To drastically reduce the use of chemical products in agriculture;
- To encourage restructuring and renting by providing incentives in order to reduce the construction and sale of new houses;
- To recuperate all the overexploited aquifers in Spain, closing down illegal extraction plants and ensuring ecological management of all rivers;
- To give a real impulse to the EU?s Nature 2000 network, by approving it and granting it enough financial and management support;
- To defend the sea by creating a coherent network of protected spaces, integrated and well managed, that includes costal as well as sea areas.
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