The installation of photovoltaic panels and the expansion of irrigated crops over the last few years are one of the main reasons for the land use change which, in turn, is one of the main “threats”“to the conservation of the nature in Spain. This is one of the findings of the national plan that the Government will present at the Conference of the Parties on Biodiversity, the Conference of the Parties on Climate Change (COP16) of Cali which begins this Monday and in which it estimates that until 2030 Spain should invest more than 4.1 billion to protect its nature, recovering and conserving ecosystems or making its natural heritage known.
Along with the fires forestry, the overexploitation of natural resources such as fishing, water or mining wave desertificationthe Ministry of Ecological Transition points out as one of the “main pressures and threats for the natural heritage and biodiversity in Spain” are the changes in land use, which in the Spanish case has to do with factors such as “the agricultural and livestock intensification” and the “increase in irrigation“which in the last decade has gone from 19.8% to 22.2% of the cultivated area in Spain, as well as with the “increasing implementation of renewable energies and especially solar energy projects.” This is how it reads in the document prepared by the department of the still third vice president, Teresa Riberawhich the Government approved in December 2022 and which as of this Monday will formally submit to the evaluation of the COP16 Biodiversity in the Colombian city.
The State Strategic Plan for Natural Heritage and Biodiversity to 2030 is the cornerstone of the Government in matters of nature conservation and a catalog of problems that has the protection of nature in Spain and the measures and financing to address them. With statements such as those referring to irrigated agriculture and solar panels, it represents a wake up callnot only to the deployment of crops that need a amount of water that no longer existsaccording to a recurring warning from the Ecological Transition headquarters, but also to the deployment of one of the renewable energy sources what else is called to grow in the coming years so that Spain can make the energy transition. To “minimize the impacts” of renewable energy, the document referred to environmental impact statements and the monitoring of the “incidence” that photovoltaic and wind parks have on fauna and flora, as well as on the landscape or cultural heritage.
This plan was approved in December 2022, very shortly after the World Biodiversity Framework of the Montreal COP came to light, the basis for the style of the Climate Summitsthe 196 countries of the Biodiversity COP committed to meet 23 goals to protect 30% of terrestrial and marine ecosystems of the world, considered in danger. In its strategy, Spain proposes that by 2030 the conservation status of all species or types of habitat of community interest be known, restore “at least 30% of the species and habitats” that are now not in good condition or restore 15% of “degraded ecosystems”, as well as reducing chemical fertilizers and promoting organic farming or fallows or facilitating “coexistence of large carnivores with livestock“, at a time when the EU has agreed lower the protection status of the wolf.
This Monday, Ecologists in Action has launched a call for Cali to “lay the foundations” for them to apply their plans to protect nature, in an issue that, as the green agenda enters “recoil“in areas like the EUis increasingly in question regarding factors such as industrial competitiveness, as lamented by the environmental sector.
According to Greenpeacebiodiversity retreats around the world “much faster” than expected due to the impacts of the industry and there are a million species in extinction- In Spain, 73% of the habitats They have “community interest” and “are not conserved today”, despite the fact that this environmental organization warns that the relationship between biodiversity and economy is “very great”, since “More than half of the world’s GDP depends on nature and related services.” “The current model of Production and consumption continues to accelerate the sixth great extinction. Whether this begins to change will depend, to a large extent, on whether the loss of biodiversity begins to be stopped at the Cali COP,” they say in Ecologistas en Acción.
As a “positive” aspect is the recovery capacity of nature itself, which It takes only “an average of four years” to respond to actions to preserve it and that is where NGOs such as Greenpeace or Ecologists in Action want progress in this Biodiversity COP, which they would like to see on equal importance with the Climate Summit, because they believe that energy, climate change and biodiversity They cannot be separated.
The Secretary of State for the Environment, Hugo Morán, and the general director of Biodiversity, Forests and Desertification, María Jesús Rodríguez de Sancholead the Government delegation to the Cali COP in which it is expected that a evaluation of strategies national standards and also the degree of compliance with their commitments in favor of nature. Here, Greenpeace denounced a few days ago that Ribera did not take into account the contributions of civil society nor is there coordination with other administrations and, within the Government itself, with the Ministry of Agriculture or Transport, that deploy policies that are sometimes contradictory or have a “blocking paper” of the Ecological Transition plan to protect biodiversity.
Financing
After the 2022 Montreal agreement in Cali, a new commitment to protect biodiversity is not expected now, beyond presenting and applying national plans, but, as usually happens at Climate Summits, it is also The issue of financing will be key and how the most industrialized countries with more harmful activities should help those that are less responsible but especially rich in natural environments. An eventual commitment by the former to increase the contribution of funds to the latter would be a step forward that Greenpeace considers as important as it is difficult.
The basis is also in one of the 23 points of the Montreal Agreement calculated the “ecological footprint” of each of the 196 parts -countries- of the Convention on Biodiversity and mandated that developed countries should contribute 200 billion a year until 2030development aid, other public and private funds, to help less developed countries.
Of that amount and according to its “ecological footprint”, Spain is responsible for contribute more than a billion a year, but has only disbursed 160, a figure that places it among the countries that are very far from achieving their commitment. In fact, among the more than 4.1 billion that he estimates that Spain should spend until 2030 on protecting nature, there is no item in the section on “international commitments regarding natural heritage and biodiversity.” Greenpeace demands that the Government increase its contribution to at least 300 million.
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