The Basque government approves the first bill addressing climate change in the BAC

The Basque Government Council has today approved the project of Energy transition and climate change law of the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country with the aim of accelerating decarbonisation through co-responsibility. Promoted by the Department of Economic Development, Sustainability and Environment of the Basque Government, it will facilitate the alignment of the CAV with all the regulations, policies and plans with which it has expressed its commitment and compliance at the national and international level, thus achieving the climate neutrality and a energy transition scholarship for the year 2050.

This law is the first to address climate change. This is an important tool to achieve both the goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement, which called for limiting the global temperature increase to 1.5°C compared to pre-industrial times and adapting to the impacts of climate change, and the institutional Declaration of Climate Emergency in 2019 by Lehendakari Iñigo Urkullu in which they announced urgent and ambitious actions to achieve a carbon neutral Basque country by 2050″.

According to the latest existing data corresponding to the year 2020, the energy sectorHe transport and the industry They are the ones that contribute most to greenhouse gas emissions, generating 84% of total emissions in the BAC.

just transfer

“This whole process will be carried out according to the criteria of a just transition that takes into account the equitable distribution of costs and burdens derived from it, leaving no one behind, with special attention to the most vulnerable economic sectors, territories and populations, integrating people’s variable gender, age or dysfunction, so that the transition does not become a new cause of injustice and inequality,” said Arantxa Tapia, Minister of Economic Development, Sustainability and Environment.

Main novelties of the law

-Make a register of initiatives

The law creates a Basque register of energy transition and climate change initiatives, which will be public and in which public or private entities will record their climate action actions. Registration is free.

– Local climate and energy plans

Historic areas and Basque municipalities with more than 5,000 inhabitants must, within the framework of their competences, draw up climate and energy plans that will contribute to the objectives of the area as a whole.

– Creation of the Office for Energy Transition and Climate Change

The law also envisages the creation of an Office for Energy Transition and Climate Change, as a technical collegiate body attached to the department of the Basque government responsible for energy and climate change, whose duties include monitoring the objectives pursued by the law and regulatory compliance monitoring. .

– Promote citizen participation

In order to achieve a just and sustainable transition that guarantees justice and solidarity and leaves no one behind, a fair distribution of costs and burdens will be taken into account, with special attention to the most vulnerable economic sectors, territories and population, with the variable of gender , age or functional diversity, so that the transition does not become a new cause of inequality.

-Euskadi Citizens’ Assembly of Energy and Climate Transition

In addition, to promote citizen participation, the Basque government will establish the Euskadi Citizens’ Assembly for Energy Transition and Climate Change, which will regulate its composition, organization and operation by decree.

-Energy and climate perspective in government budgets

The energy and climate perspective must be included in the CAV General Budget Act project. The other Basque public services will promote the integration of the energy and climate perspective in their government budgets, especially in the design phase.