By Marcel Garces
MADRID — Because of changes to the world climate, some 20 million Spaniards who live along 8000 km of Mediterranean coast are in danger, say environmental organisations and government authorities.
Minister of public works and transport Jose Borrel recently declared that Spain would be one of the countries most affected by changes to climate and environment. The threat hangs over approximately 50% of the population living along the coasts.
According to official statistics, the sea level has risen between five and six centimetres during the past 15 years. Ecology groups predict that this process will accelerate in the future.
In spite of the agreement between the government and ecologists about the threat posed by climatic changes, they propose different solutions, especially concerning the emission of the gases which produce these changes.
The greenhouse effect is produced by the concentration of gases in the atmosphere. One of these gases is carbon dioxide (CO2), which some experts claim to be responsible for 50% of the global warming effect.
Jose Luis Garcia Ortega, a member of Greenpeace, has stated that, faced with this situation, "as an initial minimum goal, Spain should make a clear and concrete commitment to stabilise its CO2 emissions in the year 2000 at the same level as in 1992".
This proposal conflicts with a government decision to increase CO2 emissions derived from the generation of thermal electrical energy. By the year 2000, these levels could rise by some 25%.
This is despite the decision of the European Community to stabilise CO2 emissions by the year 2000. Spain currently emits 1.5 tonnes of CO2 per capita per year while the rest of the EC countries emit 2.2 tonnes and the United States more than five.
For Garcia Ortega, the basic problem lies in the interest of oil and coal producers "to continue increasing production, sales and earnings — whatever the consequences for the environment".
Greenpeace and the Association of Ecologists for the Defence of Nature, two of the Spain's principal environmental agencies, do
not have much faith in the activity of the new National Commission for the Climate. This government agency, which began its work in late September, will have to deliver a report on climatic changes and their consequences to Spain in July 1993.
Garcia Ortega contends that there is a contradiction between a government commission which must recommend action to reduce CO2 emissions and the national energy plan, which encourages an increase in this gas. The only purpose left for the commission to perform would therefore be to justify the emissions, "which would of course be a lamentable role for it". [Inter Press Service/Pegasus.]