ABSTRACT

Spain is a ‘paradoxical case’, when it comes to climate change. It is the industrialised country whose emissions have risen the most sharply since 1990 (just second to Turkey) (SBI 2007), and yet it is a Member State of the European Union (EU), allegedly the leader of international climate negotiations (Andresen and Agrawala 2002; Chapter 1 by Wurzel and Connelly). Moreover, despite the fact that for some time Spain dragged its feet regarding EU climate policies, it has subsequently acted as an ‘improving laggard’ in terms of policy outputs (Skjaerseth and Wettestad 2007: 165, 63). Further, Spain probably made the best deal out of the negotiation on the sharing of the EU’s 2020 emissions reduction target, as it was permitted to take 2005 as its base year while per capita and per production unit are used as criteria to set the targets (CEC 2008). This chapter addresses this state of affairs by examining Spanish policies on, and debates about, climate change. On a more analytical note, it will be argued that two key factors have shaped climate politics and policies in Spain. The fi rst is the increase in emissions. Spain’s greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) have, over the last two decades, failed to meet Spain’s international and European targets. The EU’s 1998 effort-sharing agreement1 allowed Spain to let its emissions rise by 15 per cent between the base year (approximately 1990) and the period 2008-12. However, in 2008 emissions had already increased by 42.7 per cent, despite a sharp drop in 2008 due to the economic crisis and a 31 per cent decrease in coal consumption (Santamarta and Serrano 2009: 2). Therefore, purchases of emissions rights under the Kyoto mechanisms will need to be around 60 million t CO2-equivalent per year. This trend is the fi rst factor shaping Spanish climate policies and politics. Some of these features can also be found in other southern European countries, but nowhere as intensely as in Spain (EEA 2008, 2009). The second factor is the interaction with EU climate discourses and policies, which has mostly taken place under the form of top-down Europeanisation, though since 2004 it has gradually given way to a two-way relationship. The rest of this chapter looks into this process and its infl uence on national attitudes and decisions.