Amateur Climate Change

The conservative government in Spain is breaking records in its politics against renewable energy. The time where Obama mentioned Spain as example seems far away. After Rajoy took office one of the first energy politics by Industry minister caller Soria was to stop feed-in-tarif. Later, it went even further planning a new tax for some energy sources, for example renewables. The great driving force in Sorias speeches was “tarif-deficit“, a concept deserving a post by itself but roughly defined as the difference of accepted official prizes for energy producers and final lower retail prizes for customers. The op-ed in the local reference in the sector energias renovables considering the previous Industry minister as the worse for renewables is simply outdated.

Is this the same as could happen in USA if republicans reach the white house? I do not think iso, t is more complicated. In spanish energy policy conservatives and socialists have not been so far in last years. In fact, some progressive press has criticized solar industry, considering them conected to conservative local governments. So, in this complex but worsening history it is refreshing to find p recently divergences between governmet ministers and see them became public. It is not the first time these divergences are made public. But this time it is stronger and somehow hopeful. Just two short comments for outside observers:

1.- It would be very important to obtain a widespread support for renewables, because this gives more security to the investment. For this, it is a key factor to explain how they are more expensive now but an investment for the future (as research, which by the way is suffering the same problems due to the crisis)

2.- It is important to design renewables growth not only expecting more power demand, also and preferably expecting power demand reduction, as it is happening now in Spain. This is the only way to avoid more than 450 ppm of CO2 in our beloved atmosphere.

Image from http://politic-toc.blogspot.com