Catalonia is working on a proposal for a Climate Security Law, which proposes a set of measures to accelerate the design of policies consistent with the climate emergency, emphasizing the need to guarantee precautionary criteria, to give a key role to the knowledge of the scientific community, citizen participation and transparency in the supervision of advances in climate security in Catalonia.
To refine it, a period of consultations has been opened with various entities and actors. CREAF researcher Annelies Broekman was one of the guests and recently appeared in the Parliament of Catalonia. Her intervention has served to provide proposals on the need to promote governance for adaptation to climate change based on ecosystem management and articulated in the same local and territorial development strategies. Also strengthen the resilience of the local environment that is on the front line of response to climate impacts and count on it to formulate solutions.
I believe it is key that the Law structurally contemplates permanent working spaces between administrations, scientific communities, social agents and citizens in order to promote a transversal approach and design laws and measures that respond to various real needs of society in the face of the challenges of climate change.
Annelies Broekman
In fact, the creation of a Reference Warming Trajectory for Adaptation to the Climate Crisis (TERACAT) is being considered, which implies the review of practically all planning and management instruments, such as tourism, housing, energy or water management, to establish a territorial planning horizon of +4 °C by the year 2100 for all public administrations present in Catalonia.
The contributions made in terms of innovation in governance for adaptation received a lot of interest and during the question and answer session it was possible to go into a little more detail about the specific tools and approaches that we already have at our disposal and that are supported by the research results of the CREAF Water and Climate Change Group over the last fifteen years.
Along these lines, Broekman coordinates the ClimaGov project, an initiative that works precisely to strengthen governance for climate change adaptation in Catalonia. Specifically, it promotes the integration of adaptation in local and territorial development strategies. It also promotes monitoring and evaluation systems to measure how governance contributes to improving the response capacity and resilience of territories to the impacts of climate change. The initiative has the support of the Climate Fund of the Generalitat de Catalunya and among its specific objectives we find providing scientific, academic and technical support to existing governance spaces, monitoring local adaptation processes in different Catalan territories, promoting new initiatives and connecting actors, projects and resources to strengthen climate change adaptation policies.
Session on the Catalan Climate Security Law in Parliament. Image: Ángela Justamante
Nature and economy cannot be separated
During the appearance, Broekman also defended that the climate crisis must be addressed from a systemic perspective, "in which economic activity is not disconnected from ecological limits or nature". In this sense, she warned that the current European strategic priorities, aimed at guaranteeing access to critical materials for defense and the energy transition, may compromise the conservation of the natural environment and the proposed law could help prevent the protection of nature from losing even more strength in Catalonia. She highlights the importance of the creation of the Nature Agency, among others.
Broekman also noted that she welcomes the fact that the law proposes a moratorium on the creation and expansion of fossil transport infrastructure, such as the expansion of El Prat airport. However, she also expressed concern about the proliferation of infrastructure with a high territorial impact, such as the project to install a data center linked to artificial intelligence in Móra la Nova, or the biogas macro power plant in La Sentiu de Sió.
She also defended the need for projects that aim to strengthen adaptation and mitigation of climate change in Catalonia to have the voice of the territory and to establish spaces for deliberation and co-creation for a just transition. She cited as an example the lack of transparency and dialogue regarding plans to install renewable energies such as PLATER or new hydraulic infrastructures proposed with the Water Transition law, at the service of unsustainable growth in future climate scenarios.
The Business and Climate Foundation, the Ebro Delta Defense Platform, several researchers from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, and the Waste Cluster of Catalonia, among others, also participated in this appearance.
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