Contradictory plans undermine government energy efficiency strategy: Spain will fall woefully short of Kyoto targets, Industry Ministry forecasts | Two recently unveiled government plans dealing with climate change and energy efficiency are in direct contradiction over [sic] Spain’s projected energy consumption for the coming years, calling into question the effectiveness of the Socialist administration’s strategy to fight global warming and comply with the Kyoto Protocol.

Presented in draft form little more than a month apart, the Environment Ministry’s Spanish Strategy Against Climate Change and the Industry Ministry’s Electricity and Gas Sectors Plan 2007-2017 offer wildly different forecasts as to how much energy Spaniards will consume in the future. While the first plan predicts a fall in energy demand of one percent per year, the latter estimates a two-percent increase that would derail Spain’s efforts to comply with the Kyoto Protocol.

Even under the Environment Ministry’s more optimistic estimates, Spanish green house gas emissions would be 37 percent above 1990 levels by 2012, compared to the 15-percent increase the country was permitted under Kyoto. The Environment Ministry says the gap would be covered by buying carbon emission rights at a cost of €3 billion.

However, that bill would be considerably larger if the Industry Ministry’s report is correct. Most alarmingly for environmentalists and taxpayers, the latter plan is based on solid data, whereas the Environment Ministry’s draft strategy offers only broad, imprecise solutions with few details about how they would be implemented, paid for, or work.

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