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Features
7 November 2021 2.00 h

Xavi Jiménez

PRESIDENT OF THE GEPEC-EDC ECOLOGIST GROUP AND SECRETARY OF THE CATALAN FEDERATION OF ECOLOGISTS

“We must take action now”

Environmental groups warn that the necessary measures are not being taken to mitigate the effects of the environmental crisis. We spoke to the head of the GEPEC-EdC, which has been working to preserve nature for over 35 years

“Often, merely applying EXISTING rules would REsolve many situations” “WHAT OUR POLITICIANS SHOULD DO IS ENSURE COMPLIANCE WITH THE LAW”
The GEPEC-EdC has cam­paigned most against cer­tain re­new­able en­ergy pro­jects. But why, when clean en­ergy is some­thing we ur­gently need?
The start­ing point with re­new­able en­ergy is the premise that en­ergy tran­si­tion is an ur­gent pri­or­ity be­cause of the cli­mate cri­sis. We need to end en­ergy based on fos­sil fuels and focus on non-pol­lut­ing re­new­able sources. Yet en­ergy tran­si­tion comes in dif­fer­ent forms, with some pro­jects that are com­pat­i­ble with pre­serv­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal, so­cial and cul­tural as­pects, while oth­ers would be a dis­as­ter for the coun­try.
Is it an issue of the best model?
Yes, if we’re talk­ing about a sys­tem that would be a dis­as­ter for the con­ser­va­tion of bio­di­ver­sity and nat­ural spaces, which are what we want to pro­tect with this en­ergy tran­si­tion. Al­though there’s a need to gen­er­ate re­new­able en­ergy, at the same time we see that the en­ergy tran­si­tion model being im­posed is set by the usual large en­ergy cor­po­ra­tions, which for the most part are the ones who cause green­house gas emis­sions. Now they’re try­ing to im­pose their model on us, which is de­signed to just max­imise prof­its.
What is the al­ter­na­tive?
A sus­tain­able en­ergy tran­si­tion com­pat­i­ble with pre­serv­ing nat­ural en­vi­ron­ments, which is friendly, par­tic­i­pa­tory and de­mo­c­ra­tic. Not im­posing­ing large pro­jects that often ig­nore the needs of nat­ural spaces, bio­di­ver­sity, land­scapes, agri­cul­tural ac­tiv­ity, and so on. We en­vi­ron­men­tal­ists, and many in the sci­en­tific com­mu­nity, are fight­ing for this en­ergy tran­si­tion to be made ac­cord­ing to dif­fer­ent cri­te­ria, such as dis­tri­b­u­tion. This means pro­duc­ing en­ergy close to where it’s con­sumed. And it must be in places where it has least im­pact, such as in spaces that have al­ready been de­graded by human ac­tiv­ity. For ex­am­ple, the 29,000 hectares of in­dus­trial es­tates we have in Cat­alo­nia.
In the case of wind­mills, we see the im­pact on the land­scape, but you also re­port a se­ri­ous im­pact on bio­di­ver­sity.
The data have been com­ing in for years be­cause we’ve had wind tur­bines for some time and we can see the im­pact. In 2012, at the First Iber­ian Con­gress on Wind En­ergy and Wildlife Con­ser­va­tion, SEO Birdlife had a study that warned that the 18,000 wind tur­bines in Spain at the time – there are more now – were killing be­tween up to 18 mil­lion birds and bats a year. Since then new stud­ies have con­firmed this. It’s a para­dox that wind farms aimed at mit­i­gat­ing the ef­fects of cli­mate change cause the ex­tinc­tion of species.
That’s quite a con­tra­dic­tion.
That’s why the sci­en­tific com­mu­nity in­sists on the need to re­think this en­ergy tran­si­tion model, so that it is truly sus­tain­able. We are in a real cli­mate emer­gency, but the mea­sures we’re im­ple­ment­ing are ac­tu­ally ag­gra­vat­ing the en­vi­ron­men­tal dam­age.
Is the pub­lic re­ally aware of what a cli­mate emer­gency means?
This sum­mer we had heavy rains in Ger­many and the Nether­lands, with fa­tal­i­ties. We’ve had dev­as­tat­ing fires, ris­ing tem­per­a­tures... Or­di­nary peo­ple on the street can see this be­cause they are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing it. How­ever, quan­ti­fy­ing bio­di­ver­sity loss is a more sci­en­tific issue. We need to keep in mind that both species ex­tinc­tion and cli­mate change are part of a major en­vi­ron­men­tal cri­sis, as is the de­cline in air qual­ity, which is also very se­ri­ous but still lit­tle known. The lat­est fig­ures for deaths from poor air qual­ity in Spain are 44,600 peo­ple a year, or 11% of all deaths.
What should we de­mand from the au­thor­i­ties?
We should ex­pect de­ci­sive ac­tion to im­ple­ment what is al­ready the law. Often, merely ap­ply­ing ex­ist­ing rules would re­solve many sit­u­a­tions. An ex­am­ple is the air­port de­bate. It’s not about ap­prov­ing an ex­pan­sion that would af­fect La Ri­carda la­goon. It is a pro­tected nat­ural space, a unique and ir­re­place­able spot. La Ri­carda was de­clared a na­ture re­serve by the Cata­lan gov­ern­ment and is part of the EU’s Natura 2000 net­work, so it should not be part of the de­bate on ex­pand­ing a run­way. What our politi­cians should do is en­sure com­pli­ance with the law. It would be like Barcelona City Coun­cil mod­i­fy­ing the Sagrada Família as part of an urban plan. They can’t, it’s pro­tected by law.
One com­plaint is that there’s no de­part­ment that deals with these is­sues.
Ex­actly, since 2010 the gov­ern­ment hasn’t had an en­vi­ron­ment de­part­ment, and en­vi­ron­men­tal pow­ers have been shared among var­i­ous de­part­ments. In the cur­rent leg­is­la­ture, all the pow­ers have been as­sumed by the agri­cul­ture de­part­ment, which is now called Cli­mate Ac­tion, Food and Rural Agenda, but it is the same de­part­ment, with the same struc­ture, and even the same min­is­ter. All major coun­tries have an en­vi­ron­ment de­part­ment with broad pow­ers, and we should be able to com­pare our­selves with coun­tries like Ger­many and France in terms of the im­por­tance given to en­vi­ron­men­tal poli­cies in gov­ern­ment struc­tures.
What role does aware­ness play in the fight against the en­vi­ron­men­tal cri­sis?
We al­ways thought that by ed­u­cat­ing the younger gen­er­a­tions we’d achieve change. But while en­vi­ron­men­tal ed­u­ca­tion re­mains im­por­tant, what’s most ur­gent now is tak­ing dras­tic ac­tion im­me­di­ately. When sci­en­tists talk about the ef­fects of cli­mate change they aren’t mak­ing a fore­cast for a hun­dred years, but rather twenty, or thirty. We could wit­ness it and so steps must be taken now.

in­ter­view en­vi­ron­ment

From the local to the global

The Group for the Study and Protection of Catalan Ecosystems (GEPEC-EdC) is an NGO that promotes awareness of above all the local environment. Biologist Xavi Jiménez is its president, and he defends the importance of individual actions: “Global problems arise from the actions of each of us. Things as simple as recycling, worrying about energy savings, walking and not using the car whenever possible... these are small things that may seem unimportant to us, but that make a difference. We have to understand that a global problem is the sum of all our actions as individuals. We must change our habits and accept individual and collective responsibility,” he insists.

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