It’s not green wash; is mere survival of political discourse| Opinion of Cristina Triana

recorded Pedro Sanchez during his speech this Tuesday in Congress that eleven months had already passed since Russia invaded Ukraine. He pointed it out after the validation of the decree of anti-crisis measures approved in the last Council of Ministers of 2022, which had been designed to try to ‘alleviate’ the effects of the war. An ‘omnibus’ document in which, in addition to the changes in VAT or aid for fuels, a simplification of environmental authorizations for renewable projects was also introduced. . During the plenary session, parties like the BNG or Teruel Exists they complained about the inclusion of this measure in the decree and the second even voted against it. and in which they can obtain greater benefits than in other European countries in which 25% or 30% of the benefits are for the territory”, they pointed out in a press release. “The Government is reducing a balance price all its rural environment without respecting anything, with the benefit of large companies outside the territory and investment funds”, added those from Teruel Existen. The use of renewables by the Spanish geography is dotted with a certain appearance of chaos, not without enemies, and this without the offshore wind being more than a germ yet. The administrations have accelerated in the last two months to prevent projects that lacked environmental guarantee from expiring, as we have been telling you from La Información. And the reform of the regulation, now simplified, would accelerate the green project of Frans Timmermans and Ursula von der Leyen; Or that is what the Government defends. Because the detractors of the measure denounce that it would go against the regulation recently approved by the EU. One of the handicaps that it would solve is that a renewable project would be accompanied by an environmentalism escrache. This threat could have been to blame for delaying approval periods in some cases, with the risk that they might even remain in the gutter. few things are neutral and the objective of reducing the volume of emissions -now we have moved on to something less philanthropic such as lowering the price of electricity and the independence of Russia- it has other costs because it impacts (and quite a lot) on the environment and the areas in which it is installed. Not only in landscaping, but also biodiversity and exhibited in many cases of rural wealth. and without it being the fault of our politicians, since it is an ‘order’ issued from Brusselswhich has become the issuer of papal bulls and the alibi of some public administrations to wash their hands of decisions that can be controversial in themselves. But the bulls are modified and the surveys too. For now, according to the CIS, climate change is the number 12 concern for Spaniards, but with only 7% of the population choosing it, it does not seem that its position is assured for the future and political spirits are up. .With renewables and the climate transition there is a mixture of business opportunity (investment figures are in the millions), moralism and posture, where the combination of one factor and another can condition where we lean. The European Union is defending its Green Deal like never beforebut this obsession is revisable (the war in Ukraine has already estranged it from climate fundamentalism with its nod to gas as green energy) and a political turn is likely to prompt a step back from other quarters. According to the annual report published by ShareAction, a UK-based ESG activist entity, despite the excesses of ‘climatophilia’ of the COP 26, investors were less active in voting for climate proposals than in the pre-summit season. ‘Greenwashers’, some would denounce. At the 2022 meetings, Russia had already entered Ukraine and was pressuring companies to commit to climate change It had ceased to be a mere issue of ESG commitment to become a movement with political overtones and now scrutinized with that vision. According to data from the NGO, North American firms, which are also the largest in terms of assets in the world, but which are develop in an environment in which the struggle against climate change generates less consensus than in Europe (Democrats and Republicans have very different views on this), they reduced their support for climate and social proposals at shareholder meetings. On average, BlackRock, Vanguard, Fidelity Investments and State Street support 20% of the resolutionsup from 32% for the 2021 season and were more conservative than the world’s two biggest voting advisers, ISS and Glass Lewis, who had improved backing by 75 and 42%, respectively, of the points presented for voting in the meeting. A step back on which the first warned, considering that geopolitical circumstances forced him to be more demanding with the third-party proposals that he supported. The energy sector was the one that he was more favored by this step back. ShareAction points to BlackRock as an example, whose support for environmental proposals in this industry fell from 72 to 16% between 2022 and 2021On the contrary, European investors seem to have interpreted the war in Ukraine in a very different way -aligned with the political ‘establishment’ where The rejection of climate change is less than that seen on the other side of the Atlantic– and were more active in their support for climate and social resolutions than the previous season, going from 69 to 81% media support. Would this have been his attitude with a Europe as divided on emissions cuts as the United States? The answer for years has been attributed to Groucho Marx. “Ladies and gentlemen. These are my principles and if you don’t like others.” More or less like what we have seen throughout the legislature.