In two years, Around 1,800 Galician companies with more than fifty employees risk fines between 60,001 and 120,000 euros each year if they do not reduce their polluting gas emissions. Xunta supports a law that aims to preserve society’s intent to reduce its impact on climate change, and these firms will have to cooperate under penalty of economic penalty.
This is determined in the preliminary sketch. Air Lawa summary of the measures to give legal status to many of the commitments made by the self-government, for example: Reducing polluting gas emissions by 57% by 2030 and achieving climate neutrality by 2050, which means that emissions are balanced by the absorptive capacity of Galician forests.
One of the innovative parts of this legislation, which will be announced over the course of a month, and which Xunta plans to ratify by Parliament this year, lies in the creation of a Galician carbon footprint record, which all medians and large corporations will require. Register. This obligation will come into effect one year after the norm is green-lit. According to the figures of the Galician Statistical Institute for 2021, there are 1,474 firms in the first category (between 50 and 259 employees) in Galicia, and 303 – from this figure – in the second category.
This record includes the annual calculation of greenhouse gas emissions produced, data on their reduction, and “associated carbon dioxide absorption projects”, mainly through tree plantingor purchasing “clean air” from other owners’ forests, ie compensating these emissions through hectares of forest.
The regional government reminds that the central government “will regulate this issue through the royal decree of carbon footprint registration”, but Galicia wants to go forward with its own system.
“In no case is the law intended solely and exclusively to be punitive, but rather a means of providing emissions reduction plans for companies to contribute to the ultimate goal, the fight against global warming. However, as in all regulations, a framework for non-compliance and the sanctions it entails should be established,” said the sources, citing the Second Vice Presidency and the Environment Department.
Fines of up to 120,000 Euros
Medium and large companies will face various fines. Fines of 60,001 to 120,000 euros will be imposed very severely if they do not comply with their obligation to reduce their emissions. If they meet this requirement but avoid being registered in the Galician registry, they will be penalized with a slight penalty of up to 30,000 euros as specified in the legal draft.
The Environment argues for the importance of this registry because it “will allow to know where Galicia is in terms of achieving the goals set out in the law and make it possible to better guide the decarbonisation plans to be implemented in the community”.
In addition, the regulation, which will set obligations for such companies and for the administration itself, will set the maximum allowable emissions for the whole of Galicia through the so-called “carbon budgets”. They will set the lines of action for five-year terms.
A decarbonization plan for the smallest councils
The future regulation imposes various obligations for the Galician municipalities, not exceeding 20,000 inhabitants; these include the introduction of a “decarbonization” program that will include energy resources, water consumption reduction, adequate waste management, sustainability inputs, reduction of plastic materials. and vehicle fleets.
Failure to comply will result in serious sanctions ranging from 30,001 to 60,000 euros. Self-government itself, including its instrumental units, should offer such a program. In either case, electricity supply contracts must guarantee the renewable nature of this contribution after the law comes into force.
A bag to buy “fresh air”
There are two ways companies and governments can reduce their carbon footprint: by reducing emissions or offsetting it by purchasing “clean air”. This pathway involves paying forest land owners for the CO2 absorption capacity of trees or for planting masses that directly form “carbon sinks”.
Xunta “will promote increased capacity to capture greenhouse gases, namely carbon dioxide, with sinks, preferably natural, both on land and in the sea.” In fact, it will create the carbon bag as required by law to increase sales of clean air.
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Contact address of the environment department: [email protected]