The governments of Canary Islands and Balearic Islands presented this Tuesday in Brussels their energy transition plans, in order to be taken into consideration for their defense in the energy meetings of the Council of the European Union, since they aspire to "be an example of sovereignty and energy efficiency."
The two archipelagos hope to receive the support of the community institutions to accelerate the energy transition in island environments and meet the objectives set in the European program "Clean Energy for EU Islands", informed the Ministry of Energy Transition of the Canary Islands Government.
Valbuena, Canarian Minister of Ecological Transition, has remarked that "the Canary Islands aspires to become a decarbonized territory in 2040, ten years earlier than the rest of the national panorama." For this, it has been reinforced with a Law on Climate Change and Energy Transition "quite ambitious and with different management instruments that will mark the path towards that temporal horizon that would allow us to be an environmental spearhead for other similar territories."
Clean energy for the islands
"Clean Energy for EU Islands" is an initiative of the European Commission for the clean energy transition of the more than 2,200 inhabited European islands. Despite having access to renewable energy sources, such as wind and wave energy, many of them depend on costly imports of fossil fuels for their energy supply.
The representatives of the Ministries of Climate Change and Energy Transition of the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands, JosAntonio Valbuena and Juan Pedro Yllanes, respectively, have led this action and have held different working meetings with members of the Permanent Representation of Spain to the European Union (REPER) so that they know their planning in the short and medium term in this matter.
The Balearic Minister Yllanes pointed out that "in a moment of energy and climate crisis, where many eyes are on the Mediterranean, we believe that both the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands can be an example."
The Balearic Minister has remarked the desire of both communities to share "the experience in the decarbonization process and get the European institutions to focus on the policies we are developing."
Likewise, he added that "Europe has chosen us as a pilot project to develop green hydrogen, but we want to be more ambitious in the objectives set by the EU and achieve the decarbonization of the islands before the rest of the continent."
The presentation of these plans has coincided with the European Energy Week, which is being held these days in Brussels.
