"You can't live on illusions, but you fight for them", writes political consultant Antoni Gutiérrez-Rubí in an interesting article on the need to encourage hope as the best antidote against "fatalism, determinism and paralysis". This is the essence of the message we are trying to instill among citizens in a European election campaign in which we propose to take a firm step and build with the support of Europe what is denied to us by the Government of Spain.
The crisis has exposed the weaknesses of our economy and the errors that we have made in the development of a model that needs an urgent revision, but it has also shown us the strengths to which we must cling so that the Canary Islands can build a new economic architecture with its own elements (land, sea and air).
We cannot remain anchored in the endless debate about the causes that have caused this crisis and the permanent criticism between each other. We must focus all our attention on promoting without further delay all those measures that are within our reach to offer immediate responses. I refuse to accept that in the Canary Islands - and in the rest of Spain - we have given up and assumed as an immovable reality that an entire generation is condemned to suffer the consequences of the crisis and the policy of cuts and adjustments promoted by the European troika and accepted by Spain.
In El Hierro we had a dream: we set out to be the first island in the world to be self-sufficient in energy. And today the Gorona del Viento hydroelectric plant is built, and has ceased to be a dream to be a reality. In the Canary Islands there are thousands of alternatives that nature itself provides us to be self-sufficient in energy, but also in water and food.
Alternatives that we must explore on a path that will allow us to grow as a people and build real exits for those who today live terrified by an uncertain future.
Despite the fact that "Spain has gotten off the renewable train", as indicated in a report published by the newspaper El País, "the rest of our European neighbors have not. Not in vain, Germany has set itself the goal of 80% renewables by 2050". And that is why we must seek allies within the European Union to increase the participation of the Canary Islands in the European programs for the protection of the environment and the implementation of non-polluting energies to favor the conservation of the environment and the implementation of a own model of sustainable development and employment.
We have within our reach, despite the fact that many believe it is a dream, that the Canary Islands be considered as a special territory within the EU in the energy aspect. The Canary Islands have enormous potential in photovoltaic, wind, geothermal, biomass and tidal/wave energy, so they can aspire to be a 100% renewable territory in a short time, which would mean enormous economic, social and environmental benefits: creation of thousands of jobs, contribution to the fight against climate change and reduction of external dependence, that is, on oil and gas.
Fossil fuels are polluting, expensive and are in the hands of a few. The renewables are clean, cheap and inexhaustible. Let fossil fuels rest in peace. Renewable energies are not only the future: they are the present.
Our "no" to oil is our "yes" to renewables. That is why we must bet on a change in the energy model, modifying the application of European funds, moving from using them in conventional infrastructures to the development of renewable sources, distributed generation, citizen participation and smart grids. And we cannot miss the opportunity to ally ourselves with Europe to become an example of a sustainable and renewable territory.
We have to stop the policy of the State Government - which has caused investment in renewables to have gone from 2,200 million in 2012 to only 535 in 2013 - and that the Canary Islands embark on the path traced by the experts of the UN that are part of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel of Experts on Climate Change): dispense with fossil fuels and bet on more renewables. Renewables contribute 1.36 euros for each euro they receive: between 2005 and 2011 they saved 28,482 million euros compared to 20,875 million euros in premiums.
Hence the importance of these elections, which many consider so distant. The future European Parliament and the new Commission are obliged to force all its member states to join the change demanded by experts and through which is already transiting in many European countries. Necessity forces us to look for new options. There are alternatives and we cannot resign ourselves to giving our children a territory condemned to failure because some do not dare to dream and have a fossil concept of the economy.
Javier Morales, candidate of Coalición Canaria to the European elections
