The Congress of Deputies yesterday approved the

Climate Change and Energy Transition Law,

relying on the block of parties that supported the motion of censure and on the last-minute change of vote of

Citizens

, which went from abstention to yes despite having criticized in the previous days the lack of dialogue and negotiation will on the part of the Government.

The result of the vote, held in the Ecological Transition commission, was 22 votes in favor, 10 abstentions (PP

and More Mad

rid) and 5 votes against (Vox), which prevented the vice president

Teresa Ribera

achieve consensus

that he longed for a strategic law for the country.

The session served to amend the legal project in some points before being sent to the Senate.

The most important is the obligation that municipalities with more than 20,000 inhabitants and with air quality problems have low emission zones similar to 'Central Madrid' since 2023, compared to the initial proposal that this measure only affect to those urban centers with more than 50,000 residents.

The modification, promoted by ERC and supported by PSOE and Podemos, opens the door for traffic restrictions to affect a total of

416 cities

with a joint population of

33 million inhabitants.

The Law understands as a low emission zone "the area defined by a public Administration, in the exercise of its powers, within its territory, on a continuous basis, and in which restrictions on access, circulation and parking of vehicles are applied to improve air quality and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. "

The affected municipality would have to promote measures to facilitate travel on foot or by bicycle, greater use of public transport or the promotion of the electric vehicle with the installation of recharging points.

Another of the amendments included in the new regulation obliges companies to

calculate and publish your carbon footprint,

and work on plans to reduce their polluting emissions.

The amendment urges the government to define within a year which companies are required to perform the calculation and establish a five-year plan to reduce it or achieve compensation measures.

The amendment was proposed by

More Madrid Greens Equo

However, this formation did not support the final text of the law by criticizing that its emission reduction targets are below what the European Commission sets.

This criticism was joined by various environmental organizations, which see insufficient and decaffeinated the Government's commitment to review in the near future the current gas cut target of 23% by 2030, so they insist on raising it to 30%.

The session closed with the approval of a score of amendments on the

about 750

presented by the parliamentary groups.

All those who did not support the Law, as well as Citizens and PNV who finally did support it, took advantage of their turns of intervention to reproach the Executive for its lack of dialogue and the lost opportunity to have signed a law of broad consensus.

"Consensus is not the word, but a very broad agreement has been reached and a historic step has been taken," the president of the commission and spokesman for the Unidos Podemos group explained at a press conference.

Juantxo López de Uralde.

The Law is now entering the last stage of its parliamentary procedure in the Senate and could still be modified through amendments.

The president of the Xunta de Galicia,

Alberto Núñez Feijóo,

He warned yesterday that if the text finally sees the light in its current state, it will take it to the Constitutional Court to avoid the impact it will have on the canning industry in the region.








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