Spain declares climate emergency, gets climate plan ready
The Associated Press | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 5 years AGO
This combination photo shows Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg speaking at the COP25 summit in Madrid, Spain on Dec. 11, 2019, left, and President Donald Trump speaking at a campaign rally in Battle Creek, Mich. on Dec. 18, 2019. When climate activist Greta Thunberg, also 16, was named Time magazine's 2019 person of the year, President Donald Trump took to Twitter to call her choice “ridiculous." (AP Photo/Paul White, left, and Evan Vucci)
MADRID (AP) — Spain’s new government declared a national climate emergency on Tuesday, taking a formal first step toward enacting ambitious measures to fight climate change.
The declaration approved by the Cabinet says the left-of-center Socialist government will send to parliament within 100 days its proposed climate legislation. The targets coincide with those of the European Union, including a reduction of net carbon emissions to zero by 2050.
Spain's coalition government wants up to 95% of the Mediterranean country’s electricity to come from renewable sources by 2040. The plan also foresees eliminating pollution by buses and trucks and making farming carbon neutral.
Details of the plan are to be made public when the proposed legislation is sent to parliament for approval.
More than two dozen countries and scores of local and regional authorities have declared a climate emergency in recent years.
Scientists say the decade that just ended was by far the hottest ever measured on Earth, capped off by the second-warmest year on record.
Also Tuesday, young climate activists including Greta Thunberg told the elites gathered at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland they are not doing enough to deal with the climate emergency and warned them that time was running out.
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Follow AP's full coverage of climate change issues at https://www.apnews.com/Climate
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