David Mascort (Barcelona, ​​1969) will be the new Minister of Climate Action, Food and Rural Agenda, replacing Teresa Jordà -who will form a tandem with Gabriel Rufián on the Esquerra lists in the general elections on July 23 as number 2-. Reversing the delay in Catalonia in the deployment of renewables, preventing the effects of drought and creating the Nature Agency, postponed by the Government despite having been approved by Parliament three years ago, are some of the tasks that will be in front of.
Mascort, who until today was the general secretary of the department and has been linked to the Ministry of Agriculture, has a degree in Economics and Business Administration and a master’s degree in business management.
President of the Regional Federation of ERC in Girona, he was mayor of Vilablareix (Gironès) between 2011 and 2022, and also held the vice-presidency of the Regional Council of Gironès between 2003 and 2007 and was a member of the Diputación de Girona from 2013 to 20.
These are now his ten pending subjects:
Promoting renewable energies and activating the decarbonisation of the Catalan economy (to expand electrification quotas) is one of the fundamental tasks of the minister. Catalonia accumulates a long delay in the implementation of renewable sources, a situation that generates great uncertainties for the future, since in a few years the nuclear power plants will have to be closed and this forces the substitution of 58% of electricity with clean sources. The new government modified the decree for the implementation of renewable energies with the aim of guaranteeing citizen and territorial participation in these projects; it has improved processing and has hired personnel; but the results in these two years of management have not yet become visible. During the period of Minister Teresa Jordà it has not been possible to execute any wind farm started in her mandate. Four wind farms have been commissioned and three have been expanded (with a total capacity of 105 MW). But the processing of these projects came from before, according to sources in the sector. The Catalan Government must specify the promotion of the offshore wind farm in front of the Gulf of Roses.
Thanks to the disappearance of the ‘sun tax’, in these two years in Catalonia domestic self-consumption with renewable sources has had a great deployment, although the promoters (individuals) complain about the delays in subsidies. In the case of photovoltaic solar energy plants on the ground, only a small 600 kW park (Nestlé Reus) has been put into service, although this was presented before the arrival of Teresa Jordà .
The “El futur és ara” alliance, made up of 10 relevant entities (Oikia, Greenpeace, Renovem-nos…) has demanded a clear roadmap from the Catalan government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which have increased again in Catalonia in the last two years. And they ask for strict compliance with the 2017 Catalan climate change law (which has yet to be deployed (NOX tax on ships, carbon budgets…).
The minister must strive to give guarantees that the Generalitat is doing everything possible to avoid cuts in agricultural irrigation. The problem especially affects the irrigators of the Canal d’Urgell (under the state jurisdiction of the Hydrographic Confederation) given that the sharp drop in the Rialb reservoir has forced the interruption of the irrigation season. Former councilor Teresa Jordà has demanded that the Government modernize the Canal d’Urgell while the central Administration replies that this work should have been requested before from the Ministry of Agriculture. Adapting irrigation to the new water availability will require agronomic changes.
The Catalan government must respond to the fact that Barcelona continues to fail to comply with the limit values ​​for NO2 pollution, for which Spain has been condemned by the Luxembourg Court of Justice. It should also help to create low emission zones in large towns.
On the other hand, the Catalan Executive was pointed out by the Ministry for the Ecological Transition for having allegedly assumed a proposal formulated by the Air Quality Initiative of the Regions (AIR, for its acronym in English), an entity that groups eight European regions , aimed at lowering the ambition of the new European air quality directive. The Government distanced itself from the proposal as formulated before the European Parliament and threatened to withdraw from it, but it has not clarified whether it will definitely abandon it.
The Government has yet to expand the special protection areas for birds in the Llobregat delta, as required by the European Commission in the letter of summons sent to Spain due to the insufficient protection of these natural spaces (a dispute filed by Depana for the construction of the great infrastructure of the Delta 20 years ago). The opposition from the agricultural industry and the mayors of Baix Llobregat will require great teaching skills and persuasion. Until now, the Government has remained firm in its decision to veto an expansion of the airport in the terms proposed by AENA, which means going against the legal protection established by the EU in its legal regulations (Red Natura 2000…)
One of the issues you will need to address is how to stop the loss of biodiversity. The first report of the State of Nature to Catalonia, from December 2020, concluded that 25% of its animal species have declined, according to an index that collects data on the trends shown by 321 species of mammals, reptile birds, amphibians , fish and butterflies in the last 18 years. The decline of nature is especially pronounced in aquatic ecosystems. The loss is 54% for species that live in rivers, lakes and wetlands; 34% for those typical of agricultural environments and meadows, and 12% for those of forests. Invasive species are another major source of conflict
One of the pending subjects of this department is to face the insufficient funding of nature conservation policies. To improve this financing, the Natural Heritage Fund was created, which feeds on the income that the Administration obtains from the CO2 tax on cars. However, the environmental organizations (Xarxa per la Conservació de la Natura, Conservació.cat, Ecologistes de Catalunya and the Catalan Environmental Education Society) have denounced that much of the fund “is diverted to policies different from those of conservation and ordinary operating expenses of existing bodies of the Generalitat, which already had a budget before the creation of the fund, instead of going to clear and direct actions and investments to improve biodiversity”. For these entities it is a clear breach of what the Nature Agency Law and the Catalan Climate Change Law indicated. And they keep demanding transparency
The Nature Agency, approved by Parliament on July 2, 2020, has not yet been created. The forecast was that it would come into operation a year after it was approved (in June 2021), once the statutes to organize its operation were approved. But there is no news of these meetings. Thus, the legal provision is far from being fulfilled. The delays in the creation of the Agency coincide with the discomfort caused in various areas of the territory by the creation of this agency. Dozens of mayors as well as representatives of the local, agrarian and forestry world expressed their rejection of the law in their day; even ERC leaders demonstrated in their day against the norm. In April 2022, the Government said that the approval requires long bureaucratic procedures, since it requires processing 40 administrative steps between reports and various opinions.
The drafts of the law to prevent and reduce waste are still being processed slowly, despite the fact that it initially seemed that they were going to have some momentum and gain priority. Plastic wrappers, the generation of trivial waste and the lack of measures to promote reuse are making the production of waste unstoppable. Catalonia, however, did meet the community objective of recovering to recycle at least 50% of municipal waste in 2020. It was one of the few communities that complies.
