SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Oct 20 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Cabildo de Tenerife, through the area of Sustainable Development and Fight against Climate Change, has delivered this Wednesday to the mayors of Garachico, Buenavista del Norte and Los Silos the document of the Joint Action Plan for Climate and Sustainable Energy ( PACES) of the three municipalities, prepared by the area within the framework of the European initiative ‘Pact of Mayors for Climate and Energy’.
The event took place at the Finca La Quinta Roja, which was attended by the mayor of Buenavista, Antonio González and the councilor for the area of Fiestas, Youth, Citizen Participation, Beaches, Security, Accessibility and Mobility and Festivities of Garachico, Andrés David Hernández, excusing her presence the mayor of Los Silos, Macarena León.
The Cabildo Tenerife, as the territorial coordinator of the pact on the island of Tenerife, provides support to the signatory municipalities – which are already 31 on the island – in the preparation, implementation and monitoring of all the objectives to be achieved in the framework of this European initiative.
This plan proposes as a shared commitment the reduction of 41.5% of the CO2 emissions of the three municipalities in relation to those emitted in 2011, the base reference year for the calculation of their emissions.
“All this will be achieved through mitigation and adaptation actions to climate change, some taken individually by each municipality and others that will be joint,” said the island councilor Javier Rodríguez Medina, who added that now “it remains for the municipalities to approve in their respective complete the document, in order to send it to the Office of the Covenant of Mayors in Brussels, and thus obtain its final acceptance by Europe, which will have taken a precious step in the commitment to the ecological transition in this part of the island”.
In his opinion, “having a PACES allows municipalities to develop a planned and effective roadmap until 2030 to combat climate change, improve energy efficiency and renewables, which allows considerable economic savings in public coffers and in the population, in addition to promoting the local economy and employment, and without forgetting the greater ease of access to aid, subsidies and European funds “.
At the end of 2019, the creation of a group was promoted among the municipalities to make their commitment to the ‘Covenant of Mayors’ in the form of joint adhesion, forming what was called the Isla Baja Consortium Group and whose goals are to act to meet the EU’s emission reduction targets by increasing energy efficiency and renewable energies, as well as by adapting to the adverse effects of climate change, and without forgetting the drive to alleviate energy poverty in both premises.
ISLA BAJA CONSORTIUM
The methodology proposed by the ‘Covenant of Mayors’ indicates that, for the cases of municipalities of moderate size, where there is also territorial continuity, it is advisable to develop a joint action plan, which allows the implementation of coordinated regional actions that can have a greater impact on the objectives sought.
This has been the case of the Isla Baja Consortium, which is the first joint PACES to be produced on the island, an exemplary fact that, due to this circumstance, the Cabildo has especially supported by developing its preparation.
Said process included a survey on habits and customs regarding ‘Energy Consumption and Perception of Climate Change’ within the three municipalities, which was preceded by an online awareness and information campaign.
The plan includes various contributions of interest made in this participation, both by the staff of the three municipal corporations, in a first phase, and by the rest of the citizens and associative fabric of the municipalities in a second phase.
The participatory process has had double value because, in addition to improving the draft PACES, it has served to prepare a guide for participation in the island’s PACES, which the area of Sustainable Development and the Fight against Climate Change will be published soon. available to city councils throughout the island.
