Carmelo Marcén Albero
Eco-social researcher and collaborator of Fundación Alternativas
We no longer have to justify that when talking about the environment we prefer to refer to the eco-social. In other words: to look from various angles at the permanent interaction between individuals, together or separately, and the eco-dependence demonstrated. Life outside the self demonstrates that one alone is almost less than no one else. In this troubled 2024 we have bought into the wisdom of the brilliant cartoonist Quino that the world has become an inhospitable place to think. So many things have happened that we do not have time to assimilate whether today was yesterday or vice versa, whether the future begins to be written many years before 2024. The social is piling up on top of us. The media and social networks connect us so much with the outside world that more than one takes refuge in oneself, and forgets that there is a neighbor next door, and many far away. Besides, the environmental in itself says little, perhaps something to those who look at the world without renewing its dimensions. It is rather “old-fashioned”, not to say outdated.
From our point of view, balance becomes sway. The eco-social dimensions seen from any corner of the world maintain a presumably unstable equilibrium. Or to put it more clearly: if anything defines them, it is their instability. They are subject to many anthropic, economic and social structure variables, such that they are increasingly difficult to fix. For this reason, no one becomes a single creature for a time. Neither a whole country stops being one day to be different.
Taken to the great social construction, you can look at both their problems and desires lived. Let’s say we limit ourselves to one year, in reality it is a simplistic exercise, because what they have been is a consequence of what they were or hope for what they want to be. Let’s say we talk about Spain, that Spain of ours that Cecilia (1948-1976) sang, wondering where her eyes, her hands or her head were. Let us sing with her “My dear Spain, this Spain of mine, this Spain of ours/ People of words and bitter skin, sweet your promise/ I want to be your land, I want to be your grass when I die”. That Spain, ours, that we have to build together. Because solving environmental problems requires a serious look, to change them with diligent hands and to think long and hard, to work slowly and relentlessly, and to look for many “anonymous nobodies” to help in the task. Talking about the past year 2024 -full of challenges- does not mean lamenting, but rather to overcome forgetfulness or misfortunes, to consolidate achievements and, why not, to increase hopes. This is where we are going, detailing desires, processes and progress only in the most significant areas:
- Adaptation of the life model and economic systems to permanent criteria of environmental sustainability. (In slow motion, too much conditioned to GDP)
- The approach to eco-social risks from a systemic perspective. (Starting to be recognized, but leaving many people in inequality)
- Alliances between administration, business system, social agents and citizens towards a consolidated energy transition. (Still incipient but with future options if some sector does not spoil it)
- The high consideration among the population that climate change is real and requires alliances to solve it, but more than half of them distrust that it can be achieved. (The belief component of the attitude does not push the action component)
- Consideration of the reality of climate change and the adoption of decarbonization maneuvers and action protocols according to the possible disproportionate natural event. (Pending to be encouraged after the DANA that shook the Spanish Levant at the end of October)
- Climate media attention is growing, but so is news overload and misinformation. (Fake news wins the battle)
- Climate justice rears its head. (But does not take off because it allows serious eco-social disasters, which set the trend because the judiciary goes its own way).
- The announcement of the implementation of a deposit, return and refund system for packaging (SDDR) to recover up to 90% of this waste. (Shopkeepers and users with very improvable habits)
- Spain has committed to banish coal from the electricity system (according to its energy plan) by 2025. (In the light of the 2024 deadline, it is far from achieving this)
- The EU Nature Restoration Regulation has entered into force. (Here, we are looking at what entering into force means)
- More than half of the electrical energy comes from renewable sources. (Progressing well but needs improvement, old school evaluation criteria)
- Opposition to the installation of Altri’s macrocellulose in Palas del Rei (Lugo) and the second Guggenheim museum in Urdaibai (Bizkaia), and to the installation of energy parks in protected areas of Aragon. (We need more people to lobby regional governments insensitive to social welfare)
- The Human Rights Court of Strasbourg admits the complaint for the non-compliance of the sentences concerning the illegal hotel of El Algarrobico (PN Cabo de Gata, Almeria). (A very old ecological attack, already full of cobwebs)
- The year that is now ending has been the first to exceed the global warming barrier by + 1.5 ºC. (And it continues to increase, governments have remained paralyzed)
- Spain is the European country where the mortality rate attributable to extreme heat has increased the most and where floods have claimed more lives this year. (In the State, regional or local parliaments, they are not approaching the issue, lest they get burned)
- Forests are in mourning in Spain and around the world (e.g. California burns pushed by the negligence of firefighting resources). (The entry into force of the Regulation against Deforestation or EUDR is postponed for a year)
- Climate denialism is only growing among ill-informed people and parishioners of conspiracy theories. (As long as they have the support of certain media and some right-wing parties, it will be very difficult to defeat it)
So far, a brief overview of the SDGs in Spain, with lights, shadows and hidden desires. The eco-social balance does not go from everything to nothing, there are always intermediate positions that demand more or less forceful and urgent collective alliances. It must be said, in all honesty, that we are in 14th place out of 166 “Oddsian” countries, with SDG index figures of 80.7; a spillover score of 69.40% -the spillover index evaluates such effects in three dimensions: environmental and social impacts embedded in trade, economy and finance, and security-. Spain ranks 134 out of 166 on this issue. A higher score means that a country causes more positive spillover effects and fewer negative ones. Whenever I write these figures, it always comes to mind how the rest of the world is doing. Those who want more detailed global and Spanish data can find them, respectively, at these links: https://dashboards.sdgindex.org/chapters and https://dashboards.sdgindex.org/profiles/spain . Data can be downloaded in both cases. It is also worth a visit to the INE (Instituto Nacional de Estadística) databases, especially in its Agriculture and Environment tab, where the Environmental Accounts can be found.
Another interesting interpretation of the annual balance sheet is detailed by Alberto Muelas on December 2, 2024 in “Unsustainable Sustainability. 2024 balance sheet and a look into the future,” in Kreab Worldwide. And many more that are published on reputable research sites. It is of no absolute consolation to us that DANA has been named word of the year; at least for now, but who knows if in time we will all consider ourselves “damaged”. I forgot: Efe Verde released the “Greenwashing Yearbook 2024: an analysis of ecopostureo in Spain”, easily accessible on the agency’s website.
P.S.: A brief summary of 2024 for Spain: global increase of heat with suffocating waves, too many more destructive DANAs in shorter and shorter intervals and, nevertheless, dangerous accumulation of new denialists. Despite these eco-social scaffolds, “we must be patient with chaos”, Juan José Millás would say; we must waste perseverance to move away from its center towards the periphery, we add. We are wrong when we say that the Planet is angry, it simply responds to our carelessness. And in this matter, Spain is no different.
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