Carmen Bunzl - Universidad Pontificia Comillas

Chapter 4. Case Study: Spain 185
Agriculture Soil and livestock management programmes in place. Support for biomass.
Waste Waste reduction programme. Push for improving recycling rates, especially glass
2.6 Summary
and paper.
Spain has the typical GHG emission’s profile of an industrialized country:
with dominating emissions from energy transformation processes (30% of total
GHG emissions in 2005), industry (24%) and transport (24%) with regards to
sectors; and CO2 emissions (83% of total GHG emissions in 2006) with regards
to gases.
Emissions in Spain show a significant growth trend since 1990, with slight
punctual decreases for some years – 1993, 1996 and 2006 (the high level of
hydrology energy use in this years may be a significant driver of these results).
This has led to total emissions in CO2 equivalent of 440.7 Mt in 2005, compared
to 289.6 Mt in 1990 (an increase of 52%).
Rapid economic growth – since 1995 the Spanish GDP growth remains above
the EU-15 average – has been accompanied by similar growth in energy
consumption – the average annual growth in demand for primary energy
between 1990 and 2005 was 3.1%, compared to the 1.1% value in the EU-15 –
and therefore emissions. Other key factors driving emissions in Spain are the
population increase – due to the recent ant intense immigration phenomenon –
and the rising mobility – the Spanish car fleet has increased fourfold between
1975 and 2005, being now one of the oldest in Europe.
Emissions per capita (10.2 tCO2eq./cap in 2005) are still below the Annex I
average, but have already reached the EU-27 average. Most of the increase in
primary energy supply has come through gas, but also oil.
Spain has very high dependence on energy imports, regardless of which few
achievements in efficiency have taken place. Until 2005, growth in consumption
was significantly higher than the European average and also that of primary
Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería ICAI Carmen Bunzl Boulet Junio 2008