Honourable Members,
The world needs to quickly change the development model with which we have been operating. Climate change constitutes a real threat to our way of life and our natural resources, but it is also a great opportunity for bringing on a new source of natural resources, favouring a change in our development model.
We can and we should make ourselves allies of this necessary change, open opportunities to an economy that moves away from carbon and from oil dependency, and incorporates more alternative and renewable sources.
We have to act decisively, and we are going to do so. There will be incentives for companies that make public their commitment to reducing CO2 emissions; there will be support for sustainable mobility; there will be aid for applying the prerequisites established for new buildings in the Technical Construction Code, and for an Integrated Energy Rehabilitation Plan for buildings already constructed, and which will, by 2012, reach a total of 500,000 homes and public buildings and schools, in cities of more than 50,000 inhabitants. Soon, we shall present an Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Bill.
There will be, therefore, promotion of efficiency and support for research and the use of these energies-a technological field in which we are at the forefront of the world. Research in CO2 capture and storage will also be intensified.
The development of new Technologies, the evolution of the fossil fuels market, transborder cooperation, and the availability of hydropower resources will be the Government's reference points in resolving the problems of the energy supply demanded by our commitment to growth. They will also be referents, together with the decisions made by the European Union, in determining Spain's position regarding nuclear energy.
Honourable Members,
In 2004, I proposed to the citizens and the Administrations a new social policy regarding water, based on guaranteeing its availability and quality, on its sustainable and efficient management, on promoting research and the incorporation of new technologies, on strengthening formulas for regeneration and reutilization, on the modernization of irrigation systems, and on the creation of new resources, with desalination as a safe priority technology for the future.
In keeping with these principles, we approved the AGUA Programme aimed at ensuring sufficient water supplies for every part of Spain, and at modernizing and strengthening water resource infrastructures. We have put it into practice. The State has invested, to date, more than 7.7 billion euros.
It has been worth it because, in spite of the harsh drought in recent years, there has been no lack of water for human consumption anywhere in the country, nor has there been a need for restrictions, which had occurred before. Examples of this include Andalusia, Murcia, and Valencia, where all of these policies have been aimed at ensuring basic consumption. And the same thing will happen in Catalonia.
The Government will decisively exercise its coordinating role in water policies, and its role as guarantor of solidarity and territorial cohesion.
My idea of Spain is that of a country committed to the environment and the preservation of its landscape, its natural riches and its oceans, because only in conservation of these resources resides our hope for the future.