The notion of fuel poverty, or pobreza energética, is mostly unknown to the general and specialized publics in Spain. As in many other EU countries, domestic energy affordability concerns are implicit in recurrent public debates like the ones revolving around the increase of energy prices.  But there is no official definition or estimates based on households’ needs to spend on energy (like in the UK), and only very recently has the concept started to become somewhat meaningful for the general public. It is thus absent from the policy and academic literature, which means that fuel poverty  is to a large extent alien to decision-makers and scholars, and therefore not addressed in its own terms but rather diffusely through social and perhaps energy and  climate policies.

There is, however, a noteworthy exception in the recent past:  the EU-sponsored EPEE (European fuel Poverty and Energy Efficiency) project of the Intelligent Europe Programme, which in the late 2000s produced the first indicators on the extent and characteristics of fuel poverty in Spain EU based on the results of the EU Survey on Income and Living Conditions (EU SILC). This project produced several cross-country comparative studies for 5 EU Member States (Belgium, Italy, France, Spain and the UK) and came up with country-specific recommendations, which in the case of Spain ranged from proposing social tariffs and winter fuel payments to putting together an experts’ group on fuel poverty and launching a fuel poverty monitoring center. The Spanish partner of the EPEE project was the Catalonian NGO Ecoserveis.

 

En una época de Crisis generaliza como la que se vive actualmente nunca ha sido tan necesaria un debate energético que responda de manera eficiente, justa y sostenible a  los retos que nuestras sociedades tienen que afrontar con urgencia.

Reiterando los principios de Río sobre el Medio Ambiente y el desarrollo, la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas ha proclamado el año 2012 como el Año Internacional de la Energía Sostenible para Todos.

¿Qué entendemos por Energía Sostenible?

La energía sosteniblue pede definirse como aquella que no compromete el desarrollo de las generaciones futuras desde el punto de vista social, ambiental y económico.

Año Internacional Energía Sostenible para Todos

Proviene de tecnologías limpias o poco contaminantes y además de ser un pilar indiscutible del desarrollo sostenible juega un papel importantísimo en la lucha contra la pobreza y en la igualdad en el acceso al recurso.

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