The effects of the international economic crisis on Spain’s environmental policy

Abstract

The economic crisis has had a profound effect upon Spanish environmental policy. The government abandoned its once praised support schemes and instead adopted measures that penalise the development of renewable energy. This chapter provides an in-depth investigation of environmental policy implementation since the crisis, focusing on renewables, biodiversity, energy efficiency, and climate change. These four policy areas are compared in order to outline differences in policy approaches and the possibility of differentiated influential factors for policy change. The chapter identifies structural barriers as the main cause of recent policy reversals. Political preferences and decentralisation of the Spanish government system emerge as central explanatory variables for environmental policy implementation and change. The chapter also looks ahead into the possible future development of environmental policy in Spain. Governmental instability may mitigate against future investment, exacerbating existing problems of poor environmental policy integration, and a lack of civil society engagement with the environment.