canary islands carbon emissions register

Canary Islands aims to become green investment hub

Canary Islands aims to become green finance hub

Four regional ministries – all under the control of the Popular Party (PP) – are finalising plans to create a register of harmful gas emissions that will allow the Canary Islands to benefit from the global drive to reduce carbon, preserve the climate and protect biodiversity, two of the archipelago’s greatest assets. The aim is to find companies willing to offset the environmental damage caused by their activities by investing in initiatives that improve sustainability across the region. And crucially, this goes well beyond simply planting trees, which is currently almost the only option available, by promoting the full-scale regeneration of landscapes most affected by human activity.

How the scheme would work

Here is a practical example. An airline generates a certain amount of CO2 by burning kerosene on its flights. It will probably exceed its allocated limit because the European Union is tightening the rules in order to achieve climate neutrality – zero emissions – by 2050. So how can that company avoid having to buy emission allowances at auction from cleaner businesses that do not use their full quota? By offsetting the excess pollution with investment in green initiatives: renewable energy, waste recycling, restoring ravines with native plants, research into sustainable fuels, and so on.

This is the practical reality of the initiative proposed by the Canary Islands Vice-President, Manuel Domínguez, at the end of last year. The wider context of necessary decarbonisation – the Canary Islands has brought forward its zero-emissions target to 2040 – makes the case for the measure self-evident. The difficulty, however, has been in getting the technical and legal details right. Without the necessary legal guarantees, no business would commit to the scheme. Several departments of the regional government have been involved in shaping the proposal, including the ministries of Tourism, Ecological Transition and Energy, and Finance, as well as the Vice-Presidency itself, which also handles industry and other areas. The positive side is that all these departments are headed by PP members, which has avoided the initial hurdle of trying to align different political actors.

Approval expected soon

The carbon footprint register is expected to be approved at a forthcoming regional cabinet meeting. From there, the relevant regulations will need to be drawn up to set out in detail how the initiatives will work, so that both the archipelago and the companies that choose to offset their emissions here can obtain the intended benefits. The final objective is to have the entire mechanism in place before the end of the current legislative term – in other words, by next spring.

Learning from others

This is not something the Canary Islands is inventing from scratch. Since 2013, Costa Rica has had its Domestic Carbon Market (MDC). Costa Rica’s population is 5.17 million, and it receives an average of around 2.6 million tourists a year. That means the pressure of tourist accommodation on the Central American country’s environment – although steadily rising – is much lower than what the Canary Islands faces. If the MDC makes sense for Costa Rica, it makes even more sense for the archipelago, with two million inhabitants and 17 million annual visitors. Both territories also share a highly sensitive and biodiverse profile. And Costa Rica is not the only country to have gone down this route: Ghana and Cambodia, although without national emission rights markets, have also decided to play a very active role in the global framework.

Going beyond tree planting

Coming after others is not always a bad thing. Having other examples to follow – even within Spain itself – allows the islands to improve on what already exists. All the mechanisms currently operating in the country revolve around the common denominator of reforestation. That makes perfect sense and will also work that way in the archipelago. How could it not, when a single Canary Island pine tree absorbs all the polluting fumes emitted by the exhaust pipes of ten cars over an entire year? But the mechanism being finalised by the regional government will not stop there. The aim is more ambitious, and without abandoning tree planting, it seeks the comprehensive restoration of the landscape. Entire ravines taken over by invasive plant species will be replanted with endemic species.

In a feat of ingenuity, the regional government – which lacks the vast stretches of land that other places can offer for companies to offset emissions – must turn necessity into a virtue. That is why the catalogue of possibilities it is putting on the table includes initiatives that have never been considered before. These go beyond creating areas of dense vegetation: the maintenance and improvements made to these areas will also count towards reducing a business’s pollution balance. Waste treatment – one of the region’s biggest challenges in the very short term – will also be included.

Energy: the biggest challenge

The other major challenge is energy generation. Oil is the primary source for 95% of everything: freight transport, people’s mobility, industrial activity and electricity generation. In the case of electricity, the penetration of renewable energy is facing a halt caused by the lack of storage infrastructure – something the Salto de Chira project will solve to a significant extent, but only on Gran Canaria. Batteries linked to wind farms and solar plants will have to arrive sooner rather than later, and investment in this area could also provide a way to offset polluting gas emissions. The same applies to the deployment of offshore wind technology and research into harnessing tidal and wave power.

A staggering 88% of the islands’ emissions come from the energy sector, and between 10 and 14 million tonnes of CO2 are released into the atmosphere each year. There is plenty of ground to make up, and little time to get the machinery running at full capacity.

Pressure on the territory

Looking beyond the region’s borders for companies interested in making green investments is worthwhile, but within the Canary Islands themselves, the strategy of some businesses must inevitably follow this path. All companies operating in tourism – and there are legions of them in the islands – have to do everything in their power to keep the environment, the landscape and the coast in perfect condition. They also need to repair damage that may have been caused over recent decades, even before environmental preservation and the fight against climate change became prominent on the political agenda.

Visitor numbers have been rising relentlessly in recent years. Of course, the accommodation sector distributes more or less profit and creates more or less employment depending on this variable, but that does not mean the pressure exerted by the growing number of customers on the territory can be ignored. To ignore it would risk killing the goose that lays the golden egg in every sense. Beyond the evident damage to the environment and the consequences for the local population, there is the proven fact that tourists are increasingly valuing climate and the environment as differentiating factors when choosing a holiday destination. The latest report on the Sustainability of Tourism in the Canary Islands, for 2024, indicates that three-quarters (75.6%) of travellers who choose the islands consider climate to be a “very important” factor in their decision. After climate, the sea is cited by 45.1% and beaches by 38.8%. These figures highlight the importance of opposing climate change with every possible action – since climate change is itself weakening the coastline – as well as preserving the coast from marine pollution and thus avoiding the loss of natural habitat for thousands of marine species in the Atlantic Ocean. On land, landscapes and the natural environment are decisive for 35% of tourists who come to the islands.

The environmental expectations of tourists are growing all the time. The emissions register and compensation mechanisms the islands are setting up will allow companies not only to demonstrate their green credentials but also to preserve the natural assets that keep their businesses among the most popular choices for visitors.

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