Spain has slowed the pace of reducing its winter gas emissions, the cause of global warming that sets off thermometers and makes extreme weather events more difficult. According to calculations by the Observatory of Energy Transition and Climate Action (OTEA) of the Basque Center for Climate Change (BC3), this year 2025 will close with practically the same gross emissions as in 2024. The estimates of these experts, who monitor the main sectors of activity in the country, indicate that this year gases will only decrease by 0.2% compared to 2024, when the downward trend has stopped. In other words, “emissions will remain at levels similar to those of 2023”, detail the authors in their report.
The most important consequence, he warns, is that after years without significant reductions, Spain is moving away from the climate target to which it committed to the European Commission.
In the latest update of the National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan (Pniec), the government set itself the objective of reducing emissions to 32% in 2030 compared to 1990 levels. It is now necessary that between 2026 and 2030, the annual reduction rate is greater than 6% in a sustainable manner if we want to respect the objective that Spain imposed before the European Commission, which implies a demanding trajectory.
“At the current rate, as the study shows, Spain would remain at around 23% reduction, and less than 32% needed for 2030,” explains Mikel González-Eguino, one of the BC3 authors who prepared this report. “The implementation is becoming more and more complicated and forces us to accelerate in all sectors: tons of accounts avoided,” says EL PAÍS.
The experts explain in their study that for several years the electricity sector has been the main driver of decarbonization in Spain, in 2025 emissions associated with electricity production have increased. “This response is linked, to a large extent, to the power outage of April 28, which led to the start of an enhanced security operation of the electrical system,” it says. And basically, there is the assumption of an increase in “combined cycle power plant activity” that burns natural gas, which has resulted in increased emissions.
This situation contrasts with the trend of recent years, where emissions from electricity production in Spain have been reduced by 28% in 2023 and 19% in 2024 thanks to the rise of renewable energies. “While emissions in the first quarter of 2025 were slightly higher than those in the same period in 2024, after the April 28 outage, emissions increased more quickly,” the authors say.
However, these BC3 experts believe that, despite this economic increase, “the electricity sector also provided positive signals during the year”. For example, the abandonment of carbon, “even if its use decreased in previous years, since August 2025 its contribution is practically zero”. Secondly, we note the constant and high increase in “installed renewable energy capacity”. “According to this month of November, in 2025, solar photovoltaic capacity increased by 7.9 GW and wind capacity by 0.9 GW. Everything indicates that the new renewable capacity installed in 2025 will be similar to that of 2024, the year in which a historic maximum of 11 GW was reached,” he added.
Therefore, the concerns of these experts when analyzing the plateau of emissions in Spain do not concern so much the electricity sector. “The balance between carbon production and increasing demand for renewable energy, transportation and electrification continues to be long into the future,” summarizes González-Eguino.
“The main challenge of decarbonization in Spain continues to be concentrated, especially in the short term, in the transport sector,” the study says. “Its emissions represent around a third of the total and will increase in 2025,” he adds. And this despite the strong boost recorded this year in the registration of electrified vehicles: “Mobility requires a profound transformation,” he warns.
“The transport sector remains facing the greatest challenge of decarbonization,” he concludes. “Nevertheless, 2025 brings positive data: the market share of electrified tourism will double compared to 2024, going from 11% to 20%,” he adds. “The Auto 2030 Plan, approved this year, can help accelerate this transformation, although it remains fundamental to promote modal shift in public transport and other sustainable mobility systems, given that dependence on private vehicles continues to be high,” he suggests.
Context
It is also important to take into account the context in which the evolution of emissions in 2025 occurred: strong economic and demographic growth in Spain. This year, GDP growth is expected to be 2.9%, while the population increased by 528,225 people between the third quarter of 2024 and 2025. “In this scenario, both emissions per capita and emissions per unit of GDP continue to decrease,” according to a study, which represents good news to hear in the disconnect between winter gases and economic and demographic growth in Spain.
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