Forest Bioeconomy in the Pyrenees –Bio For Piri The project—in its official name—is the initiative that the Catalunya La Pedrera Foundation has developed over the last two years for forest fire prevention and forest management, the promotion of the forest bioeconomy, and knowledge transfer in the region. The strategy aims to transform the threat of large forest fires into an opportunity for rural development and nature conservation. Based on this premise, the event held yesterday in the La Pedrera auditorium focused its discussion on four success stories. The event, moderated by physicist and meteorologist Tomàs Molina, featured Daniel Ibáñez, director of the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia; Virginia García, director of the Functional Fabrics unit at Eurecat; Antoni Reig, mayor of the Barony of Rialb; and Miquel Rafa, director of Sustainability and Territory at the Catalunya La Pedrera Foundation.

The Catalan economy faces a historic challenge: reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. This goal, aligned with European guidelines, requires a profound transformation of the energy model, which involves creating new infrastructure and improving decarbonization. In this scenario, Veolia, a leader in decarbonization and optimized resource management, is consolidating its position as a strategic partner to support public administrations, buildings, and industries in their ecological transition. The company combines technological innovation, sustainability, and technical expertise to offer customized solutions with a real and measurable impact. District heating and cooling networks are a key solution for decarbonizing cities using renewable energy, offering flexibility and efficiency. In Catalonia, where 80% of the population lives in urban areas, this model is particularly relevant. District heating and cooling networks can integrate multiple renewable and waste energy sources, offering flexibility and resilience to the energy system. Furthermore, its centralized management allows for optimizations that would be impossible with decentralized systems: temperature adjustments based on actual demand, thermal storage to manage peaks, and predictive maintenance using advanced sensors.

Industry has become the major driver of electricity consumption in Catalonia, clearly leading the way in electricity spending in Spain. And within this electricity consumption, the province of Barcelona stands out particularly, according to data published by the National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC), compiled by Papernest, a company specializing in supply consulting and management. In fact, industry sources point out that the increase in industrial electricity consumption is primarily due to economic growth—Catalan GDP has grown above the Spanish average since the fourth quarter of 2023—and, above all, the European average, as the economic weakness of Germany and France has slowed EU growth.

In a context of Green shoots for electric cars in Europe and a collapse in diesel vehicle sales across Spain, bringing together three staunch defenders of electromobility and decarbonization can only fuel optimism. This is what was planned this Thursday above the College of Technical Industrial Engineers of Girona during the round table organized by the ARA, in collaboration with Bassols Energia, to debate whether this form of transport is a real opportunity. With the horizon of 2035, when the European Union will stop registering combustion vehicles, the main challenge right now is the charging distribution points, not the technology itself of electric vehicles. And even more so considering that in 10 years the autonomy has gone from between 150 and 170 km to 350 and even 600.

Socialist Government's handbrake on the ambitious plan to create deterrent macro-parking lots - or park and ride, in its English name—which had been designed by the previous government of Junts and ERC and which was intended to relieve car congestion in Barcelona. The obvious failure of the first of these macro-parkings, which was inaugurated last summer in Martorell, has led Salvador Illa's executive to halt the thirty projects that had been started and to rethink the need for these large infrastructures, which were supposed to be a stimulus to improve mobility and reduce pollution in the metropolitan area.

Emissions neutrality by 2050. This is the great – and costly – challenge in the face of the climate emergency. "It is clear that we will not get there," says Josep Maria Montagut, president of the Catalonia's Professional Association of Industrial Engineers' energy committee. Marta Morera, director general of the Catalan Energy Institute (ICAEN), is more optimistic. She believes that the goal will be achieved "if what the Proencat (Prospectiva Energètica de Catalunya 2050) says is fulfilled".