This Monday, Pedro Sánchez confirmed the appointment of Sara Aagesen as Minister of Ecological Transition and highlighted her as “one of the greatest experts in energy transition.” Aagesen (Madrid, 1976) maintains the vice presidency that Ribera already had, in an appointment of high symbolic power for a minister who lacks the political weight in the PSOE that her predecessor and until now boss had. It is worth remembering that Ecological Transition, a key ministry for Pedro Sánchez, is a spending portfolio, which brings together 40% of the actions planned in the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan.
The still Secretary of State is Ribera’s natural replacement. Aagesen has accompanied the still head of that super ministry for much of her career. The last four years, since January 2020, as Secretary of State for Energy, a position for which she was appointed in 2020, replacing the recently deceased José Domínguez Abascal.
A few weeks before, Aagesen, then a mere advisor in the ministry, was already standing out in one of the sessions of the 2019 United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP25), which had to be improvised in Madrid due to the impossibility of holding it in Chile. . A few weeks later, she was appointed Secretary of State for Energy. The more than four years spent at the head of that Secretary of State make her the person who has held this position the longest since democracy began and the first woman to do so.
During this time, Aagesen has been in charge of key regulations in his department to promote electrical self-consumption and renewable energies, in turbulent years in which the Executive launched the so-called social shield to protect the most vulnerable with the outbreak of the pandemic. Subsequently, Spain managed to impose in the EU, hand in hand with Portugal, the so-called Iberian solution to contain the electricity price crisis after the invasion of Ukraine and the explosion in gas prices.
A chemical engineer from the Complutense University of Madrid, specialized in the Environment, Aagesen has developed her entire professional career linked to the field of energy and the environment. Between 2002 and 2018 he worked in the Climate Change Office, participating in the preparation of the 2020 roadmap for diffuse sectors or the design and implementation of the First National Emissions Allocation Plan.
Only in the area that it managed until now, the Ministry has to issue key regulations in the coming months such as the new remuneration of the networks, payments for capacity for gas plants, the new self-consumption regulations, the review of the special regime of renewable energies and the transposition of European regulations for critical raw materials.
With a Spanish mother and Danish father, the new vice president is the mother of two children and among her hobbies is music (she collects vinyl). He is a highly valued person in the energy sector, who these days is making pools about who will be the person who will occupy the position he leaves vacant in the Secretary of State for Energy. Among the names being considered are those of Joan Groizard, current director of the Institute for Energy Diversification and Saving (IDAE).
The pending green agenda
On the green agenda, Aegesen is launching the final negotiations to close the Global Plastics Treaty, which must commit countries to reducing the generation of waste from this material (derived from fossil fuels). The latest round of talks began on the same day as the official announcement of Sara Aagesen’s appointment and ends this Sunday.
Furthermore, the impacts of DANA in València and Albacete have shown the need and delay that Spain has in the so-called adaptation to the already evident effects of climate change: constructions in flood-prone areas, damage from heat waves or management of the water. This climate adaptation falls, in part, on the management of the new third vice president.
And Aagesen will also have unfinished business on the table, such as carrying out a plan to try to save the Tablas de Daimiel National Park, the counterattack from Europe to the protection of the wolf or the dismantling of the old Navacerrada ski resort.
Source: www.eldiario.es
