The government announced that because of its colossal debt, it can no
longer pay the money it promised into a fund set up in 1988 to pay for projects
designed to save the city. The state was to have paid 1.65 trillion lire
($1.3 billion) a year for 10 years. Last week Andreotti announced that it
would pay only $81 million a year. This would bring to a grinding halt some
of the biggest projects to protect the city from flooding and clean up the
worst of its pollution.

The decision has brought a wave of protests – not least because it follows
long delays in distributing the money already in the fund. Moreover, funds
allocated to Venice in the annual state budget have also failed to materialise.
The budget for 1989, some 500 billion lire, had still not reached the city
last month.

‘At this rate Venice will become an ex-city,’ said Ugo Bergamo, the
city’s mayor. ‘Safeguarding it is no longer considered a national priority.’
Carlos Ripa di Meana, the European Community’s environment commissioner
and a fellow Italian, suggested that if Venice is to be saved, the community
might have to take charge of it.

The most important victim of the cuts is likely to be the Moses project
to build mobile dams at the three exits from the Venetian lagoon to the
Adriatic Sea. These were to have been in place by the year 2000. The project,
planned by the industrial consortium Venezia Nuova, has always been controversial
because the dams are intended to protect the city only when Venice is threatened
by the biggest of floods. They were never meant to protect the city from
the increasingly frequent high waters that occur in winter because they
would upset navigation and prevent the flushing of water from the lagoon
into the Adriatic.

Organisations that have been working to conserve Venice for decades,
such as UNESCO and Italia Nostra, have always maintained that attempts should
be made to restore the hydrological balance of the lagoon by less grandiose
means. For instance, by reclaiming land that was once part of the lagoon
but had been sealed off for fish farming, or by raising the level of the
sea floor at the entrances to the lagoon.

The local authorities, both the city council and the Veneto regional
government, also wanted the waters of the lagoon cleaned up before putting
the dams in place. Other wise, the dams would hold in stinking, stagnant
water.

Officials responsible for the conservation of Venice do not seem too
concerned that the cuts might mean the end of the Moses project. However,
they are worried about the neglect of the everyday tasks of keeping Venice
afloat – from the constant maintenance of the foundations of the great palaces
to the elimination of damp from houses where ordinary Venetians live and
the regular dredging of canals.

Up to 25 August this year, according to the European Commission, fires
destroyed 201 000 hectares of Spanish woodland, compared to 118 000 hectares
in neighbouring Portugal, 63 000 hectares in Italy, 7550 hectares in France
and 2187 in Greece.

Fernando Estirado, deputy head of ICONA, the national institute for
nature conservation in Spain’s Ministry of Agriculture, described this year’s
toll as an ‘improvement’ on 1985 – the worst year in that decade for forest
fires in Spain – when 469 000 hectares of woodland was burnt. ICONA is responsible
for coordinating action to prevent fires.

Estirado says 10 per cent of the fires in Spain are caused by ‘exceptional
climatic conditions’, 25 per cent by negligence and 5 per cent by the burning
of rubbish. Another 30 per cent was intentional – mostly started by farmers
– but the origins of the remaining 30 per cent are unknown.

Recent surveys carried out by ICONA show that a majority of Spaniards
believe that many of the fires of uncertain origin are the result of arson,
and prompted principally by land speculators.

In response to the recent spate of fires, Andalusia and Valencia in
the south and southeast, and Galicia in the northwest, are planning laws
to prohibit building on former woodland damaged by fire until 20 to 30 years
after it has burnt down. A new law has also been passed which makes arsonists
liable to fines of up to £2.75 million.

Central government and the autonomous communities are also investing
£135 million a year to clear woodlands of flammable undergrowth, and
to build reservoirs, watchtowers and firebreaks in forests.

The draft energy plan, drawn up by the ministry of industry and energy
and due to be approved by the Spanish parliament, sets targets for emissions
from large power plants and oil refineries. By 2000, it wants sulphur dioxide
levels to have been cut by 42 per cent of 1980 levels, and nitrogen oxides
reduced by 25 per cent.

For CO₂, the main greenhouse gas, the plan will allow a 36
per cent increase in ‘total emissions from sectors transforming energy’.
Jeronimo Zaragoza, an official at the industry ministry, says this refers
to large fuel-burning installations, but not to transport, which comes under
another ministry.

Zaragoza says CO₂ emissions are expected to increase by only
25 per cent by 2000. So the 36 per cent figure chosen gives Spanish industry
extra room to expand. Spanish officials in Brussels want richer countries
to cut back their CO₂ emissions more. They insist that Spain
has a right to increase output because its CO₂ emissions are
lower than the European Community average.

The Commission estimates that if the economies of its less developed
members, such as Spain’s, catch up with the rest by the year 2000, their
CO₂ emissions will increase by 20 per cent. It also argues that
this increase can be held at 15 per cent if energy conservation measures
are enforced. If the Community is to reach its CO₂ goal by 2000,
this increase can be offset by 5 per cent cuts in emissions by Germany,
Denmark and Holland.

But much larger cuts in those countries will be needed if Spain increases
its emissions by 36 per cent. Madrid’s refusal to accept lower quotas has
already forced the Commission to drop the idea of setting individual CO₂
targets for member countries.

Spain’s new plan is also expected to upset the nuclear industry. By
2000, the government wants the proportion of the country’s energy generated
by nuclear plants to be reduced from 16 to 11 per cent, because it is too
expensive. The owners of Spain’s nuclear plants were hoping for permission
to resume construction of four reactors, halted in 1983 as a reaction to
public unease over nuclear power.

The plan calls for $8.7 billion to be spent in the next ten years on
non-nuclear power, including gas-fired plants, biomass and solar generators.
On top of this, $4.6 billion will be set aside to improve Spain’s natural
gas network. The proposals call for the share of the country’s energy generated
from gas to increase from 5.6 to 12 per cent.

Francisco Zaballa, head of the Spanish consumer association, calls the
plan ‘a start’, but complains that it says nothing about enforcement. ‘There
is no mention of sanctions against companies, or fines if they do not fulfil
the objectives, or of incentives . . . for them to make adjustments,’ says
Zaballa.

Additional reporting by Debora MacKenzie