“We created a very powerful community; we had our future and the university, its prestige, at stake”

20/02/2020

Interview with Arnau Queralt, a 1997 UAB graduate in Environmental Sciences, who earned his Bachelor’s in the second Environmental Sciences graduating class at the UAB. This was a pioneering multidisciplinary programme which sought to train professionals who could grapple with the huge environmental challenges which were just being glimpsed in the early 1990s.

Queralt’s career has been closely tied to the Advisory Council for the Sustainable Development of Catalonia (abbreviated CADS), which advises the Government of Catalonia. We spoke with him about Catalonia’s main challenges in the field of environmental sustainability.

You were a member of the second graduating class in Environmental Sciences at the UAB. What was that experience like?
I was really excited that these new multidisciplinary programmes were being created. It was a really well thought-out programme designed by a whole group of professors; they went to Berkeley and came back with a totally cross-curricular, innovative curriculum compared to what was being done here, and they got all the departments in the Faculty involved. We are the result of the dreams of the people who promoted this programme, dreams that they then managed to convey to a group of students who had a vocation for ecological or environmental work, which we made our profession. This entire process got the students heavily involved in the university, and we created a very powerful community; we had our future at stake, and the university was staking its prestige on it. I recommend a short book written by Dr Josep Enric Llebot entitled “Temps era temps” which outlines the origins of the Environmental Sciences programme at the UAB.

What gap did this degree fill?
The degree started being offered in academic year 1992-1993, right after the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro (also known as the Earth Summit). There was a burgeoning awareness both internationally and in Catalonia that the groundwork for strong environmental policies had to be laid. It was also a time when the Catalan Government had just created its Environment Department, and there was a kind of collective shift towards environmental policies. The UAB joined the project because in this context professionals were needed with a broad mindset, meaning ones who knew about biology, chemistry, physics, law, sociology, public policy, statistics and geology and were able to identify the causes of problems, their potential consequences and solutions by understanding the language of all these disciplines and working with multidisciplinary teams.

Your career has been closely linked with the Advisory Council for the Sustainable Development of Catalonia (CADS). What exactly is that? 
Immediately after I graduated, I did a Master’s in Public Management, and then I worked with the Environment Department. I began to work for CADS as a technical coordinator in 2010. CADS is a governmental advisory body created in 1998 which is made up of 16 independent members whose mission is to guide the government in the challenges facing the country in the sphere of sustainability with a multifaceted approach and an eye towards the future.

You are also working for the visibility and recognition of the profession via the Association of Environmentalists of Catalonia (COAMB).
I was the Association’s first treasurer for two years, and I went immediately on to serve as its vice president for four years until I was elected president, a position I held for two years. We began the association when we were very young and needed an organisation that would defend the budding profession. We had earned a degree created from scratch; we were making a profession out of it and started the professional association. 

In 2011 you were appointed director of CADS and embarked on a new stage there.
Yes, in 2006 I left the job as CADS coordinator and worked as an advisor on environmental matters and institutional strategy, and I became the secretary-general of the Cercle Tecnològic Foundation of Catalonia. And in 2011 I rejoined CADS as the director. It was a time when the responsibility for sustainability was becoming increasingly clear, and it was very important for CADS to strengthen its position as a truly strategic organ of reflection, and for it to be capable of anticipating some of the country’s major challenges. Until 2014, CADS could only issue reports at the request of the government, but after that year, we were also able to do so on our own initiative. We have issued reports like ‘Mengem futur’ on food, which is a key issue. We are co-responsible for the Third Report on Climate Change in Catalonia (TICCC), in which around 200 authors and reviewers took part. It is a benchmark scientific study both in the country and outside it which outlines how climate change is affecting the country and how we should begin adapting to it. It is also a report that transfers knowledge between the scientific world and the government. Furthermore, since 2016 we have been the driving force behind MedeCC, the group of climate change and environmental experts in the Mediterranean, and I have been the president of the European Environment and Sustainable Development Advisory Councils (EEAC) for almost 6 years.

What is your role in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Catalonia?
In 2015, when the United Nations approved the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with its 17 SDGs, the government pledged to draw up a national plan to outline how Catalonia could contribute to reaching them. At that time, CADS undertook a reflection on what the SDGs mean to our country and suggested the goals that the government should reach via this plan. This reflection took the shape of a report which we entitled: “Agenda 2030: Transforming Catalonia, Improving the World”.

What are the most urgent environmental challenges facing Catalunya?  
We have most of the same challenges that other countries are facing, but some of them are more urgent. For example, the way we deal with climate change is extremely urgent because we are in a Mediterranean environment which makes us particularly vulnerable to drought and everything related to landscape transformation, for example. The issue of coasts is one of the direst ones, that is, how climate change will impact our country’s beaches from the environmental perspective, of course, but also bearing in mind its impact on the economy of many coastal towns. The coast is especially vulnerable. Think about the Delta de l’Ebre, the entire sandy coastline, and we have to find a solution, no matter what. Likewise, the energy transition is a pressing issue everywhere, but here we have lots of sun and so we should promote the transition to solar energy in Catalonia. How can we achieve a much more efficient energy system based on renewables, thereby lowering our dependence on fossil fuels? On the other hand, how can we go from agricultural and livestock policies to a food policy: this is an extremely important issue because it means rethinking agricultural land, our relationship with farmers and how to guarantee an active farming sector with soil that can grow crops. We also have the issue of inequalities, and the other obvious one is resources and waste, that is, how we can make a circular economy possible.

Are we on the right track?
So, what do we have going for us? That we’ve been working on it for a while, we have outstanding research centres and universities which are feeding us knowledge and future professionals, and there is a great deal of evidence about the impacts, and therefore we have lots of things on the table and a great deal of evidence which is making us react. Having evidence shared by everyone, the scientific, political and social world, ultimately will spur people to act.

Are there any examples of best practices?
There is an interesting example with the issue of climate change. Since the 1960s, the Ter River basin has diverted a huge amount of water towards the Barcelona metropolitan region, comprising the river’s environmental flows and the water supply for farming. The effect of the diversion of the river is compounded by the effect of climate change and changes in land use. However, in 2017, an agreement was reached to gradually lower the amount of water diverted, which cannot exceed 30% of the total flow by 2028. To meet this commitment, actions must be developed to lower water consumption, use water much more efficiently and search for new alternative sources, such as desalination and the reuse of regenerated wastewater. All these measures would enable us to boost our resilience to the effects of climate change on the availability of water resources.

How would you rate the work done by CADS?
The Council is an independent body. None of the governments to date has interfered with it, and they have all guaranteed its independence, but the Council’s recommendations are not binding, as with the other consultative bodies in the European network. What we in the Council have tried to do is get the government involved, to find out what its concerns are and especially to engage in joint reflection. One pivotal point was in 2018, when the Parliament of Catalonia approved a motion on Agenda 2030 which stipulated that from then on CADS had to appear before the Parliament every six months to share our opinion on our progress towards achieving the SDGs in our country.