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The mix of measures will allow the country to cut emissions of climate-warming gases by 32% from 1990 levels. The previous target, voted by the Spanish parliament in 2021, was 23%.

The draft “takes new steps in the right direction in the fight against the climate emergency but it still falls short” when it comes to emission reduction, said Pedro Zorrilla, chief of Greenpeace Spain’s climate change campaign, adding that the objective should be to reduce emissions by at least 55%.

The plan will catalyse investments of roughly €294 billion, the text says. Of this, 85% is expected to come from the private sector, with the remainder coming from public funds, including from the European Union.

Such estimates shows that Spain has become “an enormously attractive and trustworthy country,” Energy Minister Teresa Ribera said on Wednesday in a dialogue with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.

The plan confirms the phase out of nuclear energy and speeds up Spain’s exit from coal, now set for 2025, from 2030 previously.

Sánchez and Ribera took a swipe at the opposition PP party’s push to extend the life of the country’s nuclear power plants, saying the party hadn’t explained who is going to foot the bill.

“Who would pay for it? The citizen directly or the state, that is, the citizen again, indirectly,” Sanchez said on Wednesday, while the energy minister warned that keeping the reactors on “isn’t economically viable”.

The draft says the plan will add more than half a million new jobs and boost the economy by 2.5% by the end of the decade.

Spain, like other European countries, faced an end-of-June deadline to submit an updated draft proposal to the European Commission.

The publication of the draft kicks off a public consultation, which will last until Sept. 4. The final plan is due by June next year.

cover photo:A man splashes his face with water in San Antonio, Texas. Photograph: Kaylee Greenlee Beal/Reuters