The Minister of Environment and Energy stated yesterday in Lisbon that Portugal needs to achieve independence in energy and water because it is not possible to know when it will be necessary “to deal with other forces from other countries” that will cause problems.
Maria da Graça Carvalho was today heard by the ad hoc Parliamentary Commission for National Resilience, Prevention of Natural Disasters and Monitoring of PTRR – Portugal, Transformation, Recovery and Resilience, where she gave an assessment of the impact caused by the bad weather and the responses adopted.
“The geostrategic situation is complex and we never know when we will have to deal with other forces from other countries, which will cause us problems. The more independent we are in water and energy the better off we are,” the minister noted in response to the deputies, after the second round of interventions.
In relation to water, the head of the Environment and Energy department argued for a balance between what is retained and what is not retained, explaining that too much retention also causes problems, such as a lack of sand on beaches or excessive salinization.
“We must be very careful with the interference that is made in nature,” she stressed.
As for electricity and energy, the minister said that Portugal is already very independent with regard to renewables and that now it needs to move forward in relation to liquid fuels for transport.
The objective, she pointed out, is to electrify what is possible, but also to produce renewable fuels.
“We have to be more independent because one day we wake up and prices rise there or then there will be no fuels,” she insisted.
