March 21, 2024.- The Vice President of the Government and Minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera, has traveled today to the regions of Bierzo and Luciana. There, he visited the chestnut soto of Villar de los Barrios, (named ‘Forest of the Year 2024’), on the occasion of the International Day of Forests that is celebrated today. Also, the railway workshops of Villablino and the Cultural Thermal of Ponferrada. During the day’s visits in these two regions, Teresa Ribera was accompanied by the government delegate in Castilla y León, Nicanor Sen.
In the workshops, the Vice-President has been interested in the status of the project to recover the railway line that linked Cubillos and Villablino and that is beneficiary of an aid of 4 million euros in the infrastructure line of the Instituto de Pasar Justa (ITJ). In addition, he has been able to see the car in which the hydrogen engine will be installed. “A train greatly loved in this area that will allow a dynamization of the territory with the use of hydrogen that is produced in the experimental plant of CIUDEN, a hydrogen that will allow us to test to what extent hydrogen in rail transport can be an alternative to electrification,” said Ribera in this regard.
Subsequently, Ribera has participated in the days of the Network of Territorial Innovation Centers in Action, organized by the general secretariat for the Demographic Challenge and the City of Energy Foundation (CIUDEN), the different stands of the Territorial Innovation Fair that this Thursday and Friday is held in La Thermal Cultural and has inaugurated the days “Innovation and territorial development in action”.
“This network of territorial innovation centers will be coordinated from Ponferrada by the team that activated this experience just over a year ago, this Cultural Thermal that ended its first year of activity with more than 26,000 visitors, with programs as interesting as Dinamiz-ARTj, which has allowed more than 130 villages in transition areas to have all kinds of cultural events. An activity that will be complemented with a new initiative: The Cultural Recycler“The Vice President pointed out during the media spotlight.
“This is the first conference in which we will have the opportunity to listen to the representatives and people who have been coming for two years starting a new path: the territorial innovation centers in which both professionals and the local fabric can be counted, to facilitate the accompaniment in innovative initiatives. Listening from the bottom up and committing ourselves. Today, there are already 12 of these centers scattered throughout Spain that are providing this accompaniment to initiatives such as a differentiated regime in quotas or contributions to social security,” added Teresa Ribera.