A/HRC/44/40/Add.2 hotel bills. Some autonomous communities also have an extremely low inheritance tax, allowing children and spouses to inherit as much as 1 million euros tax free. 74 49. Tax fraud deprives the Spanish State of massive resources. In a recent study, the IMF estimated the size of the shadow economy at 20.3 per cent of GDP, even higher than in 2007, potentially reducing tax revenue by as much as 23 per cent. 75 In 2018, companies on the IBEX 35 index had 805 subsidiaries in tax havens, suggesting that significant amounts of revenue are being lost to tax avoidance. 76 D. Climate change 50. Climate change will have a dramatic impact on the lives of people in poverty and Spain must ensure that its social protection policies support those already in poverty and those who will be pushed into it by climate change (see A/HRC/41/39). Heat waves have already led to the deaths of hundreds of people and poor families without access to electricity or air conditioning are increasingly at risk. 77 51. In 2019, the Government announced a 47 billion euro public investment plan to tackle climate change over 10 years, with the goal of making Spain carbon neutral by 2050. 78 It declared a climate emergency in January 79 and has significantly reduced its dependence on coal.80 Congress should immediately enact a long-awaited law on climate change.81 52. It is encouraging that the Government already has an agreement with the International Labour Organization (ILO) on implementing a “just transition”82 and it must ensure that workers displaced during the transition have adequate social support and access to training programmes. The inadequacy of the current overall social protection system indicates that this will be a major challenge. E. Administrative transparency and accountability 53. Many interlocutors commented on a lack of transparency in relation to government decision-making and the difficulty of making sense of, let alone using, much of the published information provided by official sources. As one official said, “Information is not lacking. It’s just that it’s impossible to figure out what the underlying strategy is, or how to assess the results or impact of the policy.” 54. Bureaucratic procedures, including seemingly endless verification processes, have wrought havoc in many areas of social protection. Many of the requirements and underlying assumptions seem more appropriate to the nineteenth than the twenty-first century. Given the costs and inefficiencies on the government side and the pain and inconvenience on the side of residents and others, as well as the need to adapt to the digital 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 12 OECD, Economic Surveys: Spain (November 2018), p. 48. Ben Kelmanson and others, “Explaining the shadow economy in Europe: size, causes and policy options”, IMF working paper 19/278 (2019), p. 26; Funcas Foundation, “Economía sumergida y fraude fiscal en España: ¿Qué sabemos? ¿Qué podemos hacer?” (2018), p. 40. Oxfam, “Quien parte y reparte: la huella en la desigualdad de las empresas del IBEX 35” (2019), p. 2. Study by the State Meteoroligcal Agency with the Ministry for Ecological Transition, “Efectos del cambio climático en España” (March 2019), available from www.aemet.es/en/noticias/2019/03/Efectos_del_cambio_climatico_en_espanha; Greenpeace, “Así nos afecta el cambio climático” (November 2018), p. 43. Reuters, “Spain proposes $53 billion public investment in climate change plan”, 20 February 2019. Associated Press, “Spain declares climate emergency, gets climate plan ready”, 21 January 2020. Manuel Planelles, “Greenhouse gas emissions drop in Spain as power plants ditch coal”, El Pais, 6 January 2020. Congreso de los Diputados, “Proposición de ley sobre cambio climático y transición energética”, available from www.congreso.es/public_oficiales/L13/CONG/BOCG/B/BOCG-13-B-48-1.PDF. Ministry for Ecological Transition, “The just transition strategy within the strategic energy and climate framework” (2019).