Malta climate change strategy by April

Malta will issue its climate change strategy before next April, according to Michael Zammit Cutajar, special adviser to the Minister of Rural Affairs and the Environment.

Mr Zammit Cutajar, who retired as executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change last year, headed the Malta delegation to UNFCCC's ninth Conference of Parties which ended here on Friday. He is also chair of the Advisory Board of the World Bank's recently established Community Development Carbon Fund which links small-scale projects in developing countries with investors seeking emission reduction credits for greenhouse gases.

"Malta is one of the last of the convention's 180 parties to file a National Communication with data on Greenhouse Gas Emissions, as well as future policies to mitigate and adapt to climate change," he told The Sunday Times. "However, the minister has made the commitment to deliver this report in the first quarter of 2004."

"Malta's post-Accession obligations under the UNFCCC's Kyoto Protocol (1997), which the government ratified in 2001, remain to be negotiated," he continued. "At present Malta is classified under the Protocol as a developing country - and is not bound to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, EU countries have committed to an overall reduction of 8% below 1990 levels by 2012. Once an EU member, an effort from Malta will be expected, although this could refer to the second Commitment Period, starting in 2012. Malta's per capita carbon dioxide emissions are high."

There is a possibility however that Malta could obtain financing from one of the Kyoto Protocol mechanisms depending on its future status under the pact as an EU member. The mechanisms are the Joint Implementation programme or the Clean Development Fund - involving investments by companies based in the EU or other advanced industrial countries.

The investments produce environmental benefits in the host country, while earning investors credits to set against their own emission allowances.

Mr Zammit Cutajar thought that one possible project could be to enhance energy efficiency in the country and thus limit the extent of further expansions in generating capacity.

On Wednesday, the European Commission proposed a binding one per cent per year energy saving target for 2006-2012, which by 2012 could cumulatively contribute almost half of the Union's CO2 emission reduction obligation under the Kyoto Protocol. The target would involve a 1.5% saving in the public sector, but exclude air and maritime transport, as well as energy-intensive industries already covered by other directives. As an EU member state, Malta would be bound by this target.

EU Environment Commissioner Margot Wallström has warned governments that under existing trends, the EU will be unable to meet its emission reduction targets, with only UK and Sweden fulfilling their obligations.

A new €500 million European Investment Bank facility was announced here on Thursday to help companies participating in the EU greenhouse gas emission trading scheme starting in 2005 to reduce their emissions. Further finance might also be available for preparing projects under the Kyoto Protocol mechanisms.

The EU's determination to fulfil its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol, which cannot come into force until ratified by Russia, was reflected in the mood of the conference - with 120 nations representing 70 per cent of the world's population having ratified so far. President Bush withdrew US support to the protocol in 2001, on the grounds that it would harm the US economy and that the science of climate change was too uncertain.

Negotiations in Milan focused on tidying up loose ends of the Kyoto Protocol's many operational rules agreed at the seventh conference in Marrakesh in 2001, with over 100 ministers approving a series of texts on Friday.

However, even fulfilling the targets for 2012, delivering a global reduction of about five per cent over 1990 emission levels, will hardly scrape the surface of the climate change challenge. Scientists warn that a 70 per cent cut in emissions is needed to stabilise the level of emissions at a level which could guarantee only limited damage to the planet's environment and ecosystems.

The cut should be achieved by 2050 they warn, and even so, impacts of growing emissions since the start of the industrial age will result in a rise in sea levels, the continued melting of a large proportion of the world's glaciers and ice caps, as well as severe dislocations to the food producing potential of many countries.

The UN Environment Programme reported here that natural disasters, mainly weather-related cost the insurance industry $60 billion in 2003, with the high cost being seen as "part of a worrying trend that is being linked with climate change." Europe's summer 2003 alone is estimated to have killed 20,000 people and cost over $10 billion in agricultural losses, it added.

However, the world's nations are still far from making the huge commitment to stabilise emissions according to scientists' advice, Mr Zammit Cutajar warned.