Shades of green

So much for public consultation. No sooner was the third draft of the national strategy for sustainable development retrieved from the printing tray, factions of the local political scene ravaged through the document like a pack of wolves in a frenzy tearing at their kill.

Any attempt to make the public lose heart in the process of consultation is an affront to the work done to develop the third draft of the strategy for sustainable development. It is truly sad that some politicians find no time to digest the work before they discredit the whole process in no more than 1,000 words in this local paper. How ironic for an individual to pontificate about how best public consultation should be carried out but then lambastes the whole process by casting doubt to dishearten valid contributions from the public.

The national conference on sustainable development drew to a close late in the afternoon of Saturday, April 22. Throughout the eight hours of the conference, I heard a series of useful interventions from the participants and the audience. The strong attendance of about 300 people continued to give credit to the unfolding process that is leading to the finalisation of the strategy.

Sadly, Alternattiva Demokratika's chairman Harry Vassallo, having made his presence felt to the media by intervening for two minutes early in the day, left the meeting before lunch. Save a consultation session held with the Social Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, the Labour Opposition, notwithstanding having the opportunity to be represented on the National Commission for Sustainable Development, never contributed to the formulation of the strategy. Worse still, they did not bother to turn up during any part of the national conference.

Now, both Dr Vassallo and Roderick Galdes, the Labour Party's spokesman for the environment, find sufficient cheek to undermine the whole exercise within six days of the event in The Times of April 28 by signing off two articles entitled Justice, Democracy And Development and On Sustainability, respectively.

In his article, Dr Vassallo tells us that he "left the conference early not because I had something better to do. I left because I could not stand to be there a moment longer. It felt like an institutional exercise in green-wash, a grand theatre setting to deceive the public..."

How self-righteous! Until the time Dr Vassallo left the event, the contributions made came from representatives of civil society. Yet, Dr Vassallo "could not stand to be there". Public consultation at its best, I note. Any representative from whichever circle of society, be it NGOs, academia or the public, is no match to Dr Vassallo's mettle when it comes to the environment.

Dr Vassallo's belief that the whole sustainable development process cannot function because the "real power in the land is not the government... (but)... those who dictate to the official power structure" was the underlying theme he focused upon in his two-minute intervention at the conference and in his contribution to The Times.

In my closing remarks, I strengthened this statement by agreeing to it and reminded the audience that this power is indeed in the hands of the electorate when they vote democratically to elect a national government. Now he calls me a coward for having agreed with him when he had conveniently turned his back on the meeting and left before lunch. In my closing remarks I went further and said that irrespective of the criticism, the government will not dictate whether the electorate elects a third party to power or not! That choice is purely the electorate's prerogative.

Another message in my closing statement was that it makes little sense to perceive sustainable development solely as some strategy that leads to an environmental overhaul. Unless interested stakeholders visually project the strong linkages that exist between the environment and economic prosperity then there is some convincing to be done for society to attain the vision for sustainable development. Tough decisions must be made to meet the objectives. No political rhetoric can change this. Yet, Mr Galdes comes along and tells us that the answer to this vision lies in Labour's blueprint on the environment.

The strategy for sustainable development aims at maintaining socio-economic activities and prosperity for the people. At the same time, it aims to decrease the volume of an ever increasing diversification of waste. It also aims to minimise environmental pollution and secure protection for the environment. It aims to preserve resources in the form of space, water and land and, at the same time, aims to comply with global issues, such as global warming, in a developing world.

A rethink at a fundamental level of our socio-economic activities to break away from current mass production, mass consumption and mass disposal is imperative. Our consumption of natural resources and our environmental impacts must be minimised. Believe it or not, the answer to this changing trait must lie in a strategy for sustainable development not in a single environmental plan.

A strategy must identify or indeed lead to action plans about what policies, research and development, financing and incentives will best enable sustainable development to be achieved. The role of market-based mechanisms must also be clearly defined.

Sustainable development must identify the balance between state involvement and market dynamics in financing the investments required by industry to gain high resource efficiency in both the public and private sectors. Such increased resource efficiency will lower the demand on public infrastructure such as landfills and water treatment. The strategy needs to identify how deferred public investments in such facilities can be used to support resource recovery business development or basic resource efficiency in business.

Given Malta's constraints, after a certain degree of improvement, investment in further resource efficiency may not provide an adequate return. At this point, sustainable development may require further government subsidy, increased R&D or acceptance of the economic limits to resource optimisation. This is what we should be discussing as the government maps out Malta's plans for the next 10 years.

Other important elements of sustainable development, upon which a healthy discussion is imperative, include transportation, urban planning, building design and construction. A discussion on energy is also essential especially when it comes to efficiency targets and renewables. Water requirements and the renewal of our natural capital through ecosystem restoration also form part of the vision for sustainable development.

Sustainable development demonstrates relatively equitable distribution of wealth and income and access to the goods and service providing quality of life.

Workers' health and safety and the health of communities are also important to sustainable development. How opposition parties have missed these fundamental prerequisites and the sterling work that is already on-going on many facets of sustainable development, to lash out at the consultation process or at me, is incomprehensible.

I hope for maturity from all other sectors of civil society so that a roadmap that safeguards all that belongs to our future generations will be completed.

Mr Pullicino is Minister for Rural Affairs and the Environment.