One World... Allocating emissions

Malta's case
Malta does not have any individual reduction commitment limiting the production of greenhouse gasses but it fully supports the European Commission policy and its leading role in the international action on climate change. Also, as a member state of the European Union, Malta is now bound by the obligations set out in European Union legislation, including the Emissions Trading Directive.

Malta's overall greenhouse gas emissions are very small when compared to those of the European Union as a whole. In fact, Malta's emissions of GHGs in 2002 were just 0.068 per cent of the total EU-15 emissions and 0.058 per cent of the total EU-25 emissions. This reflects the small size of the country in geographical, population and economic terms. In addition, Malta has one of the lowest emission rates per capita within the EU (seven tonnes of CO2 equivalent per capita, compared to 11 tonnes for the EU-25).

However, the specific GHG emissions per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) for Malta are 924 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per million euro of GDP as against the EU average of 607 tonnes. This in part reflects the fact that Malta is too small to benefit from "economies of scale" (for example, in electricity production) and that it is (at present and for at least the duration of this second trading period) an isolated energy system with a limited choice of fuels.