The coincidence of Carmelo Aquilina's letter Government's Hazy Thinking and George Pullicino's piece Climate Protection At A Profit Not A Cost (June 5) was truly remarkable, precisely because the second illustrated the thesis of the first to perfection.
The minister makes a series of dramatically incorrect statements, starting with "Well over half the threat to climate comes from CO2 released by burning fossil fuels. It disappears if customers use energy efficiently and cost effectively". The threat will not disappear in either case, least of all in the case of "cost-effective" use of energy. As if the atmosphere cares a hoot if the CO2 it is being flooded with has been produced expensively or not.
But Minister Pullicino returns to the charge: "Alternatively, much of this part of the threat disappears if low carbon-fuels (natural gas) are substituted... And if fossil fuels are converted more efficiently into electricity". Again this is far from the case. What can be said is that were Malta to switch completely to natural gas for electricity generation, and to concentrate on converting fossil-fuels more efficiently into electricity, we should see a decrease in the amount of (power station) CO2 we are emitting now. Of course, if our demand for electricity keeps going up, then there will be no decrease in emitted CO2. This is exactly what is happening in the private transport sector. Manufacturers are making huge efforts to increase engine efficiency and so cut back emissions. But a large increase in car numbers and in distances travelled are wiping out gains from individual vehicles.
Then came a reference to "Malta's vision with regard to renewable energy from wind".
As the Cabinet is mentioned as debating "a generation plan for the future", perhaps this is an example of what Mr Aquilina calls "Cabinet hallucinating". Certainly, the Cabinet has been oscillating between micro-wind on housetops (incentives in the 2006 budget but set to be torpedoed by undefined planning regulations); "medium wind" on the edge of built-up areas (deemed to be too expensive); on-shore wind farms, condemned as noisy eyesores; off-shore farms on sites wrongly dismissed as "marginal" compared to "international off shore sites"; and on to deep water installations announced in Vienna. I think we can be excused for feeling dizzy. The minister then points to the National Allocation Plan as a document providing "a clear indication that [Malta] wishes to cut its contribution of greenhouse gases". He may be referring to the usual "pompous ass" introduction which asserts that "Malta does not at present have any quantified greenhouse gas emission targets or limitations. However Malta fully supports the European Commission in leading all 25 member states towards ambitious reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, and thus taking a leading role in international action on climate change".
The plan adopts an imaginative "business-as-usual" scenario, granting itself generous GHG allowances. There are programmes a-plenty, but few targets if any; proposals suddenly transformed into solutions; ghostly not to say fraudulent efficiency improvements; no mention of last month's medium speed diesel generators but news of a second combined cycle gas turbine at Delimara.
Minister Pullicino has more good advice - even "when driving...[we] can contribute to reduce climate change too". Perhaps this is a magic property of the Manikata section of the Trans-European Network road, which will not only allow those extra 3,000 cars to run on carbon-free fuel but will also render the destruction of the 600,000m3 per annum source of ground water under Miziep ridge by the TEN tunnel and the golf course quite harmless. In fact a Miziep ridge covered with vines, followed by a CO2-free reverse miracle would recover the lost water and help to "dispel the myth that environment works against progress". Perhaps Mr Aquilina got it all wrong - it is environmentalists who habitually hallucinate and not Cabinet ministers.