Editorial

Last month was the warmest January we have had in 84 years, i.e. since proper meteorological records have been kept. The fine weather was surely welcomed by most people and doubly welcomed by those who did not have to use up so much electricity to heat their homes or workplaces. Yet the unusual sun-filled January days also brought home to us in Malta the fact that temperatures all around the world are rising, and are destined to keep rising - with potentially catastrophic consequences for life on Earth as we know it.

Milder January weather all over Europe is just the tip of the (disappearing) iceberg, as it were. We have long been seeing the effects of global warming around the world: creeping desertification in Africa and Asia, the drying up of the Aral and Caspian seas, "funny weather" in various parts of the world, and, indeed, melting icebergs and snowcaps.

It did not need the International Panel on Climate Change, which released its report last week, to blame man-made causes for global warming, or the greenhouse effect, as it is known. Carbon emissions have long been known to seriously damage the ozone layer which protects the world from solar radiation. At the same time, the cutting down of large swathes of rainforests, especially in the Amazon, makes matters worse, since trees and plants remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. And carbon emissions are caused by consumption of petroleum and other fossil fuels.

With increasing demand for oil caused by more widespread use of appliances, including cars - as economies continue to grow - and growing demand for oil by the booming economies of China and India, whose populations together account for around 40 per cent of the world's total, carbon emissions can only get worse. Paradoxically, warmer weather all over the world means less demand for heating oil and electricity generation, and thus apparently a breather for the ozone layer, but it also means - as the IPCC report spells out - rising sea levels, disappearance of stretches of coastline, a reduction in rainfall, and melting of the polar icecaps.

Certainly, the great industrial powerhouses, such as the United States - which alone accounts for 25 per cent of the world's carbon emissions - Russia, and now China and India, and even other emerging economies like Brazil, all of which cover huge surface areas, are most to blame. On them rests the major responsibility for stopping the growth of global warming and climate change.

However, tiny Malta too (its government and citizens) can play its part. As Environment Minister George Pullicino has told The Times, a reduction in emissions needs not only government-induced change, but also modifications to our daily behaviour and attitudes towards consumption of resources.

There are a few things Government could do, although it has already taken a few steps, to ensure a more careful use of energy. One of the greatest culprits of global warming is definitely the internal combustion engine. Malta has a very high ratio of motor vehicles compared to its population. Yet many of the cars on our roads are very wasteful of energy, being old models kept ticking by their careful owners. Government, as is done in other countries, should introduce financial incentives for scrapping older vehicles and replacing them with new, more energy-efficient cars, if not hybrid or all-electric models.

Also, it should give greater priority to alternative, renewable sources of energy. Solar heating and photovoltaic cells should be more strongly incentivised. Wind power, even land-based wind power, should be seriously looked into. And government departments could give the lead in energy-saving by, for example, rewarding employees for coming up with energy-saving ideas and actions.

And, as we said, personal habits must change - and not only because the surcharge on water and electricity bills should have made people less wasteful of energy and water (which needs electricity to produce). The recent drop in international oil prices should not deceive us into thinking that the energy crisis is over and that we can return to our wasteful ways.

In this connection, one can only describe as an election gimmick the MLP deputy leader's promise, made at the party general conference last Friday, that a Labour government would reduce the utility surcharge "immediately". Admittedly, low-income families must be helped to shoulder the burden (thousands of them are already exempt), but in the end the taxpayer would have to pay, one way or the other, for the higher cost of fuel which, as the MLP surely knows, is totally imported.