Reaching Kyoto climate commitments

We are finally becoming increasingly aware of the great need for developing a global consensus on the threat posed to our lives by the climate change phenomenon.

Currently, and at a fast pace, debates on how we can maintain prosperity, not simply EU-wide, but rather globally, are intensifying. The G8 Summit in Heiligendamm has proven to be crucial in communicating the urgency with which we must proceed to international action - and fast. The EU has admirably taken the lead in this and its aims are very far- reaching. On problems of global warming and climate change, the EU is exerting pressure, not only on EU member states, but on the world, and is proposing a globally binding post-Kyoto system, nevertheless differentiated, agreed by 2009, with carbon trading at its core.

Polluting countries EU-wide are currently undermining the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) - what is considered to be the EU's key tool to reach its Kyoto climate commitments. We simply cannot afford, with the aims that are set, to have companies buy their way out of cutting their greenhouse gas emissions. CO2 emission reduction plans, according to the report 'Emmission Impossible' launched on Wednesday, could be met by buying Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects from outside the EU.

What is the CDM? Firstly, we must acknowledge that greenhouse gas emissions are a global problem and this is not confined to a continent. Under the 1997 international Kyoto Protocol, the CDM is an arrangement allowing industrialised countries with a greenhouse gas reduction commitment - like the EU nations have - to invest in emission-reducing projects in developing countries as an alternative to what is generally considered more costly emission reductions in their own countries.

It allows for a drastic reduction of costs for the industrialised countries, while achieving the same amount of emission reductions as without the CDM. In fact, despite fears of danger that this will lock the EU into high carbon investments and soaring emissions, the European Commission - responsible for the running of ETS - rejects any claims that CDMs undermine the emissions scheme, also because via CDM projects the international community is increasingly linked, besides generating investment in developing countries, especially from the private sector.

The application of CDM in itself is not innovative, but it is a framework that in itself encourages innovation in the fields of environment and energy.

What can you do personally in this respect? At a political level, commitments to fight global warming and climate change are at their strongest. The first steps begin at home.

You as a European individual have an important role to play too. By being more careful, and in the process reducing our electricity bill, we should now be more conscious of this issue and not allow this information to fall on deaf ears.

What is Malta's stand in this respect? Our country aims to achieve high standards when it comes to environmental protection and this has always been on the top part of the list in the agenda of the Nationalist Party. Malta is doing something about climate change and we should feel proud that our island is the lowest EU emitter overall and one of the lowest emitters per capita.

Malta, together with Cyprus, is in a unique position of being a non-Annex I country in relation to the Kyoto Protocol. For now, Malta has no set targets, despite being an EU member state with obligations under the ETS.

The EC has requested our emissions to be limited to 2.1 million tonnes CO2 equivalent per year (as against the requested 2.9 million tonnes per year). Malta is being proposed as a test bed for technologies with application to the Mediterranean region by the concept of EuroMedITI - which has proven to be instrumental in the lobbying for the structures required for the implementation of CDM to be set up in Malta.

Although projects in Malta are relatively small, it is admirable to see the great interest that we have in significantly contributing to achieve sustainable environmental and energy objectives.

The first project in Malta that is going through the CDM process is the WasteServ project. Other potential projects are those with the intent of switching the power stations to natural gas through a pipeline connection to Sicily, Ghallis and the burning of biogas for energy recovery at Ta' Zwejra, that would lead to the creation of 19,000 carbon credits a year for 10 years if it is approved as a CDM project.

In an EU based on solidarity, it should be all countries - and all companies for that matter - that should be accountable for change to take place, so that we can live in a more harmonised world and maintain a liveable world for our children.

David Casa is a member of the Temporary Committee on Climate Change at the European Parliament.

www.davidcasa.eu