CO2 emissions - getting our energy generation sorted

Last week Malta lost its bid to raise its permitted levels of CO2 emissions between 2008 and 2012. The Commission had established these levels at 2.1 million tonnes a year during that period.

It has been stated that the government has the option of taking the Commission to court. We are almost sure that it will. Maltese culture is a litigious one. Also, many people think that even when you are wrong there is no harm in trying your luck at the courts. This is 'Maltese roulette'.

But seriously, what does this CO2 business really imply? First of all we need to reduce CO2 emissions. It is imperative that we double our effort to seek alternative energy resources and take this problem more seriously.

We need to tighten up expenditure and switch the saved resources to this transformation. We can buy more of our electricity from the rest of Europe as Government is already planning to do by linking our country to the European grid.

Government must also bear in mind that the long-term effects of not dealing with global warming, which is what the task of reducing CO2 emissions is all about, can have more devastating effects on the Maltese than it can imagine.

It must not, for a moment, forget that in 1989, a Nationalist government had gone to the UN to have it declare climate as the 'common concern' of mankind. So where does Malta place itself now - among the trendsetters or moaners?

We are sure that if Malta does what it needs to do, and there's a lot it can do, to reduce CO2 emissions, it will not regret it. But it takes leadership and determination.

It is surprising what many states, even the smallest ones, are doing to reduce CO2 emissions. We have been informed that in Iceland, where non-fossil fuel energy is not in short supply, there is talk of using hydroelectric power, which is relatively cheap, to produce hydrogen which could then be used to drive buses and automobiles.

In Malta we have never really appreciated the power of research and its funding. And many of our institutions of higher learning are but glorified schools where professional part-timers parachute in to 'lecture' and then disappear until the next jump. It is time to stop moaning and protesting and do what is in the nation's interest.