Christian Peregin
Labour MP to move climate change Bill
Labour's spokesman for the environment, Leo Brincat, yesterday promised to move a Private Members' Bill in Parliament in the coming days calling for legislation on climate change.
During a meeting with the chairman of the government's Climate Change Committee, David Spiteri Gingell, Mr Brincat said the committee's brief was purely strategic and did not specify the need for laws and enforcement to help Malta reach its emission and environmental targets. Malta was already very late in terms of an action plan for climate change and the introduction of renewable energy sources.
Mr Brincat called for an annual parliamentary report that would set a system of checks and balances, forcing the government to be more accountable. The public needed to be informed every step of the way so that it could participate in reducing Malta's carbon footprint.
Mr Spiteri Gingell said he agreed with a system of annual reports that would review the year's progress and suggest improvements because technology evolves radically each year. The committee was working on a strategic report to be submitted to the government by November 1.
He said the report will be technology-neutral and would provide the framework by which different sources of renewable energy could be adopted, a position which Mr Brincat agreed on.
On August 18, The Times carried an interview with Mr Spiteri Gingell where he spoke about the Climate Change Committee and the need to make their reports implementable.
Later that day, Mr Brincat released a press statement calling for a committee to be set up to focus on climate change legislation, raising questions as to what the differences were between his proposed committee and the one that the government had set up. Mr Brincat then clarified his position and said he wanted to see legislation and enforcement rather than empty strategies and reports that are left on the shelf.
Mr Brincat said yesterday that he decided to move the Private Members' Bill because the government refused to take notice of the proposals he made in his August statement.
Climate change needs to be tackled holistically, by looking at how it will affect various sectors such as tourism, illegal migration, agriculture and water resources, Mr Brincat said.
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M Camenzuli
Sep 10th 2008, 22:07
I suppose Leo Brincat's Global Warming Bill
will include higher rates for electricity and fuel,
to discourage their use and the fossil fuels they use up.
His leader, Joe Muscat, though, on the same day is proposing
to make electricity and fuels "basic rights", meaning
that he will give them out for free or at ridiculously cheap rates.
Can Labour decide what it is going to do?
Is it going to give electricity and fuels for free as a "basic right"?
or is it going to save the planet with exorbitant rates that discourage fossil fuel use?
.
P.Schembri
Sep 10th 2008, 19:53
In your haste to lambast the MLP, you are forgetting that this isn't a national problem but a global one. People such as you are damaging our country. With blue blinkered eyesight you don't see the danger that our children will be facing in a few years time. This isn't a political problem. This is a universal problem. And stop politicising the environment and global warming issues. You're doing more damage than good.
M Camenzuli
Sep 10th 2008, 18:59
Hot air from politikanti certainly does not help global warming.
What will this Private Member's Bill exactly do?
If the lack of climate change legislation
is the great problem of the summer of '08
(together with that other big problem that 16-year-olds cannot vote in local elections),
then we're really have very few problems!
Malcolm Borg
Sep 10th 2008, 17:10
@John Spiteri
Carbon dioxide is a pollutant in that a large excess of it can cause the global warming phenomenon. Some carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has always been vital to sustain life but the huge amounts of this gas due to human civilisation is far in excess of what the Earth needs to sustain life.
And yes carbon is the substance of life but it comes in various shapes and sizes. Plastic is amde up of carbon too! Oxygen is vital for life too...try inhaling arsenic trioxide!
John Spiteri
Sep 10th 2008, 16:51
And this is the party that wants to make access to energy a right? the left hand does not know what the right hand does. I believe they have absolutely no idea on what they are on about, and the consequences it entails.
fighting climate change is as feasible as Canute fighting the tide. Carbon, the substance of life has been labeled a pollutant. How idiotic can we get?
then we get people here, sniggering in 'moral' superiority if someone professes a belief in God. little do they understand that their blind faith in so called man made climate change stands on far more irrational ground.
Martin Galea De Giovanni
Sep 10th 2008, 15:35
@ C. Scerri. Moving away from fossil fuels (and nuclear) does not necessarily equate to increased expenses, at least not in the long term. These sources of energy come at a great cost to the environment, health and people's rights (in the places where they are extracted from). Let's not forget that by importing all our energy requirements, means that we are at the mercy of countries which are anything but stable .... now how's that for financial sense ? ..not to mention sovereignty.....
The first steps should be to save energy in fact. That's were we could make some the biggest difference in the shortest time.... and in most cases both at household levels and also at a national level we're speaking about money savings and not expenses ....
Visit FoE's website to find out more http://www.foemalta.org/climatechange
C. Scerri
Sep 10th 2008, 14:36
@ Martin Galea - Though I agreein reducing emissions BUT are those are signing the petitions aware that reduction in CO2 emissions means an increase in the actual costs per head? Are they willing to shoulder this increase in "tax" or do they consider that "others" shall pay?
M Camenzuli
Sep 10th 2008, 12:09
The Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
eminent sicentist Rajendra Pachauri,
has recently said that the best thing we can all do to counter climate change is to
eat less meat.
Figures show that meat production puts more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere
than all transport.
Cows, and to a lesser extent sheep and goats,
emit large volumes of methane gas from both ends and
methane gas is a hundred times more damaging to the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.
We should also drive less,
walk and bike more and shun air travel.
Sea travel and train travel are much better.
I believe Labour supporters will take to this new way of life with enthusiasm and alacrity.
Anyway, we were all used to taking the catamaran to Sicily
and consuming bulk-bought meat
when Leo Brincat was in Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici's cabinet in the mid-1980s.
He was then responsbile for housing
and he was giving out ex-British Forces barracks in housing schemes.
The barracks had corrugated iron roofs that were a wonder against global warming
as they used the sun's energy to heat the houses.
Well done Leo for these wonderful ideas.
.
Martin Galea De Giovanni
Sep 10th 2008, 11:32
Friends of the Earth Malta has been collecting signatures from the public since last February. The petition is asking the Maltese government to pass a bill to reduce the country's annual emissions of carbon dioxide year on year.
Please sign the petition (and more info) here : http://www.foemalta.org/bigask