The Department of International Relations of the University of Malta needs to be congratulated for having stimulated the climate debate further during its recent symposium at the Aula Magna where a number of keynote speakers gave their viewpoint on our national response to global action on climate change.
I would like to share a few thoughts expressed and observations made which for some reason or other were not replied to:
• Malta still has to begin implementing the mitigation efforts approved by Parliament four months ago, while our adaptation measures still need to be formulated, agreed upon and discussed, before we can even start thinking of the implementation process.
• Complacency can prove to be our undoing particularly when we come across official statements as we did last October by the minister for conventional energy, wherein he reassured us that the 20 per cent reduction of CO2 emissions would be reached by 2012 - well ahead of time, and this from the electricity generation process alone.
• We still need to be convinced that there is a deep commitment and a strong political will to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels as well as a sign of concerted action to invest in efficiency and clean energy.
• There are still too many loose ends in the approved climate strategy which remain wish lists, while measures we have long agreed upon like energy performance certificates in the building sector, which should have been introduced as of January last year, have not yet started being carried out to date.
• It is a matter of concern that neither sustainable development per se, nor the workings of the National Commission for Sustainable Development, seem to have been factored into the strategy that we are meant to adopt to mitigate the effects of climate change.
• While MTA spokesmen had reacted almost indifferently at the time when the Deutsche Bank Research Report in April 2008 had identified Malta as the European destination with the most to loose if current global warming trends continue, many continue to ignore the fact, that, after all, a reduction in rainfall, an increase in the strength of storms as well as very hot summers and milder winters had long been predicted by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in our region, while the EU White Paper on Adaptation highlights very clearly the Southern Mediterranean and coastal sites as being the most vulnerable.
• While the PM had glossed over the issue of "climate refugees" in Parliament when I had raised the issue at the end of a statement of his following an EU Climate Summit, as things stand today, although climate refugees have no formal definition or status, their plight is a reality that we cannot run away from, particularly since ecologically displaced people are bound to increase in numbers.
• Although the Stern Review on the economics of climate change irrevocably altered the climate debate when it came out in October 2006, the economic aspect of climate change still needs to be addressed seriously on our home front.
• How many economists and sociologists have been officially nominated to serve on the Ministry of Resources Adaptation group of experts since they are expected to look at such socio-economic sectors as tourism and agriculture among others? From the list I have in hand it seems to be none.
• While cutting consumption through energy efficiency is a definite plus, where does Malta feature within the international norms that define "fuel poverty" as those families who spend more than 10 per cent of their income on lighting and heating out of sheer basic necessity.
• We should not console ourselves by the fact that the EU seems to be pushing strongly in the direction of embracing action that will contain temperature rises to 2°C by 2050, since the average temperature increase for the Mediterranean region is likely to be above the two degree mark, bringing with it related environmental and socio-economic consequences.
And finally:
• How many people in Malta know how to carry out a greenhouse gas inventory? How many are qualified reviewers? And also how many people in each government sector are being inducted in climate change policy?
All this data is relevant since it can help us gauge and assess our level of preparedness.