‘Government is ignoring opposition on environment’

The government did not even honour the promises it made in the Pre-Budget Document but Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi and Resource Minister George Pullicino failed to answer questions raised by the opposition and ignored calls to publish the audit report about the Delimara power station.

Speaking during the debate on the Budget Measures Implementation Bill, Opposition spokesman on the environment Leo Brincat said the same thing happened in the case of the plan for the implementation of environment politics, cost effective targets and time frames.

He had also asked the government about the number of cases Mepa had acted upon with regards to pollution and other environmental issues between 2002 and 2010. Once more, the government failed to reply.

Turning to biodiversity, Mr Brincat said it was important to examine its impact on the economic sector. Tertiary educational institutions needed to be better equipped for environmental studies.

He agreed with Parliamentary Secretary Mario de Marco that Malta should strive to reach certain standards on sustainable development instead of the current regression. He felt surprised that the government had not yet implemented the State of the Environment Report and the suggestions put forward by the Commission for Sustainable Development. He added that recently, the PN press had continuously attacked NGOs who had criticised government’s policies.

It was high time that the problem of noise pollution was given priority. Even though the government had claimed that this was a dedicated Budget, nothing was said about green jobs which were supposed to come into effect soon.

Malta had one of the lowest rates of use of alternative energy sources among EU countries. EU targets regarding alternative energy were not being met. The EU, being aware that Malta was lagging behind in this area, had set the lowest targets. The opposition believed the best option was to go for a mixture of different energy sources.

The government was not giving importance to the Desertec Project – the ambitious $550 billion project to generate electricity for Europe and North Africa through solar collectors arrayed in the desert. During last Wednesday’s sitting, Mr Brincat said, he had asked about this project. The minister replied that the government was in favour of using such solar energy from North Africa. Mr Brincat said countries such as Montenegro and Serbia had already taken a firm public position regarding this issue. What was holding Malta back from stating its position?

A sum of money has been allocated in the Budget for investment in wind energy. It was not clear whether this investment was to cover Gozo as well as Malta and there was the need for more detailed information. Besides, the Budget clearly showed that the government was not giving priority to the issue of water.

It seemed Malta was giving a false impression to foreign suppliers of equipment related to alternative energy sources. This was due to the fact that the government was not being transparent in its dealings, so much so that it was giving the impression that it was ready to award a tender to a particular company. Malta could not afford to project such a bad image.

Although the minister had promised the publication of documentation on the wind farm project at Is-Sikka l-Bajda at the time of the EIA, wind data was essential to guide prospective investors.

Turning to the interconnector between Malta and Sicily, the minister had said that this was due to start early next year but would not be finished before three years. Malta was risking harsh penalties from the EU because of the Marsa power station. He asked whether the interconnector would be installed in time.

Speaking about the climate change, he said that he was expecting the gvernment to give information about the measures which had actually been implemented out of those proposed.

The recent Gingell Report did not give enough importance to the impact climate change was having on tourism.

The government had decided that the climate change issue should be handled by the Malta Resource Authority. The opposition agreed with this. However, it was concerned that the MRA was already overloaded and doubted whether it could deal with this as well.

Mr Brincat also said that until the country had clean sources of electric power, the use of electric vehicles would not reduce CO2 emissions since recharging these vehicles would still need fossil fuel. One would have expected the government to first publish the study of the Maltese-appointed working group on electric cars before making budget proposals.

The proposal for an incinerator in the southern part of Malta was postponed to 2015. Was this due to electoral considerations?

Concluding, he said that it was understandable that it was not possible to consider all issues in the Budget but such important issues as those of the interconnector and wind farms should be discussed in the ensuing debates. This would offer more tangible results and manifest more clearly the government’s plans for next year.