The government was spending a total of €735 million on projects which would mean better air quality, Parliamentary Secretary Mario de Marco told Parliament this morning.
"We are making choices in favour of the environment," he said during the power station extension debate.
He said that €220 million were expected to be spent on an undersea cable to link to the European power grid, €160 million on the power station extension, €300 million on a large wind farm and €55 million on new buses.
Dr de Marco said power stations and transport had long been recognised as being the main sources of harmful emissions and the air quality plan had targeted those areas in particular.
Among the measures taken over the years, were the importation of fuel with lower sulphur content, subsidies on the buses to encourage people to use public transport, the installation of precipitators at the power stations, the closure of the rubbish dumps and old incinerators and plans to close Marsa power station.
Dr de Marco said the new power station extension would require an environment permit from Mepa. Before issuing such a permit, Mepa would consider air and sea emissions and would seek commitments on the volume of ash that would be produced and how it would be disposed of.
Government policy was that such waste should be exported, in a way which respected EU directives and international conventions. Indeed, it was worth pointing out that such waste was currently exported to Germany, not African countries, as had been claimed.
Dr de Marco said there was no doubt that some fuels were cleaner than others, but what was important was the technology that was used, since that controlled the emissions going into the air.
The technology selected for Delimara would not exclude the use of gas oil or gas, should that be required. But one also needed to keep in mind that the switch-over to the cleaner gas would also require huge storage facilities.
Dr de Marco said that Mepa would ensure that all air quality directives were respected and that there was real-time and publicly available emissions monitoring.
Earlier, PL environment spokesman Leo Brincat hit out at the government for having opted to use heavy fuel oil instead of gas at Delimara. This, he said, contradicted the government's own promises.
It also ignored health consideration and the detrimental impact which the use of this fuel would have on the environment. Civil Society, particularly environment NGOs, had been ignored, Mr Brincat said.
It was also shameful that the country would be producing more hazardous waste when it should really be reducing such volumes.
As former Nationalist minister Michael Falzon had said, decisions such as this undermined Malta's environmental credentials.