While commending the editorial writer for the recent editorials on the environmental deficit that we are all experiencing as well as the government's need to get real with long-tried and tested formulae to address the alternative energy issue, I regret to note that the following public appeals of mine to the government on behalf of the opposition have so far gone unheeded.

a) There should be an official reaction from the government side to the EU's 2007 Environment Policy Review wherein Malta fared very badly, particularly in the air pollution sector, which on its own accounts for 50 per cent of our EU environmental directive infringements.

b) The Maltese and Gozitan islands are in urgent need of a coherent and holistic national strategy on alternative energy.

c) Through the paucity of human resources allocated to these areas, the government is showing lack of political willto address various pollution areas - ranging from noise pollution to air pollution and light pollution.

Although the Prime Minister might not have been the minister responsible for the environment in 2007 he was nevertheless responsible for the entire central government.

Now that he is also directly responsible for the environment, sustainable development and Mepa, we urgently await his government's official reaction to the concern that the EU has shown about the fact that:

a) greenhouse emissions continued to increase by 6.1 per cent between 2004 and last year;

b) under current policies, emissions are projected to double between the basis year of the review and 2010;

c) Malta has treated alternative energy so lightly that its sectoral contribution to the environment so far has been negligible - at a time when we should be planning to see our renewables reach the 10 per cent mark by 2020;

d) Malta has a dismal record regarding municipal waste management while our municipal waster per capita is much higher than the EU average.

With 84 per cent of the Maltese population considering the environment to be a top-priority issue according to a recent Eurobarometer survey, this goes to prove that these concerns are not merely Labour Party worries but concerns that span right across the entire political spectrum and Maltese society at large.