Climate change will intensify immigration, so it is in Malta’s interest to reach a deal that assists developing and vulnerable countries, according to Resources Minister George Pullicino.

Speaking in Copenhagen as negotiations continued among the world’s environment ministers, he said it was unfortunate that the EU was the only bloc that came with two positive and concrete proposals.

“There has been nothing to inspire enthusiasm so far,” he said.

Despite the bleak outlook so far, however, there was still hope for things to change in the last minute, as had happened in previous summits of this nature,he said.

He said the EU had proposed raising its own targets to fight climate change, as long as the commitment was equitable across the globe, especially the worst offenders like the USA, China, India and Brazil.

Mr Pullicino announced that Malta has formally applied to be listed as part of the Annex I countries of the UN convention on climate change.

He stressed that this did not mean Malta would lose any benefits or take on any more burdens, but it would show our “moral” and “legal” commitment.

Since Malta was the first UN country to mention climate change 21 years ago, this was a natural step, he said, Up till now, and until Malta’s application is approved, it was listed as part of the developing countries, even though the European community as a whole is already listed as Annex I.

Mr Pullicino said this was a question of transparency and clarity more than anything new.

He also took the opportunity to agree with the view that NGOs and protesters were unfairly pointing fingers at the EU.

“The problem with Europe is that we do a lot behind closed doors but we do not communicate our message clearly enough to the people out there,” he said.

He said a positive sign was that the G77 countries were unusually divided, giving the other blocs an opportunity to engage them further into discussions.

He also expressed hope that US President Barack Obama would not come empty-handed.