As negotiators in Paris seek an ambitious solution to rising temperatures, Alexander Borg Olivier recalls Malta’s pioneering efforts 25 years ago that laid the foundation for international action on climate change.

A quarter of a century has gone by and climate change remains a major threat – but it is still not too late, according to the former ambassador of Malta to the United Nations in New York.

Alexander Borg Olivier had spearheaded negotiations at the United Nations on behalf of Malta which in 1988 had requested the UN to take action to protect the global climate.

Malta’s initiative was timely and important, said Dr Borg Olivier, as it was the political consensus for international action forged at the time that led to the 1992 UN Framework Convention on the Protection of Global Climate. The world was becoming increasingly aware and concerned that human activity was adversely affecting the global environment, he recalls.

Meanwhile the Cold War was ending and there was an opportunity for the international community to shift from security concerns and East-West confrontation to universal collaboration on sustainable development.

Malta’s initiative for the protection of global climate for the benefit of mankind provided an excellent opportunity to kick off this new dialogue, Dr Borg Olivier said. There was the need for international action but this could not have gone forward without a strategy based on political consensus.

Alexander Borg Olivier with Ronald Reagan when the former US President visited the UN in 1989.

Despite the challenges, the consensus was forged under Malta’s leadership at the UN in the three years following the presentation of the climate proposal in 1988.

But why was consensus difficult to achieve?

State interests were very different, and balancing them to maintain support to keep going forward presented “formidable challenges”, Dr Borg Olivier said.

“China and India want to develop using cheap coal or fossil fuel. The rich want to live in luxury in clean air or sea environments. The US does not want to place constraints on road transport that is essential to its economy…

“The developing world wants to develop as quickly as possible to reach standards attained in the developed world, but it would stop using cheap polluting approaches if the developed world provided substantial financial assistance and transferred the expensive clean technologies.”

All this had to be painstakingly negotiated and it took a lot of time and effort.

Will the negotiations in Paris now be too little, too late?

For Dr Borg Olivier, the results over the past 25 years have been many and varied.

Malta’s initiative in 1988 contributed significantly to the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, at which the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was adopted.

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol was also a significant landmark in this context, although it has expired and needs to be supplemented with new, legally binding arrangements.

“It is true that 25 years have gone by with insufficient progress in the battle to address the continuing threat of uncontrolled climate change, but on the positive side, many fundamental changes have taken place over the years since the Rio conference, without which the world would today be in a much worse state.”

Still, more needs to be done and a legally-binding agreement has to come out of the Paris summit. “The science has been comprehensively broadened, and the political consensus for needed action has been establisheduniversally. This allows for more effective strategies and commitments.

“Present and future generations are counting on it. It is not too late. The Economist has rightly described climate change as ‘a colossal but slow-moving problem spanning generations’. Our generation must do its part.”