Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1101649
14 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 7 APRIL 2019 INTERVIEW Malta seems to be experiencing unusual weather patterns of late; suffice it to mention the recent northeasterly gale that caused an estimated nine million euro in damages. Are we looking directly at a symptom of climate change in action… and if so, what other meteorological surprises should we be bracing ourselves for? Whether or not you can talk of that individual storm as an example of climate change… the fact is that we do have scien- tific evidence that the weather is definitely going to change. If there were any doubts about the reality of climate change, five or 10 years ago – and yes, there were many doubts: because the science wasn't fully developed back then – we have now found out that, especially through the recent IPCC reports, we have gone beyond a certain point in the levels of CO2 in the at- mosphere. A future change in climate is, therefore, practically inevitable. So much so, that even the discourse has changed: where, before, we used to talk about 'mitigating' or 'trying to stop' climate change… now, from a political point of view, the discussion has shifted from 'mitigation' to 'adaptation'. The aim is now to try to develop sys- tems, in various sectors, to cope with the change. As to what to expect in future: there are vari- ous global projections. To put it in simple terms: once the tem- perature starts to rise in cer- tain parts of the world, which triggers off particular weather events – such as the 'El Nino' current, which moves from the south to the north – then au- tomatically, there are going to be changes. El Nino affects the weather patterns in Europe. Ire- land recently had its first torna- do in centuries, for instance. So, we are seeing changes, not nec- essarily in the sense that these weather anomalies have never happened before… but because their frequency is increasing. I remember, as a child, seeing 'wa- ter tornadoes' very occasionally. But not almost every year, as is happening now. Likewise, we are getting more rain in summer than before. Again, this is not, in itself, unique or unprecedented. We have had storms in the mid- dle of July or August in the past. But now we're seeing a change in rainfall patterns, which might affect those systems – especially in sectors such as agriculture – which are accustomed to this sort of thing with a lot less fre- quency. You recently authored a research paper, published in the Journal of The Malta Chamber of Science, which outlined the major implications for Malta. Could you give an overview of how the country will be impacted in the long term? There are two major factors that will have a direct impact on our islands. One is a global rise in sea-levels, estimated at be- tween 0.7 and 1 metre… which I should stress is high, for Malta. The study you mentioned also featured maps to indicate the ar- eas that will be hardest hit. Some coastal areas will be severely af- fected: the Sliema and Ghallis coastlines, for instance, with major implications for the road network, traffic and so on. Apart from the issue of submerged areas, there is also the threat of increased salinity levels of the soil. This is already a problem, as we have over-extracted from the water table anyway. As the sea-level rises, we can expect the salinity to increase. The second major implication concerns an increase in flash-flooding. But not because we'll be getting more rain; in fact, the annual precipitation will most likely be less – we might even go from 'semi-arid' to 'arid' – but the rainfall will come down in more concentrated bursts, over short- er periods of time. From now we can safely predict that this will cause floods; it will cause loss of soil… with serious implications for agriculture, among other things… and quite frankly, we're not doing very much to mitigate any of this. We are actually do- ing the opposite, by widening the roads, or putting more con- crete over the fields… so that instead of rain being captured and retained by the soil, we are providing it with shiny flat sur- faces, to ensure that it all rushes straight into the sea. So, if I'm understanding correctly: while the rest of the world has gone from 'mitigation' to 'adaptation'… in Malta, we never tried to mitigate, and we're not even trying to adapt… Well, it's not as though other countries have done all that much to adapt either. There are examples of countries and cities which have taken positive, di- rect action; but they are few and far between. To be honest, Mal- ta is not all that very different from other countries: and espe- cially from cities, which – owing to our size and logistics – make for a better comparison. But still: we are not doing very much to adapt to these new realities, no. You would think that – in a semi-arid country, where water is in short supply – we would naturally want to protect our only natural water table. Even for purely practical reasons: if something happens to our ener- gy supply – which is all imported – and we can no longer rely on our Reverse Osmosis plants… it is the water table that will save us. Yet we have invested in very expensive technology; and we have become over-reliant on this technology, when there is no guarantee that it will save us in the long term. Because in Malta, like most other countries, the political approach has al- ways been to offer a short-term solution based on technology. In a sense it is inevitable, as gov- ernments think mainly in terms of only five years. It is easy to sell a technological solution that will only postpone the problem for future generations to solve. It is a lot harder for politicians to tell the people, "Listen, we have to take serious decisions today, because otherwise, in 50 years' time, there might no longer be a Malta to save…" Yet, all along there was a lot we could have done – if not to mitigate climate change, just to improve the environment for its own sake – but never did. Alternative energy, for instance. There was once talk of deep-sea wind-farms, which fizzled out into nothing. Why do you think we have failed to ever take this issue seriously? I think… and it's not an easy thing to say… I think the main problem is that we have always struggled, as a nation, to come up with a vision. We never really came up with a vision of where we want to go as a country, and who we want to be. To be fair, in the past there were other, more pressing challenges. We used to struggle economically: the post-war years, in particu- lar, were very difficult times. But come the 1990s, we started to see an increase in GDP, which has continued ever since. For such a small island, that's quite a success, in itself. So the model of choice has always been econom- ic growth… and because gov- ernments only have five years to prove themselves, the issue has always been: who can de- liver economic growth the fast- est? Right now, for instance, our chosen economic model is the easiest, fastest, and least sustain- able one of all. Construction. We also actively pursue a policy to encourage population growth, because we think… [pause] Sometimes, I get the feeling that we only ever think on Sunday morning. We wake up on Sun- day, think what is good for that day only… and stop there. And to me, that is scary. You can't sit and wait to see what will happen on Sunday morning, to know what your next major policy de- cision will be... Could you give a few concrete Malta is now firmly set to miss its international carbon emission reduction targets, as established by the Kyoto Protocol, in 2020. Prof. MARIA ATTARD, head of the University's Climate Change and Sustainability, contends that our short-term approach not only fails to address the root problem… but may even make it worse We are doing the opposite Raphael Vassallo Raphael Vassallo rvassallo@mediatoday.com.mt