Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1101649
15 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 7 APRIL 2019 INTERVIEW (excuse the pun) examples of ways in which we are not thinking far enough head? There are almost too many to choose from. Take the policy to turn Gozo into an 'electric car' island, for instance. How is that even possible… when we are also digging a tunnel to max- imise the number of motorised cars that can drive to Gozo? There is no consistency there. It's like looking at a jigsaw puz- zle, where none of the pieces seems to fit. Another example is planning permits for develop- ment in flood-prone areas. That same study referred to earlier also projects that a substantial part of Manoel Island will be submerged by rising sea lev- els in future. Was any thought given to that, when deciding on the Manoel Island project? The same goes for other coastal and low-lying areas. Take the storm we experienced last month, for example. Luckily, no one died… but there was a huge cost in terms of damage – which I think hasn't been fully calcu- lated yet – and if we are to ex- pect similar storms on a yearly basis, we should be looking to mitigate the impacts from now. The cumulative cost of regular extreme weather events is likely to be huge. Yet we are not even thinking about any of that… I can see the concern with the lack of pre-planning; but let's be blunt about the situation. Apart from 'thinking'… what can actually be done about rising sea-levels and changing weather patterns? The most immediate answer is that we can, and should, be funding more research into cli- mate change. But I disagree that nothing can be done about it at all. One thing that needs to be done is for a country – any country, and Malta could be the one – to develop a system that successfully adapts to the pre- dicted changes. Malta is com- parable to any medium-sized city... so a system that works here, could work in other cities, too. So, Malta can lead by exam- ple on this issue: as, let's face it, we have done it before. There is an irony in all this: Malta actu- ally led the international discus- sion on climate change, when it first started. We have been dis- cussing climate change for the past 40 years; and we have been talking about sustainability for much longer. Malta was in- volved in these discussions from the beginning. So we do know what we should be doing… yet we're not doing it. But what difference can Malta really make with regard to CO2 emissions? Our power stations surely can't contribute any significant amount… we don't have the sort of heavy industry of the kind that exists elsewhere. What else is there that we can even take action about? There are a few other areas. Our shipping emissions, for instance, are not calculated in Malta's official emissions rate… and this is wrong. But in other areas, it is true that our con- tribution doesn't amount to much, by international stand- ards. This, however, doesn't mean we should not be striv- ing to reduce our carbon emis- sions anyway. It is something we should be doing for the sake of air quality, and also to meet our international obligations. We've already missed our pre- vious targets, and now we are set to miss the 2020 targets… by a lot. But to answer you spe- cifically on the areas we have to look into: traditionally, our two main sources of CO2 emissions have always been energy gener- ation, and transport. Now that energy production has shifted from oil to gas… the focus au- tomatically shifts to transport. But that has to be qualified: the real underlying problem is not 'transport' in general… it is cars. And what are we doing? We are providing more infrastructure, only for cars. Not for anything or anyone else. Not for cyclists; not for pedestrians, who want to lead more active, healthier life- style; not for those who make a conscious decision to use public transport. Only for cars. Mean- while, we don't enforce existing bus lanes; and in some cases, we've even removed the few we had. So we're removing the in- frastructure for all of that… and we are replacing it only with more space for cars. To me, that is unacceptable. It is unaccepta- ble for the Environment Minis- ter to be constantly defending the Transport Minister, on the basis of 'electoral promises'. Of course, if you promised to build more roads, that is what you have to do, if elected. But should they have made those promises in the first place? It's counter to the common good. And that is what a politician's primary function should be: to identify the common good, and take policy decisions to achieve it. Our politicians are not doing this… Yet when confronted by activists making similar arguments, both the Transport and Environment Ministers defended government's road- building policy by pointing towards a reduction in traffic as a result of recent roadworks project… But that's just a short-term view. There is simply no way anyone will convince me that, by widening the roads, there will be less congestion in the longer term. On the contrary, there will be more congestion… because there will be more cars. We will also lose more soil – and agriculture with it – because our nice, shiny new roads also make precious rainwater run off into the sea. And it will have an impact on both urban and rural spaces. Meanwhile our popula- tion is increasing… so the de- mand for mobility is also rising in step. Our response is to sim- ply supply more infrastructure to meet the growing demand. [Pause] There's no end to that, though, is there? As the popu- lation grows, and the economy grows with it… the demand will always be higher than the sup- ply. As more people become fi- nancially comfortable, they will want to do more activities; and if their only means of transport is the car… you can build as many new roads as you like, as wide as possible, too. They will only get clogged up with more cars. And there are other issues. We are also removing trees to make more space for roads and car- parks. And yes, we're replanting more trees to compensate… in places like Comino, or Majjis- tral Park. [Pause] So in practice, what we are really doing is re- moving those trees from areas where the CO2 concentration is highest… and placing them where it is the lowest. Sorry, but we need those trees where peo- ple breathe; and we need them to provide shade cover where people live, because summers are going to get longer and hot- ter. But when you go through the checklist of everything we know we should be doing… you will find that we are, in fact, do- ing the opposite. And if you ask me, it's not just science that is telling us this. It's also common sense. opposite of what's needed PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAMES BIANCHI Sometimes, I get the feeling that we only ever think on Sunday morning. We wake up on Sunday, think what is good for that day only… and stop there. And to me, that is scary