Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1463329
L abour leader Robert Abela has promised humility in his speech marking a landslide election vic- tory to supporters at party headquarters. He promised to work together in the spir- it of national unity to continue moving Malta forward. His passion has been reflected in a vision that the extended mandate will offer a better quality of life, better op- portunities for everyone and a "more beautiful Malta". One need only visit the 1,000 new ideas launched in a PL manifesto that includes the possibility of an ambitious underground metro. ere are many other bright ideas, but I wish to focus on the sector of clean energy as a sus- tainer of our wellbeing. Reviewing the manifesto on this top- ic, one meets with basic targets such as laying a second underwater electricity inter connector with Sicily, erecting 200 new substations to stabilize the flow of electricity distribution, new incentives for domestic grey water reuse systems and most ambitious - is the drive to en- gage with the private sector to develop offshore renewable energy projects – both floating wind and solar. When mentioning renewable energy, a corollary topic follows in the manifesto, that is setting a national strategy on hy- drogen use. Perhaps, all this needs a powerful en- ergy minister who can break the shack- les that stopped us in the past from tak- ing bold steps to encourage the private sector to invest in renewable energy generating green hydrogen thus fight- ing climate change. One can question how a tiny rock in the central Mediterranean can make any recognizable effort to fight global climate change. e answer is given in the PL manifesto when it solemnly vows to team up with the private sector to ex- ploit new avenues in this important de- velopment to reduce carbon emissions. In the meantime, the climate is already changing and it would take time for ad- aptation measures to have an impact, provided they are implemented. e obvious, we can do now such as the need for the Water Services Corpora- tion to properly harvest rainwater in- stead of dumping it into the sea, directly or through the public sewers. It goes without saying, that Malta needs to address climate change as this leads to rises in sea levels. Such coast- al protection is vital, in view of the fact that most of our tourism infrastructure lies along the coast. As a result of warm- er temperatures, this would also result in a heightened exposure to disease, putting additional strains on our health services. Facts show the Meteorological Office, saying only half the average amount of rain was recorded this season. e caus- es of low precipitation do not exclude human-induced factors. One can blame this due to high emission of greenhouse gases results through human processes such as burning of fossil fuels. Locally, there exists an undeniable fact pointing to the increase in car- bon dioxide concentrations and other greenhouse gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide caused by daily activities - mainly due to the explosion in car own- ership, more travel by sea and air, not to forget emissions from heavy industry. Over the coming four years, Malta has been awarded over €320 million from the EU to tackle part of the climate change challenge. Perhaps, we can em- ulate Italy, which has taken the bull by the horns and commissioned Renexia (an energy firm) to install a vast floating wind farm off the island of Sicily. Little or no mention was made by PL strategists about the pressing need to convert Electrogas - a controversial generating plant, now run on fossil fuel to be converted in the future to run on green hydrogen. Now that the elect- ed party has a strong mandate having secured a third consecutive landslide political victory, it has wind in its sails. One hopes that the newly appointed energy minister will focus on the po- tential of exploiting our recent declared Economic Exclusivity Zone to use it to harvest energy on floating sea PV pan- els and/or wind turbines. is task comes as no minnow since it is a long-term project which, if proper- ly structured, can have many beneficial economic and environmental rewards. In the context of the Ukraine war, the general consensus among delegates is that EU countries start using alterna- tive sources of energy as a substitute for Russian gas. Many commentators on the European scene have waxed lyrical about a plan to produce green hydrogen using electrol- ysis powered on clean energy produced on offshore platforms. In our case, such platforms can be floated in Hurds' bank - currently being used free of charge by various foreign fuel tankers as an oil bunkering facility. One wonders if the exploratory talks started this year by the Finance minister with his counterparts in Qatar will ever succeed to convince the latter to invest in our visionary hy- drogen project. It is encouraging to observe that after three years in the making, we now have an active Development Bank which is expected to support economic expan- sion following the dearth of FDI during the two years of pandemic. What can be the root cause of this turnaround? Many in the past discount- ed the importance of attracting new energy projects blaming the relative lack of research and development host- ed locally. is is now solved since the PL manifesto plans a triple increase in R&D to reach 2% of GDP. Again, the efforts of the government to recognise the importance of getting MCAST and the university to work closely with industry is slowly yielding results. MCAST has reached a high standard in teaching technical sub- jects and proudly reported close to one thousand graduates in many diplomas and degrees. It has revived apprentice schemes in various technical areas and is also making steady progress in vo- cational courses as a catch-all for early school leavers. Government mutely plans to exploit renewable energy sector as it will prove a safe alternative to financial services - currently under siege from Brussels. Certainly, the landslide political victory garnered by Abela may enthuse island- ers to be passionate about a revolution in learning new skills through a differ- ent mindset - one focused towards in- novation, research and development. ese are the building blocks of pres- ent and future technology where more businesses compete to provide cut- ting-edge services and products - hav- ing access to an innovative philosophy leading to proficiency to expand clean energy and reduce our carbon footprint. Humility, passion and a clean energy vision George Mangion George Mangion is a senior partner at PKF, an audit and consultancy firm, and has over 25 years' experience in accounting, taxation, financial and consultancy services. His efforts have made PKF instrumental in establishing many companies in Malta and established PKF as a leading professional financial service provider on the Island 8 OPINION 31.3.2022