Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1512576
I'VE said it before; but it may be worth repeating. If 'saying a lot, without saying anything at all' were among the athletic disci- plines featured at the Olympic Games… Malta would win Gold, every single time! Take Prime Minister Robert Abela, for example (who, let's face it, already has something of an 'Olympian physique', to begin with). Not content with having recently addressed a session of the United Nations Security Council, with the following pearls of wis- dom: a) 'States must work together to overcome global challenges!', and; b) 'We cannot have peace, if the strong impinge on the weak!' (Erm… gee, Robert, you don't say?) … Dr Abela has since done what all Olympian athletes should do, in order to improve on their past performances. He's been TRAIN- ING, at the fine art of 'saying a lot, without saying anything at all'. (And his efforts seem to be paying off, already, Robert Abela is clearly getting better at this game, by the minute!) Just yesterday, for instance, he was in Dubai to represent Malta at the ongoing 2023 UN Climate Change Conference (COP28, for short). On his way into the build- ing, he found time to deliver a brief televised message – and I recommend you actually watch the video, by the way - in which he said that: a) 'Doing nothing [about Cli- mate Change] is not an option'; b) 'On a local level, we've done a lot…"; c) "There is much more to be done, and we are enthusiastic to be part of the change for the good of humanity, no matter how small our country is." There, see what I mean? Leaving aside that sentence (a), in that list, corresponds to one of the most 'tired' and 'hackneyed' of mean- ingless clichés, that any politician can possibly utter about Climate Change, today [Note to Abela's advisors: in contemporary Eng- lish, it's almost become a by-word for: 'political inability to ever actu- ally address the problem'.] … what remains is still an awful lot of words, to express… well, al- most 'nothing at all' (and trust me: I know what I'm talking about, here!) So let's take a closer look at those claims, shall we? Starting with Ab- ela's stated belief that: 'on a local level, we've done a lot'. Here, I must confess that my mind is reeling with sarcastic re- plies; mostly, along the lines of... 'Yeah? Really? Like WHAT, ex- actly?'; or, 'Then why are we still so many light-years away from reaching our UN Climate Change targets, by 2050?'; or, "Well, we've certainly done a heck of a lot to EXACERBATE Climate Change (like, for instance, removing every last tree from the surface of Malta and Gozo…") But for the purpose of this ex- ercise, let's stick only to the ex- amples given by Abela himself. As evidence for all the 'wonderful things' Malta is supposed to have DONE [please note unnecessary emphasis, folks] about Climate Change, over the past few years… Robert Abela cited only two (2) examples: 1) We have increased our renew- able energy production to around 13% of the total: mostly through the uptake of photovoltaic panels; which was, in turn, mostly limit- ed to the domestic sector (house- holds, and small private compa- nies); 2) We are now DISCUSSING [emphasis, again] an 'exciting new project' to install 'deep-sea wind- farms' in the waters around Malta and Gozo… you know: the same project that former PM Lawrence Gonzi had also once 'discussed' (and just as 'excitedly', too!) way, way back in 2008…. without ever, as I recall, progressing to Phase Two of the operation (and actu- ally INSTALLING those dratted 'deep-sea windfarms', once and for all!) Not to overlabour the point, of course, but… neither of those ex- amples amounts to a very great deal for Robert Abela to 'brag about', in the end. 'Deep-sea windfarms', for in- stance: they're all well and good, as an idea to be discussed around the policy-formulation table. In the short term, however; there are plenty of scientific studies which show that the amount of energy generated by 'non-existent wind- farms', tends to always hover at around, erm… ZERO. 'REAL windfarms', on the other hand? As in, the ones that have ac- tually been INSTALLED (instead of only ever 'talked-about')? Yeah: those might, in fact, be a good (though rather small) step in the right direction… … but DO they have to 'built first', you see. (It's unfair, I know; but hey, that's life for you!) As for the photovoltaics; here, the situation is slightly more com- plex. Recent NSO statistics, for instance, confirm that: 'When compared to the situation in 2021, generation of energy from grid-connected PVs increased by 13.2 per cent in 2022, totalling an estimated value of 289.5 GWh.' But while this is, in itself, a laud- able improvement: it still pales to insignificance, when you con- sider that Malta's DEMAND for electricity has meanwhile grown – and continues to grow, in step with its population – at a propor- tionally much higher rate, than we can possibly ever meet by increas- ing renewable energy production. So while photovoltaics are in- deed on the increase – to the credit of Abela's government, I freely concede - our (gas-fired) power-station is still burning MORE fossil-fuel, to meet the ris- ing demand; and we also making up for the short-fall, through en- ergy imported directly from the European grid. Effectively, this means that – both 'locally', and 'international- ly' – Malta's carbon-footprint has actually GROWN (not shrunk), in recent years… And in a roundabout way, this brings us to Abela's third point: namely, that 'we are enthusiastic to be part of the change for the good of humanity, no matter how small our country is'. To be fair, Robert Abela is not exactly alone in believing this widespread misconception (I my- self have been guilty of similar mistakes, in the past)… but when you look at Malta's CO2 footprint, on a GLOBAL level (as opposed to the local level: where it really is quite negligible, all things consid- ered)… suddenly, it doesn't look as though our contribution to Cli- mate Change is altogether as 'mi- croscopic', as most of us probably imagine. It may surprise some people to know, for instance, that Malta currently boasts one of the largest international shipping registers, in the entire world (and by far the largest in the EU). According to 'Statista.com': "In all, 8,300 ships and 780 superyachts, with more than 82 million gross tonnes in vessels, now sail under the Mal- tese flag. More than 6% of the world's merchant shipping are registered in Malta…" Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, Malta-flagged vessels also pro- maltatoday | SUNDAY • 3 DECEMBER 2023 10 OPINION 'Doing nothing is not an option' (he says, while doing nothing) Raphael Vassallo