Malta failing in climate change preparation

Times of Malta: Malta has failed to prepare a plan on its climate change impact, vulnerability and adaptation - unlike other Mediterranean countries that "have prepared quite extensive climate change assessments", according to the European Environmental Agency. In a report entitled 'Impacts of Europe's changing climate', the EEA states that the Mediterranean is one of the regions most vulnerable to climate change.

The report is based on 40 key indicators and stresses the consequences of observed and projected changes, including an increased risk of floods and droughts, losses of biodiversity, threats to human health and damage to economic sectors such as energy, transport, forestry, agriculture, and tourism.

…Malta's vulnerability to climate change was recognised by the government in 2004. Its assessment in the 'First National Communication of Malta to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change' (UNFCCC) states: "The most important impacts include the deterioration of potable water supplies and quality, more frequent extreme weather events, increase in soil erosion and an accentuated desertification process, threats to public health, changes in sea water mass characteristics and effects on fish stocks, sea level rise, coastal erosion and inundation, and reduced biodiversity...

"The degree of these consequences will in part depend on timeliness of implementation of adaptation measures."….

…Labour environment spokesman Leo Brincat said he had never received any feedback to his calls for sectoral impact studies. "I very much doubt to what extent issues such as vulnerability and adaptation have been looked into seriously or professionally. The same applies to mitigation," Mr Brincat said.

Malta's Comino Tower, shot by Picman, who has generously released it into the public domain via Wikimedia Commons