Climate change is the single greatest threat we face today. In the Mediterranean, temperatures are going up 20 per cent faster than the global average.
This is already having real serious consequences across the basin. They will only increase unless we get honest about the climate emergency.
A study published in Nature magazine warned that, should temperatures climb by as much as 4°C, Malta could see the number of heat-related deaths rise by 269 per 100,000 by 2095, almost three times the rate at the start of this century. The study stresses that Malta is the “most affected country” due to climate change in the Mediterranean.
This sobering prognosis gets even more alarming when other scientific projections are examined. A study by the World Wildlife Fund predicts that an increase of 2°C to 4°C is expected to reduce rainfall by up to 30 per cent in Southern Europe.
Still, world leaders are increasingly becoming oblivious to the impact of the climate emergency that threatens the well-being of all societies.
Rising temperatures will exert additional pressure on already strained ecosystems and vulnerable economies in the Mediterranean. It will affect agriculture, tourism, public health, marine biodiversity and water aquifers that sustain food security and livelihoods.
Urgent and far-reaching action is needed to mitigate further greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the new reality of a warmer world. Still, most global leaders prefer to kick the ball down the street, leaving it for the next one or two generations to deal with this challenge.
The election of Donald Trump as the new US president has resulted in further setbacks to efforts to get real about the climate emergency. He again pulled the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement, declaring an “energy emergency” to speed up federal fossil fuel development and told oil and gas companies to “drill baby drill”.
Unfortunately, the EU may also be getting less committed to addressing the climate emergency as more member state leaders fret about the economic stagnation in the Union.
The European Commission has presented a broad framework of objectives collectively named Competitive Compass, intended as a strategic shift to catalyse business. One of the first concrete measures will be an “unprecedented simplification effort” to address bureaucracy.
The commission’s declared aim is not to change the environmental objectives of the rules but only to make them more efficient. Still, environmental observers warn that it is a dangerous backtrack for the EU’s green agenda.
France’s centrist government wants the EU to delay its environmental due diligence law indefinitely. And Germany’s outgoing social democratic chancellor has requested delaying the implementation phase of the corporate sustainability reporting obligation by two years.
This change of heart may not be about competitiveness and supporting European businesses. Delaying is not simplifying. It fails to acknowledge European communities’ daunting risks due to the climate emergency.
As a small country, Malta cannot make an effective impact on stopping global warming. Still, we need to do our part even if the US and the EU political leadership are getting cold feet about leading the change that will make the world safer for all.
The EU environmental targets for 2050 must be pursued with more determination to prove that today’s political leaders care about the well-being of the next generations. The disappointing lack of progress in achieving these targets hangs like an albatross around our political leaders’ necks.
The science is clear and the targets to address the climate emergency are ambitious but they have to be. We need strong political leadership to address the formidable challenge we face.