The Council of the European Union statement on energy and climate change described what was agreed as "the elements of the final compromise", while Rural Affairs Minister Pullicino was quoted as describing the Poznan conference outcome in these terms: "As generally anticipated, the meeting was mostly devoted to stock taking and planning."
The general feeling was that there were no significant breakthroughs and negotiators face a hectic 12 months of talks leading up to the critical deadline of December 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Nevertheless, judging by statements made by the Prime Minister to the local media in Brussels, our expectations were high. Meanwhile, at conference end, he claimed to have emerged satisfied from what he described as a pivotal summit.
It is worth keeping in mind that before the summit took place, the Prime Minister was quoted as having requested EU funding for power grid connection studies and the actual link-up in the EU's energy and climate change package. He argued that tied to that is the wind farm project, which would feed unused energy back to the European grid.
Although I knew all along that European grid linkage is essential for Malta to derive the full benefit of the proposed wind farm, and that this process takes time, Budget 2009 itself announced substantial investment in the European grid almost as if it was going to happen overnight. Or, rather, during the new financial year. The main point the Prime Minister made was that Malta would require a substantial capital investment that it could not make on its own.
Although the European Council declared that it will take account of the impact of carbon leakage on member states' energy security - in its impact assessment of the negotiations on an international climate change agreement - in actual fact it fell far short of doing so in a binding manner.
Meanwhile, Pullicino also announced in Poznan that our application to move to Annex 1 status within the UNFCC will greatly facilitate achieving our commitments under the EU Climate and Energy Package. Without in any way attempting to denigrate the decision, it would have made more sense had he explained how such facilitation will come about in practical terms.
When did Malta formally decide to move to Annex 1? How long did the evaluation process take before we took the decision? And, perhaps most importantly, why was the decision taken at this particular juncture? To claim that this was done on the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations resolution on climate change, moved by Malta in 1988, could imply that this was more of a political move than a logical evolution.
Without criticising the government in any way for the decision, I sincerely hope that there was a thorough assessment of the implications of such a move. One positive is that, as claimed, this might give us more say within the EU on the post-2012 debate, when the current Kyoto Protocol ends.
Back to the Brussels summit. Was Malta referring merely to the auctioning issue and air transport exemptions or were other areas involved when the government claimed that the deal struck by the EU had taken our specific circumstances into consideration, particularly our size and insularity? It is good to see things from a country-specific perspective, but as the editorial of The Times argued last week, the signs of a classic EU fudge that came out of the summit included concessions to Malta whose performance in this field to date is already lamentable.
It would also be interesting to find out if Malta took advantage of its non-Annex 1 status by hosting CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) projects for A1 countries to offset their carbon emissions through action - such as, for example, improvement in power generation infrastructure. Come to think of it, have any CDM projects been approved during this year as far as Malta is concerned? If we did not we did indeed waste a golden opportunity for a number of years.
When the consultative committee set up by the Minister on climate change eventually concludes its recommendations it will be interesting to find out what kind of synergy exists with the EU energy and climate change package as well as whether any linkage exists.
At the end of the day what matters most is whether the EU in general and Malta in particular have settled for a fudge or a breakthrough!
Mr Brincat is opposition spokesman for the environment.
brincat.leo@gmail.com