Malta has dropped five places to 34th in the Climate Change Performance Index, with local experts criticising the lack of concrete efforts to implement climate policies.
Published annually since 2005, the CCPI is an independent monitoring tool for tracking countries’ climate mitigation performance. It aims to increase transparency in national and international climate policy and enable comparison of individual countries’ climate action efforts and progress.
Malta's 34th place leaves it squarely in the middle of the pack of 67 countries ranked by the index, just behind Switzerland and Romania and ahead of Belgium and Latvia.
Since 2015, Malta has had a Climate Action Act that makes climate protection legally binding. Parliament declared a "climate emergency" in October 2019. In 2024, the Climate Action Authority was officially established as Malta’s first authority to coordinate and oversee climate change policies.
In this year's report, Malta is classified as a 'medium' performer overall. The country received mixed ratings, ranking 'high' in energy use, 'medium' in greenouse gas emissions, 'low' in climate policy, and 'very low' in renewable energy.
The report notes that in the last budget, the government committed itself to continuing several subsidies, including those for electricity and fuel, to support citizens.
"The experts agree that protecting citizens from fuel poverty is important, but they criticise that energy subsidies in effect subsidise high energy consumption and waste," the report states.
The experts also criticised the fact that offshore wind energy in Malta has not moved beyond the planning stage.
"Wind energy has been discussed in Malta since the late 1990s, but this has yet to result in the installation of a single turbine."
The government also comes under fire for failing to reduce the country's dependence on fossil fuels.
"The experts note there is little to no political will for actual phase-outs," the report states, citing the government's 2024 purchase of a diesel-powered plant for dealing with a potential electricity shortfall.
In the area of transport, the report observed that private cars are still favoured over other modes of transport, although an increasing number of these are electric vehicles.
"While public transport in Malta has been free since October 2022, the experts note that automobile usage has not decreased and criticise that bicycle lanes are still lacking."
Overall, the experts panned the "insufficient ambition and implementation" of climate policy in Malta. They recommended that fossil fuels should be phased out as soon as possible, and that public funds should be invested in renewables, energy savings, and community energy.
Among the local experts consulted were Luciano Mule' Stagno from the University of Malta's Institute for Sustainable Energy, Suzanne Maas from Friends Of The Earth Malta, and John Paul Cauchi from Queen Mary University of London.