Spending €1.5 million every day on energy subsidies is not sustainable and the government should instead be focusing on reducing the country’s reliance on interconnector power, ADPD has argued.
Malta’s green party however noted that rather than incentivising the necessary changes and setting enforceable energy targets for businesses, the government seemed more inclined to kick the can down the road.
“The recurrent message being spread by the government is that there is no urgent action that need to be taken within the energy sector,” the party said, despite geopolitical tensions meaning energy prices would continue to be volatile.
The green party noted that the government spent €472.5 million to subsidise energy prices for all in 2022 and has budgeted a further €608 million to subsidise tariffs this year, effectively spending €1.5 million a day on the plan.
“This expenditure should have been applied in the past to renewable energy investment,” ADPD secretary general Ralph Cassar said. “Some of these funds would have been better applied towards moving from our dependency on fossil fuels to renewable energy sources instead. Thanks to these subsidies, government is simply delaying facing up to the real issues. But these will remain and one day or another will need to be faced,” he concluded.
ADPD chair Carmel Cacopardo noted that successive governments had opted to postpone such investments, with Malta having even negotiated to lower EU-imposed targets related to renewable energy generation.
Those who use electricity wastefully should pay its full cost, he argued, echoing a point made by the International Monetary Fund during a country analysis last year.
The IMF argued that while it was good to cushion prices for low- and middle-income families, richer and more wasteful consumers should pay a price closer to the full cost of importing electricity.
Cacopardo argued that Malta’s two major parties appear to be obsessed with the interconnector “as if this is our only saviour” without saying anything about the need to reduce our energy consumption.
He cited an event held this past week as a case in point: Energy Minister Miriam Dalli unveiled a set of energy saving “guidelines” for businesses to adhere to.
The guidelines range from keeping air conditioners at certain temperatures, to dimming or switching off facade lighting at night.
For ADPD, the proposals are entirely inadequate.
“No targets, no incentives or disincentives or penalties to encourage targets to be attained,” Cacopardo said, arguing that raising electricity prices for higher commercial consumption could lead to businesses genuinely cutting energy waste.
Industries with a clear, major environmental impact should be forced to adapt their operations to become carbon neutral, ADPD believes.
Hotels, for instance, should be made to adhere to the highest standards when it comes to energy use, with planners forbidding the construction of any new ones.
The construction industry also needs to shrink, Cacopardo argued, with every new building required to generate the energy it consumes from renewable sources.