As Europe continues its inexorable crawl towards a climate-neutral future, EU data continues to show Malta bucking the trend, with its greenhouse gas emissions rising from one quarter to the next. 

Eurostat data published last month showed that greenhouse gas emissions in Malta are rising faster than anywhere else in Europe, growing by almost 9% in the last year alone.

Experts say that the reasons behind this are a complex mixture of Malta’s size, lifestyle habits, and occasionally reticent policy approach towards green energy, but that emissions are largely driven by two main factors, energy production and traffic.

Energy now makes up roughly a third of Malta’s total emissions, with transport emissions making up a further quarter of the country’s total emissions.

Energy emissions collapsed but now climbing back up

While data shows that greenhouse gas emissions from energy production dropped by 55% between 1990 and 2022, transport emissions have ballooned by a staggering 86% during the same period.

Emissions linked to energy production, previously Malta’s top polluter by far, were slashed drastically just over a decade ago, when Malta ended its dependence on the oil-guzzling Marsa power station in March 2015.

The Marsa power station was closed in March 2015. File photo: Darrin Zammit Lupi

While, until then, Malta frequently racked up emissions of over 1.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (mt CO₂eq) from its energy production alone, this dropped by more than half in one fell swoop, falling to roughly 0.5mt CO₂eq in 2016 once the plant closed its doors.

But energy emissions have once again been crawling upwards in recent years, rising to 0.9mt CO₂eq in 2022, as Malta’s population grew and, with it, the demand on Malta’s power grid.

More cars, more traffic emissions

The most recent data shows that there are now over 432,000 vehicles on Malta’s roads, a figure that keeps increasing by an additional 58 cars daily, at last count.

Electric vehicles remain a rare sight, with only just over 3% of Malta’s vehicles being either electric or plug-in hybrid cars. Recent news that electric vehicle subsidies could be on the way out is unlikely to help push this number up.

The result is that Malta’s traffic now produces almost 0.6mt of CO₂eq each year.

Gridlock on Malta's roads is a common sight. File photo: Matthew Mirabelli

Other polluters are less within Malta’s control.

The European Commission says that 15% of Malta’s greenhouse gas emissions are down to the international aviation industry, making it Malta’s third-highest polluter after energy and transportation.

This figure is rising. Emissions linked to international aviation have shot up by 92% since 1990, now reaching 0.5mt CO₂eq, almost as much as Malta’s road traffic.

‘We’ve gotten used to our comforts’

Climate expert Luciano Mule Stagno believes that rising emissions reflect Malta’s economic and demographic growth, but also people’s rising standard of living.

He points to Malta’s unprecedented population growth, with almost 150,000 more people living in Malta today compared to 15 years ago, as a key driver of Malta’s growing emissions.

Not to mention the country’s tourism record, with over three million tourists visiting Malta last year alone.

“With more people in Malta, it’s normal for consumption to grow,” he says. “There are more cars, so more fuel emissions, a larger demand on the energy grid, so more energy emissions, more waste and so on”.

Luciano Mule Stagno (left) speaking at a Times of Malta event last year. File photo: Matthew Mirabelli

But, he adds, people have also just gotten used to consuming more. “People used to turn on their air conditioning for a few hours each day, now they barely ever turn it off”.

Likewise, Mule Stagno says, more and more people now opt to catch a taxi instead of a bus, or order food deliveries instead of cooking.

“These are small individual lifestyle choices, but they add up over time.”

The Malta Resources Authority agrees, with a spokesperson telling Times of Malta that meeting Malta’s decarbonisation targets “requires widespread behavioural change”.

The spokesperson pointed to “cultural reliance on private cars” as a key contributor to emissions, adding that progress in this respect won’t happen overnight.

“Since road transport is made up of many small individual emitters, it will require more time and concerted effort to see significant emission reductions.”

Maltese consume less per person than other Europeans

But, the Malta Resource Authority says, it’s not all bad news.

Pointing to a European Commission report on Europe’s climate targets, a spokesperson for MRA told Times of Malta that Malta’s per capita emissions remain the lowest across Europe at 4.2 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent.

This is well below those of other comparable small EU countries such as Luxembourg (14.7 tonnes) and Cyprus (9.5 tonnes).

‘Aggressively’ push energy efficiency, curtail car use

Mule Stagno worries that Malta is still treading water in some of its greening policies, in tackling energy efficiency and transport.

Incentives to install PV panels have plateaued and subsidies for energy efficiency are less enticing, he says.

“Anybody who wants to install PV panels at home has already done it, but the grants for other energy efficiency measures, such as rooftop insulation, are not that attractive. So they’re only taken up by people who were doing up their house anyway”.

Mule Stagno argues that authorities frequently should use a firmer hand.

Take green energy, he says, “why isn’t every new building or retrofit required to have green energy? It should be set as a condition for the development”.

“Imagine how many buildings would be green today if that had happened years ago.”

Likewise, he says, subsidies for free public transport are useful but do little to disincentivise private cars.

“We need to curtail car use through measures like on-street parking fees. It will annoy people in the short-term, but that’s the only way.”