The financial incentives announced during last Monday’s budget speech to spearhead the redevelopment of derelict buildings within UCAs (urban conservation areas), rather than their demolition, are a positive initiative in an attempt to counter the blinkered mindset that the renovation of buildings does not pay and that demolition is the fastest route to the bank.
In the same way that financial incentives can be deployed to achieve desired environmental targets, so too can financial disincentives nudge potential applications in the right direction. For instance, fees associated with the development of ODZ (outside development zone) pockets should be spiked to act as a deterrent, with exceptions being granted for essential agricultural infrastructure or for projects of national importance.
Such a revision of fees would render ODZ areas less savoury and palatable for speculators and necessarily needs to be accompanied by a long-overdue revision of the infamous 2014 ODZ policies (the rural policy and design guidelines – RPDG), which have opened the floodgates for all sorts of abuse and which need reigning in.
No place is too remote on these islands
Very few of us have actually ever heard of the outlandish Birbuba, a hamlet on the outskirts of the Gozitan village of Għarb that can easily lay claim to being the northernmost settlement in this archipelago. But this backwater has definitely not missed the attention of applicants who have submitted an application (PC 00038/20) proposing “a new street to serve as an alternate access to Triq Birbuba and also to change zoning of part of land to residential development”.
Over 5,300 square metres of ODZ land is being proposed for development into residential units.
Prima facie, such an application sounds innocuous enough, only that those proficient enough in planning and development lingo would realise that the outcome of the same application is, in fact, way more sinister than one might infer from the application’s description. In fact, the upshot is that over 5,300 square metres of ODZ land is being proposed for development into residential units under the premise that a new access road is needed, when traffic counts in the same environs are a damp squib.
Moviment Graffitti should be lauded for tirelessly flagging such nefarious development proposals. The public is encouraged to submit objections to such odious proposals till October 27 through the following link: https://bit.ly/3lrnjns.
Greenwashing Glasgow?
The greenwashing momentum within the advertising industry has cranked up a notch in the run-up to the next UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) landmark meeting scheduled to be held in Glasgow next month and which has been touted by scientists and campaigners alike as the final opportunity to change the climate change narrative of rising emissions and temperatures.
Such greenwashing antics are fortunately being called out, as was the case on October 5 this year when an estimated 80 Greenpeace activists from 12 different countries briefly blocked Shell’s operations in Rotterdam in protest over such tactics by this company they deem as one of the world’s “most polluting companies”.
Over 5,300 square metres of ODZ land is being proposed for development- Alan Deidun
The protest was organised within the ambit of a larger initiative – the ‘Ban on Fossil Fuel Advertising and Sponsorships’, run by the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) – which aims to prohibit any advertisement or sponsorship in the EU by companies selling fossil fuels, vehicles running on fossil fuels and flights or ferries that run on fossil fuels.
And the need for such a revealing campaign could not be gainsaid given the fact that, as demonstrated by the environmental news outlet DeSmog, despite bandying themselves as the proponents of climate solutions, a number of top-notch fossil fuel companies were actually major emission contributors since their renewable investments are negligible.
For instance, as revealed by DeSmog, according to Shell’s 2021 Q2 report, it has invested over €14 billion in oil and gas in 2021 but only around €2 billion in renewable energy while also planning on expanding its gas business by more than 20 per cent in the next few years.
DeSmog analysed over 3,000 adverts and promotions by six companies on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, namely by Royal Dutch Shell, Total Energies, Preem, Eni, Repsol and Fortum, concluding that most of the same adverts were equivalent to greenwashing. For instance, through their analysis of such adverts, DeSmog and Greenpeace concluded that the worst offender was Preem, given that 81 per cent of its adverts were for green technologies or ‘false solutions’ whereas only one per cent of Preem’s portfolio is dedicated to non-fossil-fuel energy.
Across all six fuel companies, 63 per cent of their advertising was found to be greenwashing. Such misleading advertising is somewhat reminiscent of the campaigns associated with the tobacco industry in the 1960s and 1970s, before the deleterious health effects of smoking had come to the fore.
Within this context, it would indeed be wise and judicious for local media portals to start giving marketing campaigns by entities such as Enemed, which recently paraded its high-performance fuels through highly-visible channels, such as TV channels, but also within bus shelters and roadside signage, the cold shoulder, if we truly believe in the decarbonisation narrative and in the future success of the national LCDS (low carbon development strategy).