Parliamentary Secretary Aaron Farrugia produced a short history of what he calls ‘The Rise of the Green Movement’.

The point of this “history” is declared very early on where he says: “In Malta we have not seen a breakthrough of Green politicians.” 

That is followed by an obeisance to “MEP Miriam Dalli who is a leading advocate for climate change (sic) and the Green agenda in Brussels”.

And then the predictable final closure: “In this sense, Labour politicians are well positioned to become the new Green politicians.” 

The rest of the writing reads like a C-rated essay by a sixth form student. It keeps nonetheless to the thin PL “green” line, however. There is no mention of our contribution to the setting-up of the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC), which has served as the international forum for formulating policies designed to mitigate climate change. That did not happen under PL, of course. 

And the choice of hero responsible for the success of Green parties in the recent MEP elections – very pretentious of Farrugia to think himself in a position to pronounce on this matter – avoids mention of Sven Giegold, that German Green politician rated by Farrugia and his political cronies as an “enemy of the people”. 

Farrugia’s final flourish is spot-on, however: “I urge Labour to embrace the Green agenda in Malta.” 

Admittedly, it is passing strange that he seems unaware that Labour has been “embracing” a “green agenda” these last six years, though there is much dispute about the exact shade of “green”. 

Though Labour has done much that it can be proud of, it has also created a cobweb of abusive appointments, shady dealings and corrupt practices. As far as what we properly understand as “the environment” goes, Labour has mainly wreaked havoc and continues to do so.

Farrugia must be completely colour-blind to suggest that Labour’s agenda has really had more than the palest wash of green. Despite much boasting for having demolished the Delimara chimney and its hoax “cancer factory”, the latter feat was, in fact, accomplished by Shanghai Electric with a two-and-a-half-year slippage from Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s promised schedule. We are still exceeding our CO2 emissions allowance and are constrained to purchase carbon credits. 

The connected but not identical issue of air quality seems no nearer to a solution or even serious improvement either, though, in this case, the information available from the government and the EU seems to clash.

There has been no attempt to cut back on car numbers on our crowded roads; the standard response has been to resort to “road improvement projects” which are, in any case, only a stopgap measure as has been shown by experience in every European country. 

Aaron Farrugia must be completely colour-blind to suggest that Labour’s agenda has really had more than the palest wash of green

These projects also consume scarce land – often worked, arable land. Removal of significant numbers of mature trees has been defended by a transplanting programme, but that has been largely unsuccessful. Promises to plant more trees than have been removed gloss over the fact that the newly-planted saplings need no less than a decade to reach the carbon sequestration rate of their predecessors. 

A ‘petrol station policy’, which is a travesty, has proved to be a greedy consumer of ODZ land. A new ‘petrol station policy’ languishes in the wings, waiting for the long queue of petrol station applications to be processed under its more “lenient” predecessor.

We have seen large tracts of public land given to private developers for free (American University of Malta) or under very favourable terms (the St George’s Bay Corinthia, db projects and the Fortina/ Tigné project). This is effectively a huge transfer of public funds into private pockets. 

A subservient Planning Authority has provided a helping hand. A main aim of its executive arm has been much more about the smoothing over of “rough” patches in applications and the placing of hindrances in the way of formal protest and objection to such projects.

The real problem faced by environmentalists is that the country has no strong parliamentary opposition, just a PN in tatters, at war against itself and still carrying much past and present “environmental” baggage. 

Despite this, there are indications that we are moving towards a change of weather as least, with the hope that it will crystallise into a change of climate. 

Recent events have seen environmentalists joining forces with other associations and smaller political parties who show they still have an environmental soul. They show their interest via channels like the rule of law, urban planning, transportation systems etc, and have an interest in these matters for which they are prepared to take a stand, whatever the government of the day. 

It is imperative that the present momentum and results achieved, among which is the greatly expanded public interest, be maintained, particularly when it seems clear, not least from the Farrugia article, that for all its well-padded electoral majorities, the government is beginning to feel the heat.

Edward Mallia is honorary chairperson of Friends of the Earth Malta.