The Roman God Janus intrigued many for his ambiguous, two-faced nature, being frequently depicted as the epitome of duality, with one face turned towards the past and one facing the future.
This mythological deity is the fitting analogy for Infrastructure Malta’s (IM) environmental profile, which sways precipitously from the very positive to insufficient in a matter of days.
On the despicable side, IM has nurtured quite a reputation for itself in terms of the eons of mature trees it has managed to extirpate as part of its road-widening exercises. The ongoing Central Link project works brought to the fore most recently 50 odd almond trees which were indecorously chopped despite being slated for ‘transplantation’. IM is contesting such a move on grounds that the same trees were malaised and thus had to face the chop, despite evidence to support such a claim being very thin on the ground.
Such roughshod interventions can never be compensated with the 8,000-odd young saplings planted by IM over the past few months, especially since some of these (e.g. olive trees planted along the Luqa-Qormi stretch) have already shown signs of shrivelling up due to inconsistent watering. But perhaps the interventions which have raised the most ire due to their brazen nature are those conducted by IM within valleys.
Following the Wied Qirda fiasco, where swathes of the valley morphology itself were remodelled beyond recognition, IM’s heavy-handed approach added yet another scalp – that of Wied Liemu, a picturesque valley meandering between Rabat and Dingli.
A heavy patina of concrete has been poured over the valleybed, almost completely smothering the watercourse and the specialised vegetation it supported, besides stone water channels etched out centuries ago.
Former valley country lanes bear more resemblance to unsightly, fully-fledged highways, which have blown to smithereens laudable plans by Ambjent Malta to apply for EU funds to restore, in a judicious fashion, such a watercourse.
The crowning fact in this sorry state of affairs is that IM’s unilateral actions are not supported in any way by a planning permit and are not supported by the findings of any impact assessment study, as was the case with so many previous valley interventions sanctioned by government entities (e.g. Wied il-Mielaħ in Gozo).
Hence, the ‘doers’ at IM seem to have managed to cut corners in their valley management approach, taking matters in their own hands and shafting the ERA and Ambjent Malta in the process, with the latter two entities being left to face the music in their attempt to rectify the damage done.
On the flip, positive side, IM announced earlier this week the introduction of the ‘shore-to-ship’ power generation system to which visiting cruise ships would be hooked, thus enabling them to switch off their juggernaut polluting engines and still operate their energy-guzzling on-board systems.
IM’s unilateral actions are not supported in any way by a planning permit and are not supported by the findings of any impact assessment study
From an air quality perspective, this decision is nothing short of momentous, given the substantial pollution levels attributed to berthed cruise liner engine operations.
For instance, a recent study was a rude awakening to many when it revealed that the 47 cruise ships operated by Carnival spew an equivalent volume of sulphur dioxide to that released by the entire 260-million-strong car fleet within the entire European Union.
Cruising companies are given the concession to choose cheaper, more sulphur dioxide-laden fuels. As a result, European port cities featuring most frequently as cruise liner ports of call, such as Barcelona, Venice, Palma de Mallorca, Southampton and Norwegian fjord towns, bear the brunt of the highest exposure to sulphur dioxide, which is an insidious air pollutant due to its nefarious impact on lung health.
The Grand Harbour Clean Air Project, which is slated to come on stream in 2023, is expected not only to drastically curb sulphur dioxide emissions from the annual 400-odd cruise liners visiting our shores but also levels of particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide billowed from the same berthed gargantuan ships.
The project, once fully implemented, will represent a literal breath of fresh air for the beleaguered inner Grand Harbour area, long plagued by poor air quality levels.
Credit where it’s due… this was a rare instance where IM received a consensus of accolades for the decision it took, given the positive environmental implications of the decision which was probably taken in a level-headed, dispassionate manner rather than on the spur of the moment, as most frequently happens for its short-sighted valley interventions. More level-headedness please, IM!
The horse-trading has just started
The next few months will be punctuated by frenetic horse-trading between European member States as the allocation of the next 2021-2027 tranche of the European Commission budget is up for grabs. The ‘pie’ to be sliced and diced between the different member States is indeed a substantial one, even though it represents just 1.11 per cent of the bloc’s combined GDP.
It’s a given that the UK does not feature within such calculations. The largest fraction (equivalent to 30 per cent of the global budget, or €442 billion) has been allocated to regional cohesion funding, with the environmental fund (which encompassed fisheries and agriculture as well) coming in second with its €379 billion. The research, innovation, single market and space portfolio ranks third, with a proposed allocation of €187 billion.
One cannot gainsay the importance of the latter allocation, given the multiplier effect that research and innovation has on the economy and on employment standards, and the solutions to contemporary societal challenges that such research can provide. Of the €187 billion slated for this portfolio, €100 billion have been allocated directly for research, being funnelled through the Horizon Europe and Euroatom programmes.
One sincerely hopes that member states take cognisance of the sheer importance of research and innovation in delivering on evidence-based policy-making and in keeping Europe the global champion of impact-oriented science, thus not reneging on the proposed financial allocation for this essential portfolio.