Kaizenlog

(Saturday, May 10, 2008)
Time Up - A Green Agenda - Bridging the gap

Author: Carmel Caccopardo

During the past week the Prime Minister stressed that sustainable
development tops the government’s agenda. On May 2, in a speech
inaugurating the new Rempec offices, he said that “the main thrust of
the government’s action in the next years will be sustainable
development”. On May 4, interviewed by The Sunday Times, he further
emphasised that “I consider sustainable development to be the biggest
challenge the country has right now”.

This is very encouraging.

Since the early 1970s, in the immediate aftermath of the Stockholm UN
Conference on the Human Environment, in line with other governments
all over the world the environment was promoted in Malta as a
responsibility at Cabinet level. In 2001, the National Commission for
Sustainable Development (NCSD) was introduced in the Environment
Protection Act.

Chaired by the Prime Minister it is intended to implement the
provisions of Agenda 21, approved at the Rio Earth summit in 1992, the
20th anniversary of the Stockholm Conference.

The Sustainable Development Strategy for the Maltese Islands was drawn
up by the NCSD primarily but not exclusively through the inputs of
civil society. Concluded late in 2006, it articulates the
interrelationship between all policy areas and draws up the objectives
of the paths our country should take in its transition from its
present state to sustainability.

Sustainability is attained as a result of sustainable development,
that is, by ensuring that all activity carried out by the community is
based on a long-term view that places emphasis on the need for an
integrated approach: policy and its implementation must integrate
environmental, social and economic considerations.

As a result, while present generations satisfy today’s needs, future
generations retain their options such that they too can make their
choices.

NCSD identified 10 areas of action, namely (1) air quality and climate
change, (2) energy efficiency and renewable energy resources, (3)
biodiversity, (4) freshwater, (5) wastes, (6) marine and coastal
environment, (7) land use, (8) transport, (9) natural and
technological risks, and (10) leisure and the environment. In each of
these areas it is required that policy and rhetoric are aligned
thereby bridging an existing green gap.

Priorities will be identified by the political programme of the
government, to be announced today when Parliament convenes for its
first sitting after the March 8 election. Such a programme will not be
written in stone. There are already a number of areas, notably the
financial sector, in respect of which there is cross-party consensus.
Sustainable development should be another such area. A consensus can
be developed on the basis of the National Sustainable Development
Strategy.

The longer it takes for the development of such a consensus the
greater the damage to our economic/social/environmental fabric and the
more difficult the healing period required.

While all the 10 areas identified by the strategy have to be tackled,
I consider that priority action should be focused on renewable energy,
conservation of water resources, development of an efficient public
transport system, containment of the building in-dustry and protection
of biodiversity.

A number of existing policies would as a consequence have to be
revisited. For example, rent reform has to be tackled without further
delay.

The Housing Authority would do well if it were to separate issues of
social accommodation from those of ownership.

The former is a social need; issues of ownership are not. Rent reform
could assume a different perspective from that identified to date.

In respect of pre-1995 tenancies it could retain security of tenure
but not protected rent, thereby creating a reasonable basis for reform
which would be fair to both owners and tenants.

In the case of tenants who are at the lower end of the income scale
the Housing Authority could subsidise the fair rent but then it should
not subsidise the well-offs who have been making use of third party
property at meagre rents for generations.

An equitable reform of rent legislation would over a number of years,
given suitable encouragement from the Housing Authority, release into
the rental market a substantial number of the 53,000 vacant
properties, thereby freeing pressures on unbuilt land.

There are other areas that need to be tackled, among them tourism,
which to date is primarily linked to the hotel industry and
practically ignores other more sustainable forms, like ecotourism and
agritourism.

All are steps which assist the sustainability trajectory.

As a first step however we need to bridge the gap by ensuring that the
National Sustainable Development Strategy is owned by the community
and not just by the political parties.

If this first step is assured, I have no doubt that a fruitful
implementation of the strategy can be initiated.

Mr Caccopardo, an architect, is the spokesman on sustainable
development of Alternattiva Demokratika - the Green party in Malta.

cacopardocarm [Email address: cacopardocarm #AT# euroweb.net.mt - replace #AT# with @ ]

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Article may be viewed at:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20080510/opinion/bridging-th
e-gap