Nature Trust has welcomed Malta’s ratification of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change deposited with the UN on Wednesday (5 October). It noted the announcement by the Environment Minister Jose Herrera that climate change would be a key priority of the upcoming Maltese EU Presidency.

“As both EU president for six months and chair-in-office of the Commonwealth until the end of 2017 Malta has a unique opportunity to resume its historic climate change leadership, much admired worldwide in past years,” Nature Trust Malta said.

It added that “Malta needs to show immediately that it has an ambitious and inspiring roadmap for climate change issues, as a nation, not only in its EU and Commonwealth roles, but also in its role as a Mediterranean nation, party to the Barcelona Convention and member of the Union for the Mediterranean.”

“During the forthcoming UN climate change conference in Marrakesh, Morocco (7-18 November) Malta should be able to not only show it has ratified the Paris Agreement, but establish its credentials with the other 195 nations attending, as well as with the business, labour and other civil society formations present, that it can act again as a credible and forceful climate change leader,” said NTM.

The NGO went on to say that “ambitious and imaginative next steps to implement the Commonwealth Leaders’ Statement on Climate Action adopted in Malta last November should be a prominent feature of this outreach. With 53 nations, the Commonwealth accounts for over one quarter of UN member states and nearly one-third of world population.”

“Malta’s upcoming EU presidency will be crucial to bring progress in a number of climate and energy legislative files giving life to the EU’s commitments made under the Paris Agreement which will come into force on 7 November,” Wendel Trio, Director of Climate Action Network Europe stated in a message to Nature Trust for publication in Malta.

He added, “under the Maltese presidency, we need to see substantial progress in the adoption of the reform of EU climate, energy efficiency and renewable energy policies. More importantly, we expect Malta to launch the process leading up to 2018 UN climate change negotiations’ review of the Paris Agreement and nations’ related emission reduction commitments as from 2020. It would not be desirable for the EU to be running behind other major emitters as is the case with the ratification process.”

Climate Action Network Europe, of which Nature Trust is a member is the 130-organisation Brussels based regional node of the 1100-NGO global network Climate Action Network International with members in 100 countries, which has been lobbying governments and other stakeholders on climate change issues since 1989.

As regards the key topic of migration, NTM said that “climate change is already beginning to drive migration. Much bigger flows will occur in future unless very ambitious measures are taken to halt global warming and cope with impacts which are already inevitable. Climate Change must be a key agenda item both at the follow-up conference here to the Valletta Migration Summit of last November, the extraordinary EU summit here on 3 February as well as the EU -Arab League summit proposed by Malta for 2017.”

“We also urge the Government to make sure the issue has some focus at the forthcoming MEDFORUM conference for Mediterranean civil society organisations (23-25 October) in Valletta organised by the Union for the Mediterranean’s Anna Lindt Foundation.”

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