During a conference entitled ‘Our Climate, Our Future’ organized in Brussels, MEP Miriam Dalli said that adapting to climate change is not just a challenge, but it brings about with it opportunities. For this to happen, all European countries and the European Union as a whole need to create the right environment to invest in cleaner and greener technology.
“Here is an opportunity for the European Union as a whole to increase its efforts to build strong alliances and work together with other countries and continents and other key partners around the globe,” Miriam Dalli said.
Dr Dalli said that the Paris deal is considered the strongest indicator for investors to finance low-carbon technologies and to move from polluting sources like coal and oil to cleaner sources including natural gas and renewable technologies. This can be supported further through more research and innovative solutions into cleaner energy and cleaner transport so that these projects would be rolled out on a commercial scale.
The conference was organized with the participation of big companies involved in the energy and the retailer sector including ENI, IKEA and METRO and environmental organizations including TRANSPORT & ENVIRONMENT. A group of 20 Maltese representatives actively participated in the event which was held in the European Parliament.
Fabio Marchetti, Head of the EU Public Affairs of ENI stated that there needs to be a revamp in policy since as things stand today the power sector has to reduce emissions by 44%. This means that investments need to change to cleaner energy sources because otherwise the 2030 targets will not be reached. For this to happen a move to natural gas is essential as this would mean that emissions would be halved in many cases around the EU. Katarina Maaskant, Head of European Affairs of IKEA emphasized on the need to make sustainability available to everyone even people who are on a tight budget whilst Julia Poliscanova from TRANSPORT & ENVIRONMENT emphasized that a lot more can be done in the transport sector particularly since clean technology and clean diesel do exist.
Summing up all the different interventions, Miriam Dalli stated that bringing together industry and environment representatives is essential if we want to achieve our goal of decarbonizing our planet. ‘This is our common responsibility and all of us have to act together, individually and collectively, both at national, European and International level. The climate change agreement of Paris is only the beginning of a revolution in policy making, in investment decisions, in financial markets and in energy and transport technologies and today’s conference was clear evidence of this,” Miriam Dalli concluded.