Despite the commissioning of the new Delimara natural gas-fired power station, Malta is still continuing to see the European Union’s largest increases in CO2 emissions.
Data released by Eurostat, the EU’s statistical arm, yesterday shows that Malta’s 6.7% increase in CO2 emissions in 2018 was the EU’s second-highest. It was, however, a slight improvement on 2017, when Malta recorded the EU’s highest increase in CO2 emissions at 12.8%
The EU as a whole recorded an average drop of 2.54% in CO2 emissions.
CO2 emissions fell, in Fact, in 2018 in a majority of EU Member States, with the highest decrease being recorded in Portugal (-9.0%), followed by Bulgaria (-8.1%), Ireland (-6.8%), Germany (-5.4%), the Netherlands (-4.6%) and Croatia (-4.3%). Increases were registered in eight Member States: Latvia (+8.5%), ahead of Malta (+6.7%), Estonia (+4.5%), Luxembourg (+3.7%), Poland (+3.5%), Slovakia (+2.4%), Finland (+1.9%) and Lithuania (+0.6%).
CO2 emissions are a major contributor to global warming and account for around 80% of all EU greenhouse gas emissions. They are influenced by factors such as climate conditions, economic growth, size of the population, transport and industrial activities.