In a keynote speech to the EU-Arab League ministerial summit here, Malta’s Ambassador for Climate Change, Michael Zammit Cutajar successfully urged the two regions to move ahead in cooperating on energy and climate change.

The summit’s final communique asserts ministers’ concerns “at the consequences of climate change” and that both groupings “have an obligation to their people to combat global warming”, pledging to intensify collaboration.

In an exclusive interview with The Malta Independent, the ambassador emphasised that “this has become a burning political issue and Minister Frendo was right to put it on the table. There is great potential for EU-Arab cooperation – whether in assessing and adapting to common climatic risks such as the water scarcity predicted for our regions or developing low-carbon technologies such as biofuels and exporting solar power generated electricity from Arab countries to the EU. Today’s oil and gas exporters have the physical and financial potential to become tomorrow’s market leaders in this field.”

Along with Brazilian diplomat Luiz Figueiredo Machado, the ambassador was elected by last December’s 192-nation 13th Conference of Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Bali, Indonesia to guide negotiations for a comprehensive new global deal submitted for adoption at the 15th COP in Copenhagen, December 2009.

The two men will alternate as Chair and Vice-Chair of the new Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Co-operative Action under the Convention set up under the Bali Action Plan. Calling for wide-ranging action framed by a “shared vision” and long-term goal (2050 is often mentioned) for global temperature stabilisation, the group’s mandate encompasses four key areas: mitigation (greenhouse gas emission reductions from industrial activities, agriculture and forestry), adaptation to climate change impacts, finance and technology. A mid-term progress review will take place at the next COP in Poznan, Poland in December, where the ambassador hopes agreements on some topics can already emerge, possibly on clean technology and adaptation.

Based on a several proposals submitted as from 1988 by Malta, the UN General Assembly decided in December 1990 to negotiate an international climate change treaty. Then a senior UN official in Geneva, Mr Zammit Cutajar was drafted by UN Headquarters to immediately set up and run the unit servicing the negotiations starting in February 1991. He became UNFCCC’s Executive Secretary during its first conference of parties in 1995, following the treaty’s entry into force in 1994.

Retiring from the UN in 2002 at 61, Ambassador Zammit Cutajar has since combined pro bono work for the Maltese government with some consultancies notably for the World Bank, participating in many international encounters in an expert capacity.

He is a member of European Commission President Barroso’s High-Level Advisory Group on Energy and Climate Change. In 2006, he held a one-year chairmanship of a UNFCCC working group to negotiate future emission reductions by developed countries under the Convention’s Kyoto Protocol.

His new responsibilities are not a “UN job”, but part of his activities as Malta’s Climate Change Ambassador – representing Malta at UN and EU meetings co-operating closely with both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Rural Affairs and the Environment and MEPA.

Working from his homes in Sliema and Geneva with no office or staff, he now expects to have a part-time base in some central EU capital, financed by a number of EU states, with additional help from a network of officials in EU ministries to help him cope with the huge flow of information relating to the negotiations.

“Like any diplomatic document, the Bali Action Plan sought to cover everybody’s topics and interests”, the ambassador warned. “After figuring out its meaning, what the traps and opportunities are, we will have to focus on a few key deliverables that will make a real difference.”

“Two major uncertainties hover over my activities as next year’s Working Group chair. First, which US administration will be at the table? The crunch on mitigation, which means agreement about reducing emissions will have to wait for a new line from the White House – squeezing us against our end-2009 deadline.”

“Second, the Bali decision speaks of an ‘agreed outcome’ without specifying the legal form: Will this be a reinforcement of existing treaties? Or a new treaty? Or a combination, e.g. new commitments under the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012 plus a new agreement covering (developing) countries not bound by Kyoto reduction targets, plus enhanced action under the Convention? That too will have to be sorted out in 2009.”

The ambassador underlined that awareness of climate change had shot to the top of the international political agenda since leaders such as Tony Blair, Angela Merkel, Al Gore and Arnold Schwarzenegger put it centre stage. Above all, since last year’s confident and convincing Fourth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, (over 2000 of the world’s leading scientists) which resonated through the UN Summit convened by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon last September.

“However, I am not sure that awareness of the enormity of challenge – the need to reverse the trend of rising global emissions by 2020 or so, if we are to avoid catastrophic climate change impacts – has sunk into political and public consciousness.”

“But there is no more room for wait and see politics; we must act now. However, as I said to the DIPLO Academy’s recent conference here on Climate Change Diplomacy, preaching the apocalypse only turns people off, provoking shrugs of helplessness. The way to engage people, economic agents and countries is not to focus up-front on the mitigation challenge, where only a few countries can make a difference.”

“It is better to put adaptation first. All countries have to adapt; this is the message unifying us against our common threat. We cannot save the biosphere in its present form, too much change is already built into the system – an estimated +0.7C over pre-industrial levels so far, and as much another +1C to come. (The EU has supported a +2C maximum target since 1996).

Having absorbed that message, we can then understand mitigation as what needs to be done to keep the adaptation challenge manageable.”

This will not cost more than nations can afford, Ambassador Zammit Cutajar underlined. The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change issued in October 2006 by Sir Nicholas Stern, then economic advisor to the UK Treasury, confirmed that, as ever, prevention was better than cure: early action to reduce global emissions would cost less than the allowing warming to proceed unchecked and repairing the damages afterwards – perhaps five to 20 times less. The IPCC estimated that putting global emissions on a desirable track would knock less than three per cent off global GDP growth by 2030, less than 0.12 per cent per year.

“This sort of cost should be manageable, politically acceptable, as long as the effort is shared fairly, with each country pulling its weight. That will be my guideline throughout my Ad hoc group work.