Let me try to keep it simple. To compund climate change, classical bloody wars, accompanied by energy wars, spiritual-cum-religious wars and financial battels are vying for the title which can wreak most havoc to our beleaguered civilisation.

Just as cyclone Pam, which whipped through Vanuatu, is one of the many symptoms of a diseased and choking planet at the mercy of the unimaginable consequences of man-induced climate changes, each war is just one more manifestation of a major global epidemic, constantly on the verge of becoming the pandemic that extinguishes the flame of human existence as we know it.

While Putin marches on into Ukraine, as had happened in Georgia a few years back, Iran asserts itself more strongly in the region as a potential nuclear power in the wake of Iraq’s engagement with IS. Cash-wealthy China spreads its wings far and wide, exploiting its soft power capabilities to the full while assembling its military strength to unprecedented levels. North Korea reminds the world of its military prowess every so often, and Assad the dictator retains his dynastic claim to Syria notwithstanding four years of horrible war and hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties.

All these totalitarian regimes seem to act independently, while expressing to the world in no uncertain terms their common intentions and their collective abilities to achieve their aims.

Our EU is naturally concerned. It is playing host to millions of immigrants and refugees from these war-torn or mind-asphyxiating countries. It has to cope not only with the physical presence of throngs of traumatised individuals seeking to forget and start again, but it also has to cope with a flood of diverse traditions, cultures, abilities and inabilities, being forced to adjust in a very short time.

The Europe that was masterminded to deal with a certain reality, and prepared to adjust to the unstoppable changes to that reality, has been shocked into being forced to deal with situations that are proving its hitherto successful model of governance obsolete and ineffective.

A glaring example is its energy acquisition profile. Its 2020 transition to 20% renewable sources of energy provision to its member states is one case in point.

The EU is still dependent on fuel imports, with its continued dependence on volatile jittery sources for supply. Keeping in mind technological advances that make renewable energy more accessible and affordable, the EU’s previous targets for clean, home-produced energy have become too low for its evolving needs.

With 30% of the EU’s gas supply still coming from Russia, mostly through Ukraine, and with Ukraine being invaded because its people wanted closer relations with the EU, the urgency of handling the energy dilemma in Europe has been pushed more to the fore.

The intention of creating a southern corridor of supply, from Azerbaijan through Italy, and possibly linking it to North Africa through Malta looks appealing on paper.

But the time element and the doubtful nature of the style of Azeri governance, as well as the steaming cauldron that is today’s North Africa, do not bode well for energy security in Europe. If that plan is adopted, it will end up siphoning investments from developing cleaner renewable energy, technology and the creation of thousands of green jobs at home, to the purchase of fossil fuels from undemocratic nations with deplorable human rights records.

The key to this impasse, even if for a moment one sidelines the huge advantages of clean energy in regard to our environment and climate change, remains the changeover to use of home produced, clean energy from renewable sources.

The toll on our little country’s air, water and natural environment qualities, by retaining and expanding our dependence on imported fossil fuels, will haunt us in the not so-distant future.

In the year 2015, Malta remains one of the only two countries in the EU which mostly dependent on fossil fuels for their energy supply. This scenario still exists in spite of our investment in the cable connector to Sicily and the imminent materialisation of its potential.

With the unfolding of the oil scandal saga, I can understand why the previous government might have dragged its feet on this issue.

What has been done, has been done and the people expressed their opinion on the PN’s handling of the energy sector in the last general election.

What irks me most, however, is not the past, since it cannot be changed. It is the present and the future that worry me. I cannot but wonder whether the present government’s covert relationship with the Azeri government and Socar spell out more of the same in the Maltese Energy Saga?

I cannot but wonder, as a Member of Parliament and a representative of the people, why agreements with a foreign government are made known to us through newspapers, if at all.

I cannot but wonder why the composition of the delegation that engaged the Azeri government was what it was.

In the meantime, like the rest of the population, one has to wait and see, and hope that no more Pandora’s boxes are being subtly replenished as we speak.