Forrmer Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland described the challenge of sustainability as "Satisfying the needs of the current generation without compromising the ability to satisfy the needs of future generations".
That one sentence, written in 1987, encapsulates precisely the challenge facing policy makers and politicians. Our generation is still facing the threats our parents' faced - only the situation has become more urgent.
Cities no longer have the flexibility to build urban infrastructure because lawmakers deviated from the Brundtland principle trying to solve immediate problems while pushing the real issue further down the line.
It is sadly a situation that may have been stretched over the years but pushed to the extremes in the last years in Malta and Gozo. Sustainability is not part of this Government's vocabulary. They prefer to postpone problems for a few years rather than tackle them at source. Soon it will simply no longer be possible to postpone further.
Nothing shows this more that in Government's failed approach to the traffic clogging the streets of Malta and Gozo.
The destruction of our natural environment in project after project is unforgivable. The trees and agricultural land we are chopping will remain down forever, never to rise again. We are condemning future generations for a quick-fix political band-aid solution that will likely be rendered obsolete before it is even finished. And we are doing so at a time when air pollution is at record levels and respiratory illnesses are increasing - particularly among children.
My thinking is that incentives and self-regulation must be a first option, but policy decisions must match the enthusiasm of private investors and entrepreneurs. One part of the answer must be fiscal. We can carve out a tax niche for mobility companies that are willing to invest in cleaner, more sustainable vehicles and they would in turn pass on those savings to consumers. We can embrace new, emerging technologies that cut costs. We can make taking alternative transport cheaper, faster and more environmentally friendly than owning a car, while preserving our environment, having cleaner air and retaining the personal comfort of individual tailored rides we all are so accustomed to. But the costs today are still prohibitive - we are raising the cost when we should be slashing it - a policy decision that simply looks at the short-term cash-injection.
It makes economic as well as environmental sense. We are spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer funds on ministerial vanity projects and short-term road widening exercises when we should be investing that money to prevent the traffic in the first place.
On a European level, the European Commission has already started the push towards mobility that is sustainable, energy-efficient and respectful of the environment, with the aim of preserving the benefits while reducing the adverse effects connected to mobility.
Locally, we still need to exploit the potential of water taxis for example and of small electric mobility devices in different towns and villages that are cheaper (or free) for end users. We need to more to promote electric car usage. We need super fast charging stations that are everywhere and we need them to be fast-charging zones. We need to finally invest in mass transit systems and look to the future of our country.
We can do all of this and more but we have to have the courage to look beyond the next headline and to the next generation.
The next five years will be crucial for lawmakers to make sure that the right legislation comes into effect. We must act now or our children will be sitting in the same traffic jams, on slightly wider roads, asking how noone managed to address the issue when all the signs were staring them in the face.
Roberta Metsola is a Member of the European Parliament for Malta and Gozo and Head of the PN Delegation
@RobertaMetsola