The attention of policymakers, businesses, consumers, and young people, is increasingly converging towards environmental sustainability. Broadly speaking, there are currently two items that are dominating the national discourse when it comes to the environment. The first is overdevelopment - a self-perpetuating menace that will require radical regulatory reforms to contain. The second is action on climate change. On this, there is more hope that we can make some progress, especially because substantial EU funding is being directed towards it. As COP26 brings world leaders together to negotiate the difficult decisions needed to tackle climate change, one is reminded that it was Malta which tabled the issue of climate change at the United Nations in 1988, turning it into an agenda item. Though Malta's emissions are negligible, the country has always been able to punch above its weight and has a responsibility to live up to its obligations.
Compared to other EU countries, Malta has several advantages. The country does not have heavily polluting industries; sunshine is abundant; and travelling distances are short. The low-hanging fruit is clearly solar energy and electric vehicles - provided the additional energy required to power them does not increase our carbon footprint. The other obvious opportunity is in the improvement of the quality of our buildings to make them more energy efficient. Given the large building stock of poorly insulated buildings that we have, renovation could improve energy efficiency greatly and divert the attention of construction and related industries away from new builds into activities that would enhance the built environment.
As regards solar energy, we have made substantial progress over the last decade in terms of the number of PV systems. However, most are located on domestic roofs, and less so on industrial ones. Companies operating from industrial estates typically meet three constraints when they come to invest in PV systems. The first relates to the supporting infrastructure: there needs to be free capacity on existing substations to be able to support additional PV systems of significant size. In many estates, this is not the case, and companies are requested to finance the building of a new substation to be able to support their proposed PV system. This involves substantial additional cost and discourages the investment. The second constraint is the quality of the roofs of industrial buildings. Some are simply not able to take the load of a PV system. Facilitating the replacement of such roofs would provide more space where sizable PV systems can be installed.
Thirdly, companies within industrial estates are asked to pay a rental charge for their roof when they install a PV system on top of it. This has the effect of extending payback on the investment by around 3 years. Several arguments have been put forward to justify this charge, the latest being that if INDIS (the Government entity responsible for industrial estates) decides to build upon an existing factory, it will have to incur a cost to relocate the panels. Aside from the fact that this would be a negligible element in the costs of building a new factory, disincentivising investment in long-term green energy provision for speculative reasons is counterproductive. If we are not able to safeguard the competitiveness and sustainability of existing companies, the feasibility of building new factories on top of existing ones to be able to accommodate extensions or new companies becomes questionable regardless.
The Low Carbon Development Strategy presented during the National Climate Change Conference on 26 October specifies the number of electric vehicles (EVs) and charging points that Malta should aim to have by 2030: 65,000 cars and 6,500 charging points. How realistic these numbers are, and what impact EVs would actually have on reducing carbon emissions, depends greatly on which vehicles will be replaced, and hence on how incentives will be directed. The greatest impact in terms of emission reductions will be achieved if those vehicles that are used most intensively are replaced first: taxis; rental cars; sales, delivery and servicing vehicles; vehicles of family doctors and the like. The increase in the grant value from €8,000 to €11,000 (€12,000 if a vehicle older than 10 years is being replaced) is a step in the right direction. But it is imperative for businesses to be able to access this assistance outside the confines of de minimis aid, which is capped at €200,000 over 3 years across all schemes and for all companies with the same group. Companies that have large fleets of vehicles could easily be replacing dozens if not hundreds of cars every year. The Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry has been lobbying to find solutions that would support the replacement of large fleets of commercial and rental vehicles, as this would have a significant impact on emission reduction.
When it comes to charging points, several considerations need to be made. In public places as well as in commercial environments and within businesses, rapid chargers are the most viable option. These are able to charge most vehicles in under an hour, and there needs to be proper enforcement in public places that ensures that people don't occupy charging spots for more than an hour. Rapid chargers are typically rated at 50kW - that's the equivalent of around 10 fully air-conditioned apartments. It is important to keep these approximations in mind as they provide some tangibility to the scale of what we are talking about. Major investment in the energy distribution network is required to be able to support the installation of several hundreds of these charging points in public places to put 65,000 EVs by 2030 within the possibility space.
The Malta Chamber has contributed to all major public consultations by government on sustainability and the environment in the past months, and operates thematic committees on Circular Economy, Sustainable Mobility and Energy Efficiency & Conservation. Achieving a smart, sustainable island which is globally competitive will require government, private enterprise and public alike to maintain a focused, coherent vision, make cultural and operational changes where necessary, and invest in the future with the understanding of the returns this will bring tomorrow, and the risks we run if we do not nothing today.
Marisa Xuereb is President of The Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry