Instead of aiding and abetting the speculators it would be better for the Planning Authority to defend solar rights for all to support everybody’s efforts in reducing the impacts of climate change, Carmel Cacopardo, Chairperson, ADPD – The Green Party said.

Addressing media in front of the Planning Authority offices in Floriana this morning, Ralph Cassar, General Secretary said that climate change remains the greatest challenge of our times. In spite of all the rhetoric the PLPN policies reveal a lack of understanding of how serious the situation is which leads the country not to prepare appropriately.

The ‘Low Carbon Development Strategy’ was published by the Government a few months ago. But all one can find are recommendations – essentially it means that the government wants to always maintain the status quo while dropping the odd incentive. In spite of the Prime Minister’s boast in Glasgow that reducing our use of carbon is the ideal tool for his Government to face up to climate change, the low-carbon strategy does not mention anything how this can be applied to new buildings as well as eventually in old ones too.

There’s no time for fooling around. Land use planning should address with urgency its impact on climate change by also implementing a strategy of reducing our carbon footprint, among other measures. Unless decisive action is taken soon it can only get worse, concluded Dr Cassar.

Cacopardo said that the Planning Authority can contribute in a practical manner towards achieving zero-carbon in construction by prioritising and guaranteeing access to solar rights in land use planning. This should supersede other planning ‘rights’, such as that of additional floors on existing buildings. There is also the need to improve the power distribution network to enable urban zones to contribute more in renewable energy generation.

It is certain that investment in solar energy generation pays and is sustainable even when considering its long term impact. Although the Government is planning a second interconnector with Sicily, we know that at the moment it is curtailing the use of the current one we have due to the phenomenal increase in energy prices in Europe.

The shift from petrol- and diesel-fuelled cars to electric vehicles will bring about a proportionate increase in energy demand. If this can be counterbalanced by a substantial increase in renewable energy generation we would have matched at least in part some of this additional energy demand.

Solar rights should be strengthened. They should no longer be at the mercy of unbridled development and an insensitive land use planning process. The increase in permissible building heights introduced when the 2006 lot of local plans was approved had a heavy price-tag in renewable energy sacrificed. We are still paying this price and it will be quite some time before we recover from this irresponsible impact.

All of this falls in the lap of the Planning Authority which is abdicating its responsibilities towards our country. As was revealed earlier on this week, the Planning Authority even tried to use the conclusions from a GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) audit to limit a principle at the core of good governance: transparency – without it there will be no accountability, concluded Cacopardo.