There is no greater collective challenge that humanity faces than climate change. In the past, we contended with wars, disease, famine – a combination of all three. But the planetary scale of what is imminent will impact billions. No group of human beings is exempt, both from contributing to climate change and from its effects.

It is infuriating living under an administration that acts like it didn’t get the memo.

If we continue doing nothing, the science says we risk sending the Earth and its inhabitants into a premature apocalypse. This isn’t a problem that my generation will have to deal with in a few decades. It’s a problem we have to solve now. Because in a few decades, we will be dealing with very dire consequences.

It is fundamentally difficult to fathom because we are not used to thinking on a such an enormous scale. Climate scientists are, and they have broken down what we can do to fight climate change.

All of this is not news. The Kyoto Protocol was born before I was. The European Union has laws in place to make development sustainable and improve the environment for decades.

All the while, Malta continues to trail behind its peers in the European Union.

Charity begins at home. In the last decade, we have registered barely any progress on our climate goals, even when the environment registers as the most important issue for young people in Malta. In 2019, the Maltese Government submitted a National Energy and Climate Plan to the European Commission. It was assessed to be “unambitious”.

Worryingly, despite emissions being projected to increase, the Muscat administration “indicated that it does not intend to meet its reduction target”.

As a densely populated island state, Malta has unique difficulties in reducing its emissions and developing itself sustainably. Those unique problems should be dealt with as opportunities. We should be investing in those sectors to come up with unique solutions that could benefit humanity beyond our shores.

Both Labour administrations have preferred to use our problems as an excuse not to do anything about them. I won’t labour the point. Robert Abela is walking into an election with the worst environmental credentials in Maltese history, knowing full well the challenges that we will face when he decides to retire on his yacht.

I take consolation in the fact that the Opposition recognises the responsibility the Government has in fighting climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change declared Code Red. That has real implications on how we govern. This is not lost on Bernard Grech.

The PN’s electoral manifesto spells out just the right ambition that Malta needs to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. Maltese land is not being used wisely and our resources are being squandered and buried by concrete.

Under Labour, Malta ranks among the worst offenders when it comes to recycling. For a service economy with a large hospitality industry, that is abysmal.

Under Labour, renewable energies have not budged. With Konrad Mizzi’s gas hedging agreement with the Russia-aligned dictatorships coming to an end, we are going to be kicking ourselves for paying exorbitant rates when our over abundant resource, solar energy, shines away.

Under Labour, Malta will not be climate neutral by 2050. And we will be ill-equipped to meet the challenges our nation is facing as a result of climate change.

This is why PN in Government will tackle climate change at every level. Urban spaces need to see more green spaces, better walking and cycling infrastructure, and better public transport links. It is absolutely a bad idea to keep adding more housing units without the necessary infrastructure to back it up. But while Labour’s densely populated concrete jungles continue to sprawl and take over, without the forethought to do things better, climate change will forever remain an afterthought.

Bernard Grech knows it isn’t always popular, especially with older generations, to speak about on the concrete measures needed to fight climate change. But the Opposition knows that the environment, society and the economy are not completely separate things. Not fighting climate change threatens more than vulnerable species in Bahrija and on Filfla.

It threatens our economy and way of life.

The Labour Party loves to plagiarise from the PN when it comes to popular policies. For the sake of the future of our country, I hope Robert Abela has the good sense to plagiarise the PN’s climate policies, too.

An even better solution would be to elect PN politicians with a demonstrable commitment to the environment. The alternative is more Ian Borg.

Eve Borg Bonello is the Team Start President and a PN Candidate on the 9th and 10th Districts