The electoral campaign has started. The first statements have been made. The basic message can reasonably be understood as being contained in the different electoral slogans the political parties have selected.
The Green message in this electoral campaign is the Maltese word "ilkoll", translated as "together", or better still, "all of us together".
It is much more than a slogan. It is a political programme encapsulated in one word. The clear message being that we do better when we act together, when we care for each other, when we respect the natural systems, we are part of.
We are all in this together, clearly distinct from being on your own. Being together signifies solidarity. It also signifies seeking the common good.
How can we be all in this together if we do not care for each other? It is not just about inter-generational solidarity. It is also about intra-generational solidarity, that is, about taking care of our descendants. About ensuring that the decisions we take today do not compromise their possibilities for the future.
This is the real significance of sustainability: being a good ancestor. That is, ensuring that we care not just about the present but also about the future. This can be achieved by taking reasonable and responsible decisions today. By ensuring that we do not discount the future.
In fact, this is exactly what we are facing today. Having a national debt of over €11 billion, and rising, is no joke, even though it is technically within EU acceptable parameters. Can this country keep piling up the national debt with ever-increasing and irresponsible electoral commitments?
We are in this together also signifies that we also have the duty to shoulder today's burdens together. We cannot keep sending the burden into the future expecting that it is shouldered by future generations.
In his book, The Good Ancestor, Roman Krznaric, asks a very pointed question: "Will our legacy to future generations be one that benefits them or will it be one that cripples them?" It is the question to which we must provide an answer, day in day out. The politics of sustainable development seeks to mould such an answer. Properly managed it can shape the future as a result of acting in a responsible manner today. It does so by ensuring that our present-day needs are achieved without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. At the end of the day, it all boils down to how we can think (and plan) long-term in a short-term world.
Notwithstanding the rhetoric, governments do not give sufficient importance to sustainable development as this is not just about today. It is rather about how today's activity should not prejudice tomorrow and future generations. This is not sufficiently on the radar of today's politicians. Their interest, generally, does not span more than between two general elections. We need to think and plan far more into the future.
This is a point underlined by former Norwegian social democrat Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland in her seminal UN Report Our Common Future published in 1987. She emphasised that "We act as we do because we can get away with it: future generations do not vote; they have no political or financial power; they cannot challenge our decisions."
Both the Labour Party and the PN are actively engaged in a competition as to who promises to reduce the most taxes as well as dishing out never-ending handouts, tax reductions and subsidies. It is a race to the bottom. They have been at it for years, in the process, and as a result, contributing to an ever-increasing national debt. In the current circumstances this serves one purpose: shifting the tax burden from the present generations into the future. The end result is that we are living beyond our means. As a nation we cannot pay our bills and consequently we are shouldering future generations with this burden.
The Labour Party in government has continuously relied on future generations to fund its handouts, tax refunds, tax reductions and subsidies. As a result, that national debt has skyrocketed from €4.9 billion in 2012, was just under €10 billion in 2023 and is currently on the way to surpass the €12 billion mark.
We cannot keep shifting the burdens onto the future, through present day consumption patterns, handouts, tax reductions and subsidies.
Shouldering future generations with today's burdens will prejudice their rights, as, overburdened, they will be less in a position to make their own choices and decisions. We need to recalibrate our public administration. We need accountability and good governance not cheap talk.
We need to be in this together. Acting responsibly in the present takes care of the future too. All of us, together.
An architect and civil engineer, the author is a former Chairperson of ADPD-The Green Party in Malta. [email protected] , http://carmelcacopardo.wordpress.com