Miriam Dalli pushes for climate policy exemptions for small states while global climate efforts falter

While recent climate data shows that humanity is massively behind schedule on the tangible measures that need to be taken to address the climate crisis, environment minister Miriam Dalli was in Luxembourg lobbying for “fair and flexible” climate policies addressing the unique needs of small states.

While there is nothing inherently wrong with Dalli’s argument, which is often echoed by other small states across the globe who tend to suffer a disproportionate burden of the impact of climate change, Malta’s negotiation stance suggests the government is disconnected from the severity and scale of the climate crisis.

The latest State of Climate Action report, which documents a total of 45 different methods which humanity is using to cut down on emissions which heat the planet, notes that “none” of these methods are being deployed fast enough to keep in line with 2030 emissions targets.

This is a far cry from the targets which were envisioned by the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement, a global summit in which it was declared that no measures should be spared to limit increases in average global temperature to 1.5°C.

“Today, current policies put the world on course for 2.7 – 3.1°C of warming and projections fall to between 2.1 and 2.8°C if governments fully implement their nationally determined contributions, with the lower end of this range conditional on developing countries’ receipt of finance and support,” the report notes.

“Should warming exceed 1.5°C even temporarily, already devastating impacts will only intensify, subjecting more and more people to increasingly frequent and severe storms, even longer heatwaves and droughts, more extreme precipitation and flooding, rapid sea level rise, and more,” it adds.

Given that warming already exceeded the 1.5°C increase throughout 2023 and 2024, the report delves into detail about how quickly solutions like the use of renewable energy and the improvement of industrial processes are being implemented, noting that humanity lags behind on every single one.

While Dalli is currently engaged in a PR blitz to shore up the government’s environmental credentials, the reality is that Malta lags behind on such efforts, with Malta’s environmental policy remaining vague and noncommittal to necessary measures like phasing out fossil fuels.

“Every fraction of a degree matters when it comes to avoiding these increasingly catastrophic impacts, and even if global temperature rise crosses the Paris Agreement’s limit, the world should still be doing exactly what it needs to be doing today — rapidly reducing GHG emissions and enhancing removals,” the report says.

Dalli’s remarks about carving out exemptions for smaller states were made in the context of an EU Environment and Energy Councils’ meeting in Luxembourg, where Europe’s environment ministers gathered ahead of the COP30 summit in Brazil.

The environment ministry has a total of four different entities which are responsible for climate change policy: the Climate Action Board, the Climate Action Fund Board of Governors, the Climate Action Authority, and the National Climate Action Council.

To date, none of these entities have had any significant impact on the country’s emissions, especially when considering that they have practically no regulatory or enforcement functions to speak of.

Instead of equipping these authorities with enforcement capabilities and greater policy-making input, Dalli’s PR efforts on the domestic front are more focused on greening Malta’s burgeoning urban landscape and carrying out “regeneration” works across the island.

Just how much faster should we be going?

Some of the most striking findings of the State of Climate Action report are being summarised in point form for ease of reference:

• Phasing out coal: while wealthier countries have been able to wean themselves off coal, many are still dependent on the world’s dirtiest fossil fuel, with the report suggesting that coal generation should be phased out ten times faster than the current rate.
• Renewables: while clean energy investments surpassed over $2 trillion in 2024 – more than the $1.6 trillion invested in fossil fuels that same year – the breakneck speed at which this increase in investment occurred is still not enough and needs to double for humanity to achieve its 2030 targets.
• Mass transport: the speed at which environmentally friendly public transit methods need to be implemented needs to increase five times as much.
• Deforestation: the rate at which forest are cut down, which roughly amounted to 22 football fields of forest per minute in 2024, needs to decrease nine times as much as it currently stands.
• Meat consumption: regions with high consumption of beef, lamb, and goat need to eat five times less than the volume they currently eat.